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diff --git a/14303-0.txt b/14303-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6ca5c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/14303-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16260 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14303 *** + +[Illustration: MR. QUEED, YOU ARE AFFLICTED WITH A +FATAL MALADY. YOUR COSMOS IS ALL EGO] + + + + +QUEED + +A NOVEL + +BY + +HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY +R.M. CROSBY + +[Illustration: TOVT RIEN OV RIEN] + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +The Riverside Press Cambridge +1911 + + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + +I +_First Meeting between a Citizen in Spectacles and the Great +Pleasure-Dog Behemoth; also of Charles Gardiner West, a +Personage at Thirty_. 3 + +II +_Mrs. Paynter's Boarding-House: which was not founded as an +Eleemosynary Institution_. 14 + +III +_Encounter between Charlotte Lee Weyland, a Landlady's Agent, +and Doctor Queed, a Young Man who wouldn't pay his Board_. 25 + +IV +_Relating how Two Stars in their Courses fought for Mr. Queed; +and how he accepted Remunerative Employment under Colonel +Cowles, the Military Political Economist_. 40 + +V +_Selections from Contemporary Opinions of Mr. Queed; also concerning +Henry G. Surface, his Life and Deeds; of Fifi, the Landlady's +Daughter, and how she happened to look up Altruism in the +Dictionary_. 51 + +VI +_Autobiographical Data imparted, for Sound Business Reasons, +to a Landlady's Agent; of the Agent's Other Title, etc._ 64 + +VII +_In which an Assistant Editor, experiencing the Common Desire +to thrash a Proof-Reader, makes a Humiliating Discovery; +and of how Trainer Klinker gets a Pupil the Same Evening_. 79 + +VIII +_Formal Invitation to Fifi to share Queed's Dining-Room (provided +it is very cold upstairs); and First Outrage upon the Sacred +Schedule of Hours_. 93 + +IX +_Of Charles Gardiner West, President-Elect of Blaines College, +and his Ladies Fair: all in Mr. West's Lighter Manner_. 104 + +X +_Of Fifi on Friendship, and who would be sorry if Queed died; +of Queed's Mad Impulse, sternly overcome; of his Indignant +Call upon Nicolovius, the Old Professor_. 114 + +XI +_Concerning a Plan to make a Small Gift to a Fellow-Boarder, +and what it led to in the Way of Calls; also touching upon +Mr. Queed's Dismissal from the Post, and the Generous Resolve +of the Young Lady, Charles Weyland_. 127 + +XII +_More Consequences of the Plan about the Gift, and of how Mr. +Queed drinks his Medicine like a Man; Fifi on Men, and how +they do; Second Corruption of the Sacred Schedule_. 137 + +XIII +_"Taking the Little Doctor Down a Peg or Two": as performed +for the First and Only Time by Sharlee Weyland_. 146 + +XIV +_In which Klinker quotes Scripture, and Queed has helped Fifi +with her Lessons for the Last Time_. 163 + +XV +_In a Country Churchyard, and afterwards; of Friends: how they +take your Time while they live, and then die, upsetting your +Evening's Work; and what Buck Klinker saw in the Scriptorium +at 2 a.m._. 174 + +XVI +_Triumphal Return of Charles Gardiner West from the Old World; +and of how the Other World had wagged in his Absence_. 186 + +XVII +_A Remeeting in a Cemetery: the Unglassed Queed who loafed on +Rustic Bridges; of the Consequences of failing to tell a Lady +that you hope to see her again soon_. 200 + +XVIII +_Of President West of Old Blaines College, his Trustees and his +Troubles; his Firmness in the Brown-Jones Hazing Incident +so misconstrued by Malicious Asses; his Article for the Post, +and why it was never printed: all ending in West's Profound +Dissatisfaction with the Rewards of Patriotism_. 216 + +XIX +_The Little House on Duke of Gloucester Street; and the Beginning +of Various Feelings, Sensibilities, and Attitudes between two +Lonely Men_. 239 + +XX +_Meeting of the Post Directors to elect a Successor to Colonel +Cowles; Charles Gardiner West's Sensible Remarks on Mr. Queed; Mr. +West's Resignation from Old Blaines College, and New Consecration +to the Uplift_. 248 + +XXI +_Queed sits on the Steps with Sharlee, and sees Some Old Soldiers +go marching by_. 257 + +XXII +_In which Professor Nicolovius drops a Letter on the Floor, and +Queed conjectures that happiness sometimes comes to Men +wearing a Strange Face_. 274 + +XXIII +_Of the Bill for the Reformatory, and its Critical Situation; of +West's Second Disappointment with the Rewards of Patriotism; +of the Consolation he found in the Most Charming Resolve +in the World_. 290 + +XXIV +_Sharlee's Parlor on Another Evening; how One Caller outsat Two, +and why; also, how Sharlee looked in her Mirror for a Long +Time, and why_. 300 + +XXV +_Recording a Discussion about the Reformatory between Editor +West and his Dog-like Admirer, the City Boss; and a Briefer +Conversation between West and Prof. Nicolovius's Boarder_. 312 + +XXVI +_In which Queed forces the Old Professor's Hand, and the Old +Professor takes to his Bed_. 330 + +XXVII +_Sharlee Weyland reads the Morning Post; of Rev. Mr. Dayne's +Fight at Ephesus and the Telephone Message that never came; +of the Editor's Comment upon the Assistant Editor's Resignation, +which perhaps lacked Clarity; and of how Eight Men elect a +Mayor_. 345 + +XXVIII +_How Words can be like Blows, and Blue Eyes stab deep; how +Queed sits by a Bedside and reviews his Life; and how a +Thought leaps at him and will not down_. 363 + +XXIX +_In which Queed's Shoulders can bear One Man's Roguery and +Another's Dishonor, and of what these Fardels cost him: how +for the Second Time in his Life he stays out of Bed to think_. 375 + +XXX +_Death of the Old Professor, and how Queed finds that his List of +Friends has grown; a Last Will and Testament; Exchange of +Letters among Prominent Attorneys, which unhappily proves +futile_. 387 + +XXXI +_God moves in a Mysterious Way: how the finished Miss Avery +appears as the Instrument of Providence; how Sharlee sees +her Idol of Many Years go toppling in the Dust, and how it is +her Turn to meditate in the Still Watches_. 397 + +XXXII +_Second Meeting between a Citizen and the Great Pleasure-Dog +Behemoth, involving Plans for Two New Homes_. 416 + + + + +QUEED + +I + + _First Meeting between a citizen in Spectacles and the Great + Pleasure-Dog Behemoth; also of Charles Gardiner West, a Personage + at Thirty._ + + +It was five of a November afternoon, crisp and sharp, and already +running into dusk. Down the street came a girl and a dog, rather a small +girl and quite a behemothian dog. If she had been a shade smaller, or he +a shade more behemothian, the thing would have approached a parody on +one's settled idea of a girl and a dog. She had enough height to save +that, but it was the narrowest sort of squeak. + +The dog was of the breed which are said to come trotting into Alpine +monasteries of a winter's night with fat American travelers in their +mouths, frozen stiff. He was extremely large for his age, whatever that +was. On the other hand, the girl was small for her age, which was +twenty-four next month; not so much short, you understand, for she was +of a reasonable height, as of a dainty slimness, a certain exquisite +reticence of the flesh. She had cares and duties and even sober-sided +responsibilities in this world, beyond the usual run of girls. Yet her +hat was decidedly of the mode that year; her suit was smartly and +engagingly cut; her furs were glossy and black and big. Her face, it may +be said here as well as later, had in its time given pleasure to the +male sex, and some food for critical conversation to the female. A good +many of the young men whom she met along the way this afternoon appeared +distinctly pleased to speak to her. + +The girl was Sharlee Weyland, and Sharlee was the short for Charlotte +Lee, as invented by herself some score of years before. One baby-name in +a hundred sticks through a lifetime, and hers was the one in that +particular hundred. Of the young men along the way, one was so lucky as +to catch her eye through a large plate-glass window. It was Semple and +West's window, the ground-floor one in the great new Commonwealth +Building, of which the town is rightly so proud, and the young man was +no other than West, Charles Gardiner himself. A smile warmed his +good-looking face when he met the eye of the girl and the dog; he waved +a hand at them. That done, he immediately vanished from the window and +reached for his hat and coat; gave hurried directions to a clerk and a +stenographer; and sallying forth, overtook the pair before they had +reached the next corner. + +"Everything's topsy-turvy," said he, coming alongside. "Here you are +frivolously walking downtown with a dog. Usually at this time you are +most earnestly walking uptown, and not a sign of a dog as far as the eye +can see. What on earth's happened?" + +"Oh, how do you do?" said she, apparently not displeased to find herself +thus surprised from the rear. "I too have a mad kind of feeling, as +though the world had gone upside down. Don't be amazed if I suddenly +clutch out at you to keep from falling. But the name of it--of this +feeling--is having a holiday. Mr. Dayne went to New York at 12.20." + +"Ah, I see. When the cat's away?" + +"Not at all. I am taking this richly earned vacation by his express +command." + +"In that case, why mightn't we turn about and go a real walk--cease +picking our way through the noisome hum of commerce and set brisk +evening faces toward the open road--and all that? You and I and the dog. +What is his name? Rollo, I suppose?" + +"Rollo! No! Or Tray or Fido, either! His name is Bee, short for +Behemoth--and I think that a very captivating little name, don't you? +His old name, the one I bought him by, was Fred--_Fred_!--but already he +answers to the pretty name of Bee as though he were born to it. Watch." +She pursed her lips and gave a whistle, unexpectedly loud and clear. +"Here, Bee, here! Here, sir! Look, look. He turned around _right away_!" + +West laughed. "Wonderfully gifted dog. But I believe you mentioned +taking a walk in the November air. I can only say that physicians +strongly recommend it, valetudinarians swear by it--" + +"Oh--if I only could!--but I simply cannot think of it. Do you know, I +never have a holiday without wondering how on earth I could have gotten +on another day without it. You can't imagine what loads of things I've +done since two o'clock, and loads remain. The very worst job of them all +still hangs by a hair over my head. I must cross here." + +West said that evidently her conception of a holiday was badly mixed. As +they walked he paid for her society by incessantly taking off his hat; +nearly everybody they met spoke to them, many more to him than to her. +Though both of them had been born in that city and grown up with it, the +girl had only lately come to know West well, and she did not know him +very well now. All the years hitherto she had joined in the general +admiration of him shyly and from a distance, the pretty waiting-lady's +attitude toward the dazzling young crown prince. She was observant, and +so she could not fail to observe now the cordiality with which people of +all sorts saluted him, the touch of deference in the greeting of not a +few. He was scarcely thirty, but it would have been clear to a duller +eye that he was already something of a personage. Yet he held no public +office, nor were his daily walks the walks of philanthropic labor for +the common good. In fact Semple & West's was merely a brokerage +establishment, which was understood to be cleaning up a tolerable lot of +money per annum. + +They stood on the corner, waiting for a convenient chance to cross, and +West looked at her as at one whom it was pleasant to rest one's eyes +upon. She drew his attention to their humming environment. For a city of +that size the life and bustle here were, indeed, such as to take the +eye. Trolley cars clanged by in a tireless procession; trucks were +rounding up for stable and for bed; delivery wagons whizzed corners and +bumped on among them; now and then a chauffeur honked by, grim eyes +roving for the unwary pedestrian. On both sides of the street the +homeward march of tired humans was already forming and quickening. + +"Heigho! We're living in an interesting time, you and I," said West. "It +isn't every generation that can watch its old town change into a +metropolis right under its eyes." + +"I remember," said she, "when it was an exciting thing to see anybody on +the street you didn't know. You went home and told the family about it, +and very likely counted the spoons next morning. The city seemed to +belong to _us_ then. And now--look. Everywhere new kings that know not +Joseph. Bee!" + +"It's the law of life; the old order changeth." He turned and looked +along the street, into the many faces of the homeward bound. "The +eternal mystery of the people.... Don't you like to look at their faces +and wonder what they're all doing and thinking and hoping and dreaming +to make out of their lives?" + +"Don't you think they're all hoping and dreaming just one thing?--how to +make more money than they're making at present? All over the world," +said Miss Weyland, "bright young men lie awake at night, thinking up +odd, ingenious ways to take other people's money away from them. These +young men are the spirit of America. We're having an irruption of them +here now ... the Goths sacking the sacred city." + +"Clever rascals they are too. I," said West, "belong to the other group. +I sleep of nights and wake up in the morning to have your bright young +Goths take my money away from me." + +He laughed and continued: "Little Bobby Smythe, who used to live here, +was in my office the other day. I was complimenting him on the +prosperity of the plumbers' supply manufacture--for such is his mundane +occupation, in Schenectady, N.Y. Bobby said that plumbers' supplies were +all well enough, but he made his real money from an interesting device +of his own. There is a lot of building going on in his neighborhood, it +seems, and it occurred to him to send around to the various owners and +offer his private watchman to guard the loose building materials at +night. This for the very reasonable price of $3.50 a week. It went like +hot cakes. 'But,' said I, 'surely your one watchman can't look after +thirty-seven different places.' 'No,' said Bobby, 'but they think he +does.' I laughed and commended his ingenuity. 'But the best part of the +joke,' said he, 'is that _I haven't got any watchman at all_.'" + +Sharlee Weyland laughed gayly. "Bobby could stand for the portrait of +young America." + +"You've been sitting at the feet of a staunch old Tory Gamaliel named +Colonel Cowles. I can see that. Ah, me! My garrulity has cost us a +splendid chance to cross. What are all these dreadful things you have +still left to do on your so-called holiday?" + +"Well," said she, "first I'm going to Saltman's to buy stationery. Boxes +and boxes of it, for the Department. Bee! Come here, sir! Look how fat +this purse is. I'm going to spend all of that. Bee! I wish I had put him +to leash. He's going to hurt himself in a minute--you see!--" + +"Don't you think he's much more likely to hurt somebody else? For a +guess, that queer-looking little citizen in spectacles over the way, who +so evidently doesn't know where he is at." + +"Oh, do you think so?--Bee!... Then, after stationery, comes the +disagreeable thing, and yet interesting too. I have to go to my Aunt +Jennie's, dunning." + +"You are compelled to dun your Aunt Jennie?" + +She laughed. "No--dun for her, because she's too tender-hearted to do +it herself. There's a man there who won't pay his board. Bee! +Bee!--BEE!-O heavens--It's happened!" + +And, too quick for West, she was gone into the mêlée, which immediately +closed in behind her, barricading him away. + +What had happened was a small tragedy in its way. The little citizen in +spectacles, who had been standing on the opposite corner vacantly eating +an apple out of a paper bag, had unwisely chosen his moment to try the +crossing. He was evidently an indoors sort of man and no shakes at +crossing streets, owing to the introspective nature of his mind. A +grocery wagon shaved him by an inch. It was doing things to the +speed-limit, this wagon, because a dashing police patrol was close +behind, treading on its tail and indignantly clanging it to turn out, +which it could not possibly do. To avoid erasing the little citizen, the +patrol man had to pull sharply out; and this manoeuvre, as Fate had +written it, brought him full upon the great dog Behemoth, who, having +slipped across the tracks, stood gravely waiting for the flying wagon to +pass. Thus it became a clear case of _sauve qui peut_, and the devil +take the hindermost. There was nothing in the world for Behemoth to do +but wildly leap under the hoofs for his life. This he did successfully. +But on the other side he met the spectacled citizen full and fair, and +down they went together with a thud. + +The little man came promptly to a sitting posture and took stock of the +wreck. His hat he could not see anywhere, the reason being that he was +sitting on it. The paper bag, of course, had burst; some of the apples +had rolled to amazing distances, and newsboys, entire strangers to the +fallen gentleman, were eating them with cries of pleasure. This he saw +in one pained glance. But on the very heels of the dog, it seemed, came +hurrying a girl with marks of great anxiety on her face. + +"Can you possibly forgive him? That fire-alarm thing scared him +crazy--he's usually so good! You aren't hurt, are you? I do hope so much +that you aren't?" + +The young man, sitting calmly in the street, glanced up at Miss Weyland +with no sign of interest. + +"I have no complaint to make," he answered, precisely; "though the loss +of my fruit seems unfortunate, to say the least of it." + +"I know! The way they fell on them," she answered, as self-unconscious +as he--"quite as though you had offered to treat! I'm very much +mortified--But--_are_ you hurt? I thought for a minute that the coal +cart was going right over you." + +A crowd had sprung up in a wink; a circle of interested faces watching +the unembarrassed girl apologizing to the studious-looking little man +who sat so calmly upon his hat in the middle of the street. Meantime all +traffic on that side was hopelessly blocked. Swearing truck drivers +stood up on their seats from a block away to see what had halted the +procession. + +"But what is the object of a dog like that?" inquired the man +ruminatively. "What good is he? What is he for?" + +"Why--why--why," said she, looking ready to laugh--"he's not a +utilitarian dog at all, you see! He's a pleasure-dog, you know--just a +big, beautiful dog to give pleasure!--" + +"The pleasure he has given me," said the man, gravely producing his +derby from beneath him and methodically undenting it, "is negligible. I +may say non-existent." + +From somewhere rose a hoarse titter. The girl glanced up, and for the +first time became aware that her position was somewhat unconventional. A +very faint color sprang into her cheeks, but she was not the kind to +retreat in disorder. West dodged through the blockade in time to hear +her say with a final, smiling bow: + +"I'm so glad you aren't hurt, believe me ... And if my dog has given you +no pleasure, you may like to think that you have given him a great +deal." + +A little flushed but not defeated, her gloved hand knotted in Behemoth's +gigantic scruff, she moved away, resigning the situation to West. West +handled it in his best manner, civilly assisting the little man to rise, +and bowing himself off with the most graceful expressions of regret for +the mishap. + +Miss Weyland was walking slowly, waiting for him, and he fell in beside +her on the sidewalk. + +"Don't speak to me suddenly," said she, in rather a muffled voice. "I +don't want to scream on a public street." + +"Scratch a professor and you find a Tartar," said West, laughing too. +"When I finally caught you, laggard that I was, you looked as if he were +being rude." + +Miss Weyland questioned the rudeness; she said that the man was only +superbly natural. "Thoughts came to him and he blabbed them out +artlessly. The only things that he seemed in the least interested in +were his apples and Bee. Don't you think from this that he must be a +floral and faunal naturalist?" + +"No Goth, at any rate. Did you happen to notice the tome sticking out of +his coat pocket? It was _The Religion of Humanity_, unless my old eyes +deceived me. Who under heaven reads Comte nowadays?" + +"Not me," said Miss Weyland. + +"There's nothing to it. As a wealthy old friend of mine once remarked, +people who read that sort of books never make over eighteen hundred a +year." + +On that they turned into Saltman's. There much stationery and collateral +stuff was bought for cash paid down, and all for the use of the +Department. Next, at a harness-store, a leash was bargained for and +obtained, and Behemoth bowled over no more young men that day. +Thereafter, the two set their faces westerly till they came to the +girl's home, where the dog was delivered to the cook, and Miss Weyland +went upstairs to kiss her mother. Still later they set out northward +through the lamp-lit night for the older part of town, where resided the +aunt on whose behalf there was dunning to be done that night. + +Charles Gardiner West asserted that he had not a thing in all this world +to do, and that erranding was only another way of taking a walk, when +you came to think of it. She was frankly glad of his company; to be +otherwise was to be fantastic; and now as they strolled she led him to +talk of his work, which was never difficult. For West, despite his +rising prosperity, was dissatisfied with his calling, the reason being, +as he himself sometimes put it, that his heart did not abide with the +money changers. + +"Sometimes at night," he said seriously, "I look back over the busy day +and ask myself what it has all amounted to. Suppose I did all the +world's stock-jobbing, what would I really have accomplished? You may +say that I could take all the money I made and spend it for free +hospitals, but would I do it? No. The more I made, the more I'd want for +myself, the more all my interest and ambition would twine themselves +around the counting-room. You can't serve two masters, can you, Miss +Weyland? Uplifting those who need uplifting is a separate business, all +by itself." + +"You could make the money," laughed she, "and let me spend it for you. I +know this minute where I could put a million to glorious advantage." + +"I'm going to get out of it," said West. "I've told Semple so--though +perhaps it ought not to go further just yet. I'd enjoy," said he, "just +such work as yours. There's none finer. You'd like me immensely as your +royal master, I suppose? Want nothing better than to curtsy and kowtow +when I flung out a gracious order?--as, for instance, to shut up shop +and go and take a holiday?" + +"Delicious! Though I doubt if anybody in the world could improve on Mr. +Dayne." Suddenly a new thought struck her, and she made a faint grimace. +"There's nothing so very fine about my present work--oh me! I'll give +you that if you want it." + +"I see I must look this gift horse over very closely. What is it?" + +"They call it dunning." + +"I forgot. You started to tell me, and then your dog ran amuck and +began butting perfect strangers all over the place." + +"Oh," said she, "it's the commonest little story in the world. All +landladies can tell them to you by the hour. This man has been at Aunt +Jennie's nearly a month, and what's the color of his money she hasn't +the faintest idea. Such is the way our bright young men carve out their +fortunes--the true Gothic architecture! Possibly Aunt Jennie has thrown +out one or two delicate hints, carefully insulated to avoid hurting his +feelings. You know the way our ladies of the old school do--the worst +collectors the world has ever seen. So she telephoned me this +morning--I'm her business woman, you see--asking me to come and advise +her, and I'm coming, and after supper--" + +"Well, what'll you do?" + +"I'm going to talk with him, with the man. I'm simply going to _collect +that money_. Or if I can't--" + +"What's the horrid alternative?" + +"I'm going to _fire_ him!" + +West laughed merrily. His face always looked most charming when he +smiled. "Upon my word I believe you can do it." + +"I _have_ done it, lots of times." + +"Ah! And is the ceremony ever attended by scenes of storm and violence?" + +"Never. They march like little lambs when I say the word. +Hay-foot--straw-foot!" + +"But then your aunt loses their arrears of board, I suppose." + +"Yes, and for that reason I never fire except as a last desperate +resort. Signs of penitence, earnest resolves to lead a better life, are +always noted and carefully considered." + +"If you _should_ need help with this customer to-night--not that I think +you will, oh no!--telephone me. I'm amazingly good at handling bright +young men. This is your aunt's, isn't it?" + +"No, no--next to the corner over there. O heavens! Look--_look!_" + +West looked. Up the front steps of Miss Weyland's Aunt Jennie's a man +was going, a smallish man in a suit of dusty clothes, who limped +as he walked. The electric light at the corner illumined him +perfectly--glinted upon the spectacles, touched up the stout volume in +the coat-pocket, beat full upon the swaybacked derby, whereon its owner +had sat what time Charlotte Lee Weyland apologized for the gaucherie of +Behemoth. And as they watched, this man pushed open Aunt Jennie's front +door, with never so much as a glance at the door-bell, and stepped as of +right inside. + +Involuntarily West and Miss Weyland had halted; and now they stared at +each other with a kind of wild surmise which rapidly yielded to +ludicrous certainty. West broke into a laugh. + +"Well, do you think you'll have the nerve to fire _him_?" + + + + +II + + _Mrs. Paynter's Boarding-House: which was not founded as an + Eleemosynary Institution._ + + +There was something of a flutter among the gathered boarders when Miss +Weyland was seen to be entering the house, and William Klinker, who +announced the fact from his place by the window, added that that had +ought to help some with the supper. He reminded the parlor that there +had been Porterhouse the last time. Miss Miller, from the sofa, told Mr. +Klinker archly that he was _so_ material. She had only the other day +mastered the word, but even that is more than could be said for Mr. +Klinker. Major Brooke stood by the Latrobe heater, reading the evening +paper under a flaring gas-light. He habitually came down early to get it +before anybody else had a chance. By Miss Miller on the sofa sat Mr. +Bylash, stroking the glossy moustache which other ladies before her time +had admired intensely. Despite her archness Miss Miller had heard with a +pang that Miss Weyland was coming to supper, and her reason was not +unconnected with this same Mr. Bylash. In earlier meetings she had +vaguely noted differences between Mrs. Paynter's pretty niece and +herself. True, she considered these differences all in her own favor, +as, for example, her far larger back pompadour, with the puffs, but you +never could tell about gentlemen. + +"I'm surprised," she said to Mr. Klinker, "Mr. Bylash didn't go out to +give her the glad hand, and welcome her into our humble _coturee_." + +Mr. Bylash, who had been thinking of doing that very thing, said rather +shortly that the ladies present quite satisfied _him_. + +"And who do you think brought her around and right up to the door?" +continued William Klinker, taking no notice of their blandishments. +"Hon. West--Charles Gardenia West--" + +A scream from Miss Miller applauded the witty hit. + +"Oh, it ain't mine," said Mr. Klinker modestly. "I heard a fellow get it +off at the shop the other day. He's a pretty smooth fellow, Charles +Gardenia is--a little too smooth for my way of thinking. A fellow that's +always so smilin'--Oh, you Smithy!" he suddenly yelled out the +window--"Smithy! Hey!--Aw, I can beat the face off you!--Awright--eight +sharp at the same place.--Go on, you fat Mohawk you!... But say," he +resumed to the parlor, "y'know that little woman is a stormy petrel for +this house--that's right. Remember the last time she was here--the time +we had the Porterhouse? Conference in the dining-room after supper, and +the next morning out went the trunks of that red-head fellow--from +Baltimore--what's his name?--Milhiser." + +"Well, she hasn't got any call to intrude in my affairs," said Mr. +Bylash, still rather miffed. "I'm here to tell you that!" + +"Oh, I ain't speakin' of the reg'lars," answered Klinker, "so don't get +nervous. But say, I got kind of a hunch that here is where the little +Doc gets his." + +Klinker's hunch was not without foundation; this very question was being +agitated at that moment in the room just over his head. Miss Weyland, +having passed the parlor portières with no thought that her movements +were attracting interest on the other side of them, skipped up the +stairs, rapped on her Aunt Jennie's door, and ran breathlessly into the +room. Her aunt was sitting by the bureau, reading a novel from the +circulating library. Though she had been sitting right here since about +four o'clock, only getting up once to light the gas, she had a casual +air like one who is only killing a moment's time between important +engagements. She looked up at the girl's entrance, and an affectionate +smile lit her well-lined face. + +"My dear Sharlee! I'm so glad to see you." + +They kissed tenderly. + +"Oh, Aunt Jennie, tell me! Is he--this man you telephoned me about--is +he a little, small, dried young man, with spectacles and a brown derby, +and needing a hair-cut, and the gravest, drollest manner in the world? +Tell me--is he?" + +"My dear, you have described him to the life. Where did you see him?" + +Sharlee collapsed upon the bed. Presently she revived and outlined the +situation to Aunt Jennie. + +Mrs. Paynter listened with some interest. If humor is a defect, as they +tell us nowadays, she was almost a faultless woman. And in her day she +had been a beauty and a toast. You hear it said generously of a +thousand, but it happened to be true in her case. The high-bred +regularity of feature still survived, but she had let herself go in +latter years, as most women will who have other things than themselves +to think about, and hard things at that. Her old black dress was +carelessly put on; she could look at herself in the mirror by merely +leaning forward an inch or two, and it never occurred to her to do +it--an uncanny thing in a woman. + +"I'm sure it sounds quite like him," said Mrs. Paynter, when her niece +had finished. "And so Gardiner West walked around with you. I hope, my +dear, you asked him in to supper? We have an exceptionally nice +Porterhouse steak to-night. But I suppose he would scorn--" + +The girl interrupted her, abolishing and demolishing such a thought. Mr. +West would have been only too pleased, she said, but she positively +would not ask him, because of the serious work that was afoot that +night. + +"The pleasure I've so far given your little man," laughed she, patting +her aunt's cheeks with her two hands, "has been negligible--I have his +word for that--and to-night it is going to be the same, only more so." + +Sharlee arose, took off her coat and furs, laid them on the bed, and +going to the bureau began fixing her hair in the back before the long +mirror. No matter how well a woman looks to the untrained, or man's, +eye, she can always put in some time pleasurably fixing her hair in the +back. + +"Now," said Sharlee, "to business. Tell me all about the little +dead-beat." + +"It is four weeks next Monday," said Mrs. Paynter, putting a shoe-horn +in her novel to mark the place, "since the young man came to me. He was +from New York, and just off the train. He said that he had been +recommended to my house, but would not say by whom, nor could he give +references. I did not insist on them, for I can't be too strict, +Sharlee, with all the other boarding-places there are and that room +standing empty for two months hand-running, and then for three months +before that, before Miss Catlett, I mean. The fact is, that I ought to +be over on the Avenue, where I could have only the best people. It would +be infinitely more lucrative--why, my dear, you should hear Amy Marsden +talk of her enormous profits! And Amy, while a dear, sweet little woman, +is not clever! I remember as girls--but to go back even of that to the +very heart of the matter, who ever heard of a clever _Wilkerson_? For +she, you know, was born ..." + +"Never you mind Mrs. Marsden, Aunt Jennie," said the girl, gently +drawing her back to the muttons,--"we'll make lots more money than she +some day. So you gave him the room, then?" + +"Yes, the room known as the third hall back. A small, neat, economical +room, entirely suitable for a single gentleman. I gave him my lowest +price, though I must say I did not dream then that he would spend all +his time in his room, apparently having no downtown occupation, which is +certainly not what one expects from gentlemen, who get low terms on the +silent understanding that they will take themselves out of the house +directly after breakfast. Nevertheless--will you believe it?--ten days +passed and not a word was said about payment. So one morning I stopped +him in the hall, as though for a pleasant talk. However, I was careful +to introduce the point, by means of an anecdote I told him, that guests +here were expected to pay by the week. Of course I supposed that the +hint would be sufficient." + +"But it wasn't, alas?" + +"On the contrary, ten days again passed, and you might suppose there was +no such thing as money in all this world. Then I resolved to approach +him directly. I knocked on his door, and when he opened it, I told him +plainly and in so many words that I would be very much gratified if he +would let me have a check whenever convenient, as unfortunately I had +heavy bills due that must be met. I was very much mortified, Sharlee! As +I stood there facing that young man, dunning him like a grocer's clerk, +it flashed into my mind to wonder what your great-grandfather, the +Governor, would think if he could have looked down and seen me. For as +you know, my dear, though I doubt if you altogether realize it at all +times, since our young people of to-day, I regret to have to say +it--though of course I do except you from this criticism--" + +By gentle interruption and deft transition, Sharlee once more wafted the +conversation back to the subject in hand. + +"And when you went so far as to tell him this, how did he take it?" + +"He took it admirably. He told me that I need feel no concern about the +matter; that while out of funds for the moment, doubtless he would be in +funds again shortly. His manner was dignified, calm, unabashed--" + +"But it didn't blossom, as we might say, in money?" + +"As to that--no. What are you to do, Sharlee? I feel sure the man is not +dishonest,--in fact he has a singularly honest face, transparently +so,--but he is only somehow queer. He appears an engrossed, +absent-minded young man--what is the word I want?--an eccentric. That is +what he is, an engrossed young eccentric." + +Sharlee leaned against the bureau and looked at her aunt thoughtfully. +"Do you gather, Aunt Jennie, that he's a gentleman?" + +Mrs. Paynter threw out her hands helplessly. "What does the term mean +nowadays? The race of gentlemen, as the class existed in my day, seems +to be disappearing from the face of the earth. We see occasional +survivals of the old order, like Gardiner West or the young Byrd men, +but as a whole--well, my dear, I will only say that the modern standards +would have excited horror fifty years ago and--" + +"Well, but according to the modern standards, do you think he is?" + +"I _don't_ know. He is and he isn't. But no--no--no! He is _not_ one. No +man can be a gentleman who is utterly indifferent to the comfort and +feelings of others, do you think so?" + +"Indeed, no! And is that what he is?" + +"I will illustrate by an incident," said Mrs. Paynter. "As I say, this +young man spends his entire time in his room, where he is, I believe, +engaged in writing a book." + +"Oh, me! Then he's penniless, depend upon it." + +"Well, when we had the frost and freeze early last week, he came to me +one night and complained of the cold in his room. You know, Sharlee, I +do not rent that room as a sitting-room, nor do I expect to heat it, at +the low price, other than the heat from the halls. So I invited him to +make use of the dining-room in the evenings, which, as you know, with +the folding-doors drawn, and the yellow lamp lit, is converted to all +intents and purposes into a quiet and comfortable reading-room. Somewhat +grumblingly he went down. Fifi was there as usual, doing her algebra by +the lamp. The young man took not the smallest notice of her, and +presently when she coughed several times--the child's cold happened to +be bad that night--he looked up sharply and asked her please to stop. +Fifi said that she was afraid she couldn't help it. He replied that it +was impossible for him to work in the room with a noise of that sort, +and either the noise or he would have to vacate. So Fifi gathered up her +things and left. I found her, half an hour later, in her little +bedroom, which was ice-cold, coughing and crying over her sums, which +she was trying to work at the bureau. That was how I found out about it. +The child would never have said a word to me." + +"How simply outrageous!" said the girl, and became silent and +thoughtful. + +"Well, what do you think I'd better do, Sharlee?" + +"I think you'd better let me waylay him in the hall after supper and +tell him that the time has come when he must either pay up or pack up." + +"My dear! Can you well be as blunt as that?" + +"Dear Aunt Jennie, as I view it, you are not running an eleemosynary +institution here?" + +"Of course not," replied Aunt Jennie, who really did not know whether +she was or not. + +Sharlee dropped into a chair and began manicuring her pretty little +nails. "The purpose of this establishment is to collect money from the +transient and resident public. Now you're not a bit good at collecting +money because you're so well-bred, but I'm not so awfully well-bred--" + +"You _are_--" + +"I'm bold--blunt--brazen! I'm forward. I'm resolute and grim. In short, +I belong to the younger generation which you despise so--" + +"I don't despise _you_, you dear--" + +"Come," said Sharlee, springing up; "let's go down. I'm wild to meet Mr. +Bylash again. Is he wearing the moleskin vest to-night, do you know? I +was fascinated by it the last time I was here. Aunt Jennie, what is the +name of this young man--the one I may be compelled to bounce?" + +"His name is Queed. Did you ever--?" + +"Queed? _Queed_? Q-u-e-e-d?" + +"An odd name, isn't it? There were no such people in my day." + +"Probably after to-morrow there will be none such once more." + +"Mr. Klinker has christened him the little Doctor--a hit at his +appearance and studious habits, you see--and even the servants have +taken it up." + +"Aunt Jennie," said Sharlee at the door, "when you introduce the little +Doctor to me, refer to me as your business woman, won't you? Say 'This +is my niece, Miss Weyland, who looks after my business affairs for me,' +or something like that, will you? It will explain to him why I, a +comparative stranger, show such an interest in his financial affairs." + +Mrs. Paynter said, "Certainly, my dear," and they went down, the older +lady disappearing toward the dining-room. In the parlor Sharlee was +greeted cordially and somewhat respectfully. Major Brooke, who appeared +to have taken an extra toddy in honor of her coming, or for any other +reason why, flung aside his newspaper and seized both her hands. Mr. +Bylash, in the moleskin waistcoat, sure enough, bowed low and referred +to her agreeably as "stranger," nor did he again return to Miss Miller's +side on the sofa. That young lady was gay and giggling, but watchful +withal. When Sharlee was not looking, Miss Miller's eye, rather hard +now, roved over her ceaselessly from the point of her toe to the top of +her feather. What was the trick she had, the little way with her, that +so delightfully unlocked the gates of gentlemen's hearts? + +At supper they were lively and gay. The butter and preserves were in +front of Sharlee, for her to help to; by her side sat Fifi, the young +daughter of the house. Major Brooke sat at the head of the table and +carved the Porterhouse, upon which when the eyes of William Klinker +fell, they irrepressibly shot forth gleams. At the Major's right sat his +wife, a pale, depressed, nervous woman, as anybody who had lived thirty +years with the gallant officer her husband had a right to be. She was +silent, but the Major talked a great deal, not particularly well. Much +the same may be said of Mr. Bylash and Miss Miller. Across the table +from Mrs. Brooke stood an empty chair. It belonged to the little +Doctor, Mr. Queed. Across the table from Sharlee stood another. This one +belonged to the old professor, Nicolovius. When the meal was well along, +Nicolovius came in, bowed around the table in his usual formal way, and +silently took his place. While Sharlee liked everybody in the +boarding-house, including Miss Miller, Professor Nicolovius was the only +one of them that she considered at all interesting. This was because of +his strongly-cut face, like the grand-ducal villain in a +ten-twenty-thirty melodrama, and his habit of saying savage things in a +soft, purring voice. He was rude to everybody, and particularly rude, so +Sharlee thought, to her. As for the little Doctor, he did not come in at +all. Half-way through supper, Sharlee looked at her aunt and gave a +meaning glance at the empty seat. + +"I don't know what to make of it," said Mrs. Paynter _sotto voce_. "He's +usually so regular." + +To the third floor she dispatched the colored girl Emma, to knock upon +Mr. Queed's door. Presently Emma returned with the report that she had +knocked, but could obtain no answer. + +"He's probably fallen asleep over his book," murmured Sharlee. "I feel +certain it's that kind of book." + +But Mrs. Paynter said that he rarely slept, even at night. + +"... Right on my own front porch, mind you!" Major Brooke was +declaiming. "And, gentlemen, I shook my finger in his face and said, +'Sir, I never yet met a Republican who was not a rogue!' Yes, sir, that +is just what I told him--" + +"I'm afraid," said Nicolovius, smoothly,--it was the only word he +uttered during the meal,--"your remark harrows Miss Weyland with +reminders of the late Mr. Surface." + +The Major stopped short, and a silence fell over the table. It was +promptly broken by Mrs. Paynter, who invited Mrs. Brooke to have a +second cup of coffee. Sharlee looked at her plate and said nothing. +Everybody thought that the old professor's remark was in bad taste, for +it was generally known that Henry G. Surface was one subject that even +Miss Weyland's intimate friends never mentioned to her. Nicolovius, +however, appeared absolutely unconcerned by the boarders' silent rebuke. +He ate on, rapidly but abstemiously, and finished before Mr. Bylash, who +had had twenty minutes' start of him. + +The last boarder rising drew shut the folding-doors into the parlor, +while the ladies of the house remained to superintend and assist in +clearing off the supper things. The last boarder this time was Mr. +Bylash, who tried without success to catch Miss Weyland's eye as he slid +to the doors. He hung around in the parlor waiting for her till 8.30, at +which time, having neither seen nor heard sign of her, he took Miss +Miller out to the moving-picture shows. In the dining-room, when Emma +had trayed out the last of the things, the ladies put away the unused +silver, watered the geranium, set back some of the chairs, folded up the +white cloth, placing it in the sideboard drawer, spread the pretty +Turkey-red one in its stead, set the reading lamp upon it; and just then +the clock struck eight. + +"Now then," said Sharlee. + +So the three sat down and held a council of war as to how little Doctor +Queed, the young man who wouldn't pay his board, was to be brought into +personal contact with Charlotte Lee Weyland, the grim and resolute +collector. Various stratagems were proposed, amid much merriment. But +the collector herself adhered to her original idea of a masterly waiting +game. + +"Only trust me," said she. "He can't spend the rest of his life shut up +in that room in a state of dreadful siege. Hunger or thirst will force +him out; he'll want to buy some of those apples, or to mail a letter--" + +Fifi, who sat on the arm of Sharlee's chair, laughed and coughed. "He +never writes any. And he never has gotten but one, and that came +to-night." + +"Fifi, did you take your syrup before supper? Well, go and take it this +minute." + +"Mother, it doesn't do any good." + +"The doctor gave it to you, my child, and it's going to make you better +soon." + +Sharlee followed Fifi out with troubled eyes. However, Mrs. Paynter at +once drew her back to the matter in hand. + +"Sharlee, do you know what would be the very way to settle this little +difficulty? To write him a formal, businesslike letter. We'll--" + +"No, I've thought of that, Aunt Jennie, and I don't believe it's the +way. A letter couldn't get to the bottom of the matter. You see, we want +to find out something about this man, and why he isn't paying, and +whether there is reason to think he can and will pay. Besides, I think +he needs a talking to on general principles." + +"Well--but how are you going to do it, my dear?" + +"Play a Fabian game. Wait!--be stealthy and wait! If he doesn't come out +of hiding to-night, I'll return for him to-morrow. I'll keep on coming, +night after night, night after night, n--Some one's knocking--". + +"Come in," said Mrs. Paynter, looking up. + +The door leading into the hail opened, and the man himself stood upon +the threshold, looking at them absently. + +"May I have some supper, Mrs. Paynter? I was closely engaged and failed +to notice the time." + +Sharlee arose. "Certainly. I'll get you some at once," she answered +innocently enough. But to herself she was saying: "The Lord has +delivered him into my hand." + + + + +III + + _Encounter between Charlotte Lee Weyland, a Landlady's Agent, and + Doctor Queed, a Young Man who wouldn't pay his Board._ + + +Sharlee glanced at Mrs. Paynter, who caught herself and said: "Mr. +Queed, my niece--Miss Weyland." + +But over the odious phrase, "my business woman," her lips boggled and +balked; not to save her life could she bring herself to damn her own +niece with such an introduction. + +Noticing the omission and looking through the reasons for it as through +window-glass, Sharlee smothered a laugh, and bowed. Mr. Queed bowed, but +did not laugh or even smile. He drew up a chair at his usual place and +sat down. As by an involuntary reflex, his left hand dropped toward his +coat-pocket, whence the top edges of a book could be descried +protruding. Mrs. Paynter moved vaguely toward the door. As for her +business woman, she made at once for the kitchen, where Emma and her +faithful co-worker and mother, Laura, rose from their supper to assist +her. With her own hands the girl cut a piece of the Porterhouse for Mr. +Queed. Creamed potatoes, two large spoonfuls, were added; two rolls; +some batterbread; coffee, which had to be diluted with a little hot +water to make out the full cup; butter; damson preserves in a saucer: +all of which duly set forth and arranged on a shiny black "waiter." + +"Enough for a whole platform of doctors," said Sharlee, critically +reviewing the spread. "Thank you, Emma." + +She took the tray in both hands and pushed open the swing-doors with her +side, thus making her ingress to the dining-room in a sort of +crab-fashion. Mrs. Paynter was gone. Mr. Queed sat alone in the +dining-room. His book lay open on the table and he was humped over it, +hand in his hair. + +Having set her tray on the side-table, Sharlee came to his side with the +plate of steak and potatoes. He did not stir, and presently she +murmured, "I beg your pardon." + +He looked up half-startled, not seeming to take in for the first second +who or what she was. + +"Oh ... yes." + +He moved his book, keeping his finger in the place, and she set down the +plate. Next she brought the appurtenances one by one, the butter, +coffee, and so on. The old mahogany sideboard yielded knife, fork, and +spoon; salt and pepper; from the right-hand drawer, a fresh napkin. +These placed, she studied them, racked her brains a moment and, from +across the table-- + +"Is there anything else?" + +Mr. Queed's eye swept over his equipment with intelligent quickness. "A +glass of water, please." + +"Oh!--Certainly." + +Sharlee poured a glass from the battered silver pitcher on the +side-table--the one that the Yankees threw out of the window in May, +1862--and duly placed it. Mr. Queed was oblivious to the little +courtesy. By this time he had propped his book open against the plate of +rolls and was reading it between cuts on the steak. Beside the plate he +had laid his watch, an open-faced nickel one about the size of a +desk-clock. + +"Do you think that is everything?" + +"I believe that is all." + +"Do you remember me?" then asked Sharlee. + +He glanced at her briefly through his spectacles, his eyes soon +returning to his supper. + +"I think not." + +The girl smiled suddenly, all by herself. "It was my dog that--upset you +on Main Street this afternoon. You may remember ...? I thought you +seemed to--to limp a little when you came in just now. I'm awfully +sorry for the--mishap--" + +"It is of no consequence," he said, with some signs of unrest. "I walk +seldom. Your--pleasure-dog was uninjured, I trust?" + +"Thank you. He was never better." + +That the appearance of the pleasure-dog's owner as a familiar of his +boarding-house piqued his curiosity not the slightest was only too +evident. He bowed, his eyes returning from steak to book. + +"I am obliged to you for getting my supper." + +If he had said, "Will you kindly go?" his meaning could hardly have been +more unmistakable. However, Mrs. Paynter's resolute agent held her +ground. Taking advantage of his gross absorption, she now looked the +delinquent boarder over with some care. At first glance Mr. Queed looked +as if he might have been born in a library, where he had unaspiringly +settled down. To support this impression there were his pallid +complexion and enormous round spectacles; his dusty air of premature +age; his general effect of dried-up detachment from his environment. One +noted, too, the tousled mass of nondescript hair, which he wore about a +month too long; the necktie-band triumphing over the collar in the back; +the collar itself, which had a kind of celluloid look and shone with a +blue unwholesome sheen under the gas-light. On the other hand there was +the undeniably trim cut of the face, which gave an unexpected and +contradictory air of briskness. The nose was bold; the long straight +mouth might have belonged to a man of action. Probably the great +spectacles were the turning-point in the man's whole effect. You felt +that if you could get your hands on him long enough to pull those off, +and cut his hair, you might have an individual who would not so surely +have been christened the little Doctor. + +These details the agent gathered at her leisure. Meantime here was the +situation, stark and plain; and she, and she alone, must handle it. She +must tell this young man, so frankly engrossed in his mental and +material food, which he ate by his watch, that he must fork over four +times seven-fifty or vacate the premises.... Yes, but how to do it? He +could not be much older than she herself, but his manner was the most +impervious, the most impossible that she had ever seen. "I'm grim and +I'm resolute," she said over to herself; but the splendid defiance of +the motto failed to quicken her blood. Not even the recollection of the +month's sponge for board and the house-rent due next week spurred her to +action. Then she thought of Fifi, whom Mr. Queed had packed off sobbing +for his good pleasure, and her resolution hardened. + +"I'm afraid I must interrupt your reading for a moment," she said +quietly. "There is something I want to say...." + +He glanced up for the second time. There was surprise and some vexation +in the eyes behind his circular glasses, but no sign of any interest. + +"Well?" + +"When my aunt introduced you to me just now she did not--did not +identify me as she should--" + +"Really, does it make any difference?" + +"Yes, I think it does. You see, I am not only her niece, but her +business woman, her agent, as well. She isn't very good at business, but +still she has a good deal of it to be done. She runs this +boarding-place, and people of various kinds come to her and she takes +them into her house. Many of these people are entirely unknown to her. +In this way trouble sometimes arises. For instance people come now and +then who--how shall I put it?--are very reserved about making their +board-payments. My aunt hardly knows how to deal with them--" + +He interrupted her with a gesture and a glance at his watch. "It always +seems to me an unnecessary waste of time not to be direct. You have +called to collect my arrearage for board?" + +"Well, yes. I have." + +"Please tell your aunt that when I told her to give herself no concern +about that matter, I exactly meant what I said. To-night I received +funds through the mail; the sum, twenty dollars. Your aunt," said he, +obviously ready to return to his reading matter, "shall have it all." + +But Sharlee had heard delinquent young men talk like that before, and +her business platform in these cases was to be introduced to their funds +direct. + +"That would cut down the account nicely," said she, looking at him +pleasantly, but a shade too hard to imply a beautiful trust. She went on +much like the firm young lady enumerators who take the census: "By the +way--let me ask: Have you any regular business or occupation?" + +"Not, I suppose, in the sense in which you mean the interrogation." + +"Perhaps you have friends in the city, who--" + +"Friends! Here! Good Lord--_no!_" said he, with exasperated vehemence. + +"I gather," was surprised from her, "that you do not wish--" + +"They are the last thing in the world that I desire. My experience in +that direction in New York quite sufficed me, I assure you. I came +here," said he, with rather too blunt an implication, "to be let alone." + +"I was thinking of references, you know. You have friends in New York, +then?" + +"Yes, I have two. But I doubt if you would regard them as serviceable +for references. The best of them is only a policeman; the other is a +yeggman by trade--his brother, by the way." + +She was silent a moment, wondering if he were telling the truth, and +deciding what to say next. The young man used the silence to bolt his +coffee at a gulp and go hurriedly but deeply into the preserves. + +"My aunt will be glad that you can make a remittance to-night. I will +take it to her for you with pleasure." + +"Oh!--All right." + +He put his hand into his outer breast-pocket, pulled out an envelope, +and absently pitched it across the table. She looked at it and saw that +it was postmarked the city and bore a typewritten address. + +"Am I to open this?" + +"Oh, as you like," said he, and, removing the spoon, turned a page. + +The agent picked up the envelope with anticipations of helpful clues. It +was her business to find out everything that she could about Mr. Queed. +A determinedly moneyless, friendless, and vocationless young man could +not daily stretch his limbs under her aunt's table and retain the Third +Hall Back against more compensatory guests. But the letter proved a +grievous disappointment to her. Inside was a folded sheet of cheap white +paper, apparently torn from a pad. Inside the sheet was a new +twenty-dollar bill. That was all. Apart from the address, there was no +writing anywhere. + +Yet the crisp greenback, incognito though it came, indubitably suggested +that Mr. Queed was not an entire stranger to the science of +money-making. + +"Ah," said the agent, insinuatingly, "evidently you have _some_ +occupation, after all--of--of a productive sort...." + +He looked up again with that same air of vexed surprise, as much as to +say: "What! You still hanging around!" + +"I don't follow you, I fear." + +"I assume that this money comes to you in payment for some--work you +have done--" + +"It is an assumption, certainly." + +"You can appreciate, perhaps, that I am not idly inquisitive. I +shouldn't--" + +"What is it that you wish to know?" + +"As to this money--" + +"Really, you know as much about it as I do. It came exactly as I handed +it to you: the envelope, the blank paper, and the bill." + +"But you know, of course, where it comes from?" + +"I can't say I do. Evidently," said Mr. Queed, "it is intended as a +gift." + +"Then--perhaps you have a good friend here after all? Some one who has +guessed--" + +"I think I told you that I have but two friends, and I know for a +certainty that they are both in New York. Besides, neither of them would +give me twenty dollars." + +"But--but--but," said the girl, laughing through her utter +bewilderment--"aren't you interested to know who _did_ give it to you? +Aren't you _curious?_ I assure you that in this city it's not a bit +usual to get money through the mails from anonymous admirers--" + +"Nor did I say that this was a usual case. I told you that I didn't +_know_ who sent me this." + +"Exactly--" + +"But I have an idea. I think my father sent it." + +"Oh! Your father ..." + +So he had a father, an eccentric but well-to-do father, who, though not +a friend, yet sent in twenty dollars now and then to relieve his son's +necessities. Sharlee felt her heart rising. + +"Don't think me merely prying. You see I am naturally interested in the +question of whether you--will find yourself able to stay on here--" + +"You refer to my ability to make my board payments?" + +"Yes." + +Throughout this dialogue, Mr. Queed had been eating, steadily and +effectively. Now he slid his knife and fork into place with a pained +glance at his watch; and simultaneously a change came over his face, a +kind of tightening, shot through with Christian fortitude, which plainly +advertised an unwelcome resolution. + +"My supper allowance of time," he began warningly, "is practically up. +However, I suppose the definite settlement of this board question cannot +be postponed further. I must not leave you under any misapprehensions. +If this money came from my father, it is the first I ever had from him +in my life. Whether I am to get any more from him is problematical, to +say the least. Due consideration must be given the fact that he and I +have never met." + +"Oh!... Does--he live here, in the city?" + +"I have some reason to believe that he does. It is indeed," Mr. Queed +set forth to his landlady's agent, "because of that belief that I have +come here. I have assumed, with good grounds, that he would promptly +make himself known to me, take charge of things, and pay my board; but +though I have been here nearly a month, he has so far made not the +slightest move in that direction, unless we count this letter. Possibly +he leaves it to me to find him, but I, on my part, have no time to spare +for any such undertaking. I make the situation clear to you? Under the +circumstances I cannot promise you a steady revenue from my father. On +the other hand, for all that I know, it may be his plan to send me money +regularly after this." + +There was a brief pause. "But--apart from the money consideration--have +you no interest in finding him?" + +"Oh--if that is all one asks! But it happens not to be a mere question +of my personal whim. Possibly you can appreciate the fact that finding a +father is a tremendous task when you have no idea where he lives, or +what he looks like, or what name he may be using. My time is wholly +absorbed by my own work. I have none to give to a wild-goose chase such +as that, on the mere chance that, if found, he would agree to pay my +board for the future." + +If he had been less in earnest he would have been grotesque. As it was, +Sharlee was by no means sure that he escaped it; and she could not keep +a controversial note out of her voice as she said:-- + +"Yours must be a very great work to make you view the finding of your +father in that way." + +"The greatest in the world," he answered, drily. "I may call it, +loosely, evolutionary sociology." + +She was so silent after this, and her expression was so peculiar, that +he concluded that his words conveyed nothing to her. + +"The science," he added kindly, "which treats of the origin, nature, and +history of human society; analyzes the relations of men in organized +communities; formulates the law or laws of social progress and +permanence; and correctly applies these laws to the evolutionary +development of human civilization." + +"I am familiar with the terms. And your ambition is to become a great +evolutionary sociologist?" + +He smiled faintly. "To become one?" + +"Oh! Then you are one already?" + +For answer, Mr. Queed dipped his hand into his inner pocket, produced a +large wallet, and from a mass of papers selected a second envelope. + +"You mention references. Possibly these will impress you as even better +than friends." + +Sharlee, seated on the arm of Major Brooke's chair, ran through the +clippings: two advertisements of a well-known "heavy" review announcing +articles by Mr. Queed; a table of contents torn from a year-old number +of the _Political Science Quarterly_ to the same effect; an editorial +from a New York newspaper commenting on one of these articles and +speaking laudatorily of its author; a private letter from the editor of +the "heavy" urging Mr. Queed to write another article on a specified +subject, "Sociology and Socialism." + +To Sharlee the exhibit seemed surprisingly formidable, but the wonder in +her eyes was not at that. Her marvel was for the fact that the man who +was capable of so cruelly elbowing little Fifi out of his way should be +counted a follower of the tenderest and most human of sciences. + +"They impress me," she said, returning his envelope; "but not as better +than friends." + +"Ah? A matter of taste. Now--" + +"I had always supposed," continued the girl, looking at him, "that +sociology had a close relation with life--in fact, that it was based on +a conscious recognition of--the brotherhood of man." + +"Your supposition is doubtless sound, though you express it so loosely." + +"Yet you feel that the sociologist has no such relation?" + +He glanced up sharply. At the subtly hostile look in her eyes, his +expression became, for the first time, a little interested. + +"How do you deduce that?" + +"Oh!... It is loose, if you like--but I deduce it from what you have +said--and implied--about your father and--having friends." + +But what she thought of, most of all, was the case of Fifi. + +She stood across the table, facing him, looking down at him; and there +was a faintly heightened color in her cheeks. Her eyes were the clearest +lapis lazuli, heavily fringed with lashes which were blacker than +Egypt's night. Her chin was finely and strongly cut; almost a masculine +chin, but unmasculinely softened by the sweetness of her mouth. + +Mr. Queed eyed her with some impatience through his round spectacles. + +"You apparently jumble together the theory and what you take to be the +application of a science in the attempt to make an impossible unit. +Hence your curious confusion. Theory and application are as totally +distinct as the poles. The few must discover for the many to use. My own +task--since the matter appears to interest you--is to work out the laws +of human society for those who come after to practice and apply." + +"And suppose those who come after feel the same unwillingness to +practice and apply that you, let us say, feel?" + +"It becomes the business of government to persuade them." + +"And if government shirks also? What is government but the common +expression of masses of individuals very much like yourself?" + +"There you return, you see, to your fundamental error. There are very +few individuals in the least like me. I happen to be writing a book of +great importance, not to myself merely, but to posterity. If I fail to +finish my book, if I am delayed in finishing it, I can hardly doubt that +the world will be the loser. This is not a task like organizing a +prolonged search for one's father, or dawdling with friends, which a +million men can do equally well. I alone can write my book. Perhaps you +now grasp my duty of concentrating all my time and energy on this single +work and ruthlessly eliminating whatever interferes with it." + +The girl found his incredible egoism at once amusing and extremely +exasperating. + +"Have you ever thought," she asked, "that thousands of other +self-absorbed men have considered their own particular work of supreme +importance, and that most of them have been--mistaken?" + +"Really I have nothing to do with other men's mistakes. I am responsible +only for my own." + +"And that is why it is a temptation to suggest that conceivably you had +made one here." + +"But you find difficulty in suggesting such a thought convincingly? That +is because I have not conceivably made any such mistake. A Harvey must +discover the theory of the circulation of the blood; it is the business +of lesser men to apply the discovery to practical ends. It takes a +Whitney to invent the cotton gin, but the dullest negro roustabout can +operate it. Why multiply illustrations of a truism? Theory, you +perceive, calls for other and higher gifts than application. The man who +can formulate the eternal laws of social evolution can safely leave it +to others to put his laws into practice." + +Sharlee gazed at him in silence, and he returned her gaze, his face +wearing a look of the rankest complacence that she had ever seen upon a +human countenance. But all at once his eyes fell upon his watch, and his +brow clouded. + +"Meantime," he went on abruptly, "there remains the question of my +board." + +"Yes.... Do I understand that you--derive your living from these social +laws that you write up for others to practice?" + +"Oh, no--impossible! There is no living to be made there. When my book +comes out there may be a different story, but that is two years and ten +months off. Every minute taken from it for the making of money is, as +you may now understand, decidedly unfortunate. Still," he added +depressedly, "I must arrange to earn something, I suppose, since my +father's assistance is so problematical. I worked for money in New York, +for awhile." + +"Oh--did you?" + +"Yes, I helped a lady write a thesaurus." + +"Oh...." + +"It was a mere fad with her. I virtually wrote the work for her and +charged her five dollars an hour." He looked at her narrowly. "Do you +happen to know of any one here who wants work of that sort done?" + +The agent did not answer. By a series of covert glances she had been +trying to learn, upside down, what it was that Mr. Queed was reading. +"Sociology," she had easily picked out, but the chapter heading, on the +opposite page, was more troublesome, and, deeply absorbed, she had now +just succeeded in deciphering it. The particular division of his subject +in which Mr. Queed was so much engrossed was called "Man's Duty to His +Neighbors." + +Struck by the silence, Sharlee looked up with a small start, and the +faintest possible blush. "I beg your pardon?" + +"I asked if you knew of any lady here, a wealthy one, who would like to +write a thesaurus as a fad." + +The girl was obliged to admit that, at the moment, she could think of no +such person. But her mind fastened at once on the vulgar, hopeful fact +that the unsocial sociolologist wanted a job. + +"That's unfortunate," said Mr. Queed. "I suppose I must accept a little +regular, very remunerative work--to settle this board question once and +for all. An hour or two a day, at most. However, it is not easy to lay +one's hand on such work in a strange city." + +"Perhaps," said Miss Weyland slowly, "I can help you." + +"I'm sure I hope so," said he with another flying glance at his watch. +"That is what I have been approaching for seven minutes." + +"Don't you always find it an unnecessary waste of time not to be +direct?" + +He sat, slightly frowning, impatiently fingering the pages of his book. +The hit bounded off him like a rubber ball thrown against the Great Wall +of China. + +"Well?" he demanded. "What have you to propose?" + +The agent sat down in a chair across the table, William Klinker's chair, +and rested her chin upon her shapely little hand. The other shapely +little hand toyed with the crisp twenty dollar bill, employing it to +trace geometric designs upon the colored table-cloth. Mr. Queed had +occasion to consult his watch again before she raised her head. + +"I propose," she said, "that you apply for some special editorial work +on the _Post_." + +"The _Post_? The _Post_? The morning newspaper here?" + +"One of them." + +He laughed, actually laughed. It was a curious, slow laugh, betraying +that the muscles which accomplished it were flabby for want of exercise. + +"And who writes the editorials on the _Post_ now?" + +"A gentleman named Colonel Cowles--" + +"Ah! His articles on taxation read as if they might have been written by +a military man. I happened to read one the day before yesterday. It was +most amusing--" + +"Excuse me. Colonel Cowles is a friend of mine--" + +"What has that got to do with his political economy? If he is your +friend, then I should say that you have a most amusing friend." + +Sharlee rose, decidedly irritated. "Well--that is my suggestion. I +believe you will find it worth thinking over, Good-night." + +"The _Post_ pays its contributors well, I suppose?" + +"That you would have to take up with its owners." + +"Clearly the paper needs the services of an expert--though, of course, I +could not give it much time, only enough to pay for my keep. The +suggestion is not a bad one--not at all. As to applying, as you call it, +is this amiable Colonel Cowles the person to be seen?" + +"Yes. No--wait a minute." She had halted in her progress to the door; +her mind's eye conjured up a probable interview between the Colonel and +the scientist, and she hardly had the heart to let it go at that. +Moreover, she earnestly wished, for Mrs. Paynter's reasons, that the +tenant of the third hall back should become associated with the +pay-envelope system of the city. "Listen," she went on. "I know one of +the directors of the _Post_, and shall be glad to speak to him in your +behalf. Then, if there is an opening, I'll send you, through my aunt, a +card of introduction to him and you can go to see him." + +"Couldn't he come to see me? I am enormously busy." + +"So is he. I doubt if you could expect him to--" + +"H'm. Very well. I am obliged to you for your suggestion. Of course I +shall take no step in the matter until I hear from you." + +"Good-evening," said the agent, icily. + +He bowed slightly in answer to the salute, uttering no further word; for +him the interview ended right there, cleanly and satisfactorily. From +the door the girl glanced back. Mr. Queed had drawn his heavy book +before him, pencil in hand, and was once more engrossed in the study and +annotation of "Man's Duty to His Neighbors." + +In the hail Sharlee met Fifi, who was tipping toward the dining-room to +discover, by the frank method of ear and keyhole, how the grim and +resolute collector was faring. + +"You're still alive, Sharlee! Any luck?" + +"The finest in the world, darling! Twenty dollars in the hand and a +remunerative job for him in the bush." + +Fifi did a few steps of a minuet. "Hooray!" said she in her weak little +voice. + +Sharlee put her arms around the child's neck and said in her ear: "Fifi, +be very gentle with that young man. He's the most pitiful little +creature I ever saw." + +"Why," said Fifi, "I don't think he feels that way at all--" + +"Don't you see that's just what makes him so infinitely pathetic? He's +the saddest little man in the world, and it has never dawned on him." + +It was not till some hours later, when she was making ready for bed in +her own room, that it occurred to Sharlee that there was something odd +in this advice to her little cousin. For she had started out with the +intention to tell Mr. Queed that he must be very gentle with Fifi. + + + + +IV + + _Relating how Two Stars in their Courses fought for Mr. Queed; and + how he accepted Remunerative Employment under Colonel Cowles, the + Military Political Economist._ + + +The stars in their courses fought for Mr. Queed in those days. Somebody +had to fight for him, it seemed, since he was so little equipped to +fight for himself, and the stars kindly undertook the assignment. Not +merely had he attracted the militant services of the bright little +celestial body whose earthly agent was Miss Charlotte Lee Weyland; but +this little body chanced to be one of a system or galaxy, associated +with and exercising a certain power, akin to gravitation, over that +strong and steady planet known among men as Charles Gardiner West. And +the very next day, the back of the morning's mail being broken, the +little star used some of its power to draw the great planet to the +telephone, while feeling, in a most unstellar way, that it was a +decidedly cheeky thing to do. However, nothing could have exceeded the +charming radiance of Planet West, and it was he himself who introduced +the topic of Mr. Queed, by inquiring, in mundane language, whether or +not he had been fired. + +"No!" laughed the star. "Instead of firing him, I'm now bent on _hiring_ +him. Oh, you'd better not laugh! It's to you I want to hire him!" + +But at that the shining Planet laughed the more. + +"What have I done to be worthy of this distinction? Also, what can I do +with him? To paraphrase his own inimitable remark about your dog, what +is the object of a man like that? What is he for?" + +Sharlee dilated on the renown of Mr. Queed as a writer upon abstruse +themes. Mr. West was not merely agreeable; he was interested. It seemed +that at the very last meeting of the _Post_ directors--to which body Mr. +West had been elected at the stockholders' meeting last June--it had +been decided that Colonel Cowles should have a little help in the +editorial department. The work was growing; the Colonel was ageing. The +point had been to find the help. Who knew but what this little highbrow +was the very man they were looking for? + +"I'll call on him--at your aunt's, shall I?--to-day if I can. Why, not a +bit of it! The thanks are quite the other way. He may turn out another +Charles A. Dana, cleverly disguised. When are you going to have another +half-holiday up there?" + +Sharlee left the telephone thinking that Mr. West was quite the nicest +man she knew. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred, in his position, would +have said, "Send him to see me." Mr. West had said, "I'll call on him at +your aunt's," and had absolutely refused to pose as the gracious +dispenser of patronage. However, a great many people shared Sharlee's +opinion of Charles Gardiner West. One of them walked into his office at +that very moment, also petitioning for something, and West received him +with just that same unaffected pleasantness of manner which everybody +found so agreeable. But this one's business, as it happened, completely +knocked from Mr. West's head the matter of Mr. Queed. In fact, he never +gave it another thought. The following night he went to New York with a +little party of friends, chiefly on pleasure bent; and, having no +particularly frugal mind, permitted himself a very happy day or so in +the metropolis. Hence it happened that Sharlee, learning from her aunt +that no Post directors had called forcing remunerative work on Mr. +Queed, made it convenient, about five days after the telephone +conversation, to meet Mr. West upon the street, quite by accident. Any +girl can tell you how it is done. + +"Oh, by the way," she said in the most casual way, "shall I send my +little Doctor Queed to call upon you some day?" + +West was agreeably contrite; abused himself for a shiftless lackwit who +was slated for an unwept grave; promised to call that very day; and, +making a memorandum the instant he got back to the office, this time did +not fail to keep his word. + +Not that Mr. Queed had been inconvenienced by the little delay. The +minute after his landlady's agent left him, he had become immersed in +that great work of his, and there by day and night, he had remained. +Having turned over to the agent the full responsibility for finding work +for him, he no longer had to bother his head about it. The whole matter +dropped gloriously from his mind; he read, wrote, and avoided practicing +sociology with tremendous industry; and thus he might have gone on for +no one knows how long had there not, at five o'clock on the fifth day, +come a knock upon his door. + +"Well?" he called, annoyed. + +Emma came in with a card. The name, at which the young man barely +glanced, conveyed nothing to him. + +"Well? What does he want?" + +Emma did not know. + +"Oh!" said Mr. Queed, irritably--"tell him to come up, if he must." + +The _Post_ director came up--two flights; he knocked; was curtly bidden +to enter; did so. + +He stepped into one of the smallest rooms he had ever seen in his life; +about nine by five-and-a-half, he thought. A tiny single bed ran along +one side of it; jammed against the foot of the bed was a tiny table. A +tiny chair stood at the table; behind the chair stood a tiny bureau; +beside the bureau, the tiniest little iron wash-stand in the world. In +the chair sat a man, not tiny, indeed, but certainly nobody's prize +giant. He sat in a kind of whirling tempest of books and papers, and he +rode absorbedly in the whirlwind and majestically directed the storm. + +West was intensely interested. "Mr. Queed?" he asked, from just inside +the door. + +"Yes," said the other, not looking up. "What can I do for you?" + +West burst out laughing; he couldn't help it. + +"Maybe you can do a great deal, Mr. Queed. On the other hand maybe I can +do some little trifle for you. Which leg the boot is on nobody on earth +can say at this juncture. I have ventured to call," said he, "as an +ambassador from the morning _Post_ of this city." + +"The _Post_?" + +The name instantly started Queed's memory to working; he recalled +something about the _Post_--as yet, so it happened, only the copy of it +he had read; and he turned and looked around with slow professorial +amusement kindling in his eyes. + +"Ah!" said he. "Possibly you are Colonel Cowles, the military political +economist?" + +West was more amused than ever. "No," said he, "on the contrary, West is +the name, C.G. West--to correspond, you know, with the one on that card +you have in your hand. I'll sit down here on the bed--shall I?--so that +we can talk more comfortably. Sitting does help the flow of ideas so +remarkably, don't you find? I am trespassing on your time," said he, "at +the suggestion of--an acquaintance of yours, who has been telling me +great things about your work." + +Queed looked completely puzzled. + +"The _Post_, Mr. Queed," went on West agreeably, "is always looking for +men who can do exceptional work. Therefore, I have come to consider with +you whether we might not make an arrangement to our mutual advantage." + +At that the whole thing came back to the young man. He had agreed to +take light remunerative work to pay his board, and now the day of +reckoning was at hand. His heart grew heavy within him. + +"Well," said he, exactly as he had said to the agent, "what have you to +propose?" + +"I thought of proposing, first, that you give me some idea of what you +have done and can do on lines useful for a daily newspaper. How does +that method of procedure strike you?" + +Queed produced his celebrated envelope of clippings. Also he hunted up +one or two stray cuttings which proved to be editorials he had written +on assignment, for a New York newspaper. West ran through them with +intelligent quickness. + +"I say! These are rather fine, you know. This article on the income tax +now--just right!--just the sort of thing!" + +Queed sat with his hand clamped on his head, which was aching rather +badly, as indeed it did about three fourths of the time. + +"Oh, yes," he said wearily. + +"I take off my hat to you!" added West presently. "You're rather out of +my depth here, but at least I know enough political economy to know what +is good." + +He looked at Queed, smiling, very good-humored and gay, and Queed looked +back at him, not very good-humored and anything but gay. Doubtless it +would have surprised the young Doctor very much to know that West was +feeling sorry for him just then, for at that moment he was feeling sorry +for West. + +"Now look here," said West. + +He explained how the _Post_ desired a man to write sleep-inducing +fillers--"occasional articles of weight and authority" was the way he +put it--and wanted to know if such an opening would interest Mr. Queed. +Queed said he supposed so, provided the _Post_ took little of his time +and paid his board in return for it. West had no doubt that everything +could be satisfactorily arranged. + +"Colonel Cowles is the man who hires and fires," he explained. "Go to +see him in a day or two, will you? Meantime, I'll tell him all about +you." + +Presently West smiled himself out, leaving Queed decidedly relieved at +the brief reprieve. He had been harried by the fear that his visitor +would insist on his stopping to produce an article or so while he +waited. However, the time had come when the inevitable had to be faced. +His golden privacy must be ravished for the grim god of bread and meat. +The next afternoon he put on his hat with a bad grace, and went forth to +seek Colonel Cowles, editor-in-chief of the leading paper in the State. + +The morning _Post_ was an old paper, which had been in the hands of a +single family from A.D. 1846 till only the other day. It had been a +power during the war, a favorite mouthpiece of President Davis. It had +stood like a wall during the cruelties of Reconstruction; had fought the +good fight for white man's rule; had crucified carpet-baggism and +scalawaggery upon a cross of burning adjective. Later it had labored +gallantly for Tilden; denounced Hayes as a robber; idolized Cleveland; +preached free trade with pure passion; swallowed free silver; stood +"regular," though not without grimaces, through Bryanism. The _Post_ +was, in short, a paper with an honorable history, and everybody felt a +kind of affection for it. The plain fact remained, however, that within +recent years a great many worthy persons had acquired the habit of +reading the more hustling _State_. + +The _Post_, not to put too fine a point upon it, had for a time run fast +to seed. The third generation of its owners had lost their money, mostly +in land speculations in the suburbs of New York City, and in the State +of Oregon. You could have thrown a brick from their office windows and +hit far better land speculations, but they had the common fault of +believing that things far away from home are necessarily and always the +best. The demand rose for bigger, fatter newspapers, with comic sections +and plenty of purple ink, and the _Post's_ owners found themselves +unable to supply it. In fact they had to retort by mortgaging their +property to the hilt and cutting expenses to rock-bottom. These were +dark days for the _Post_. That it managed to survive them at all was due +chiefly to the personality of Colonel Cowles, who, though doubtless +laughable as a political economist, was yet considered to have his good +points. But the Hercules-labor grew too heavy even for him, and the +paper was headed straight for the auctioneer's block when new interests +suddenly stepped in and bought it. These interests, consisting largely +of progressive men of the younger generation, thoroughly overhauled and +reorganized the property, laid in the needed purple ink, and were now +gradually driving the old paper back to the dividend-paying point again. + +Colonel Cowles, whose services had, of course, been retained, was of the +old school of journalism, editor and manager, too. Very little went into +the _Post_ that he had not personally viséd in the proof: forty galleys +a night were child's play to him. Managing editor there was none but +himself; the city editor was his mere office-boy and mouthpiece; even +the august business manager, who mingled with great advertisers on equal +terms, was known to take orders from him. In addition the Colonel wrote +three columns of editorials every day. Of these editorials it is enough +to say at this point that there were people who liked them. + +Toward this dominant personality, the reluctant applicant for work now +made his way. He cut an absent-minded figure upon the street, did Mr. +Queed, but this time he made his crossings without mishap. Undisturbed +by dogs, he landed at the _Post_ building, and in time blundered into a +room described as "Editorial" on the glass-door. A friendly young girl +sitting there, pounding away on a typewriter, referred him to the next +office, and the young man, opening the connecting door without knocking, +passed inside. + +A full-bodied, gray-headed, gray-mustached man sat in his shirt-sleeves +behind a great table, writing with a very black pencil in a large +sprawling hand. He glanced up as the door opened. + +"Colonel Cowles?" + +"I am the man, sir. How may I serve you?" + +Queed laid on the table the card West had given him with a pencilled +line of introduction. + +"Oh--Mr. Queed! Certainly--certainly. Sit down, sir. I have been +expecting you.--Let me get those papers out of your way." + +Colonel Cowles had a heavy jaw and rather too rubicund a complexion. He +looked as if apoplexy would get him some day. However, his head was like +a lion's of the tribe of Judah; his eye was kindly; his manner +dignified, courteous, and charming. Queed had decided not to set the +Colonel right in his views on taxation; it would mean only a useless +discussion which would take time. To the older gentleman's polite +inquiries relative to his impressions of the city and so forth, he for +the same reason gave the briefest possible replies. But the Colonel, no +apostle of the doctrine that time is far more than money, went off into +a long monologue, kindly designed to give the young stranger some idea +of his new surroundings and atmosphere. + +"... Look out there, sir. It is like that all day long--a double stream +of people always pouring by. I have looked out of these windows for +twenty-five years, and it was very different in the old days. I remember +when the cows used to come tinkling down around that corner at +milking-time. A twelve-story office building will rise there before +another year. We have here the finest city and the finest State in the +Union. You come to them, sir, at a time of exceptional interest. We are +changing fast, leaping forward very fast. I do not hold with those who +take all change to be progress, but God grant that our feet are set in +the right path. No section of the country is moving more rapidly, or, as +I believe, with all our faults, to better ends than this. My own eyes +have seen from these windows a broken town, stagnant in trade and +population and rich only in memories, transform itself into the splendid +thriving city you see before you. Our faces, too long turned backward, +are set at last toward the future. From one end of the State to another +the spirit of honorable progress is throbbing through our people. We +have revolutionized and vastly improved our school system. We have +wearied of mud-holes and are laying the foundations of a network of +splendid roads. We are doing wonders for the public health. Our farmers +are learning to practice the new agriculture--with plenty of lime, sir, +plenty of lime. They grasp the fact that corn at a hundred bushels to +the acre is no dream, but the most vital of realities. Our young men who +a generation ago left us for the irrigated lands of your Northwest, are +at last understanding that the finest farmlands in the country are at +their doors for half the price. With all these changes has come a +growing independence in political thought. The old catchwords and bogies +have lost their power. We no longer think that whatever wears the +Democratic tag is necessarily right. We no longer measure every +Republican by Henry G. Surface. We no longer ..." + +Queed, somewhat interested in spite of himself, and tolerably familiar +with history, interrupted to ask who Henry G. Surface might be. The +question brought the Colonel up with a jolt. + +"Ah, well," said he presently, with a wave of his hand, "you will hear +that story soon enough." He was silent a moment, and then added, sadly +and somewhat sternly: "Young man, I have reserved one count in the +total, the biggest and best, for the last. Keep your ear and eye +open--and I mean the inner ear and eye as well as the outer--keep your +mind open, above all keep your heart open, and it will be given you to +understand that we have here the bravest, the sweetest, and the +kindliest people in the world. The Lord has been good to you to send you +among them. This is the word of a man in the late evening of life to one +in the hopeful morning. You will take it, I hope, without offense. Are +you a Democrat, sir?" + +"I am a political economist." + +The Colonel smiled. "Well said, sir. Science knows no party lines. Your +chosen subject rises above the valley of partisanry where we old +wheel-horses plod--stinging each other in the dust, as the poet finely +says. Mr. West has told me of your laurels." + +He went on to outline the business side of what the _Post_ had to +offer. Queed found himself invited to write a certain number of +editorial articles, not to exceed six a week, under the Colonel's +direction. He had his choice of working on space, at the rate of five +dollars per column, payment dependent upon publication; or of drawing a +fixed honorarium of ten dollars per week, whether called on for the +stipulated six articles or for no articles at all. Queed decided to +accept the fixed honorarium, hoping that there would be many weeks when +he would be called on for no articles at all. A provisional arrangement +to run a month was agreed upon. + +"I have," said the Colonel, "already sketched out some work for you to +begin on. The legislature meets here in January. It is important to the +State that our whole tax-system should be overhauled and reformed. The +present system is a mere crazy-quilt, unsatisfactory in a thousand ways. +I suggest that you begin with a careful study of the law, making +yourself familiar with--" + +"I am already familiar with it." + +"Ah! And what do you think of it?" + +"It is grotesque." + +"Good! I like a clean-cut expression of opinion such as that, sir. Now +tell me your criticisms on the law as it stands, and what you suggest as +remedies." + +Queed did so briefly, expertly. The Colonel was considerably impressed +by his swift, searching summaries. + +"We may go right ahead," said he. "I wish you would block out a series +of articles--eight, ten, or twelve, as you think best--designed to +prepare the public mind for a thorough-going reform and point the way +that the reform should take. Bring this schedule to me to-morrow, if you +will be so good, and we will go over it together." + +Queed, privately amused at the thought of Colonel Cowles's revising his +views on taxation, rose to go. + +"By the bye," said the Colonel, unluckily struck by a thought, "I myself +wrote a preliminary article on tax reform a week or so ago, meaning to +follow it up with others later on. Perhaps you had best read that +before--" + +"I have already read it." + +"Ah! How did it strike you?" + +"You ask me that?" + +"Certainly," said Colonel Cowles, a little surprised. + +"Well, since you ask me, I will say that I thought it rather amusing." + +The Colonel looked nettled. He was by nature a choleric man, but in his +age he had learned the futility of disputation and affray, and nowadays +kept a tight rein upon himself. + +"You are frank sir--'tis a commendable quality. Doubtless your work will +put my own poor efforts to the blush." + +"I shall leave you to judge of that, Colonel Cowles." + +The Colonel, abandoning his hospitable plan of inviting his new +assistant to sup with him at the club, bowed with dignity, and Queed +eagerly left him. Glancing at his watch in the elevator, the young man +figured that the interview, including going and coming, would stand him +in an hour's time, which was ten minutes more than he had allowed for +it. + + + + +V + + _Selections from Contemporary Opinions of Mr. Queed; also + concerning Henry G. Surface, his Life and Deeds; of Fifi, the + Landlady's Daughter, and how she happened to look up Altruism in + the Dictionary_. + + +A month later, one icy afternoon, Charles Gardiner West ran into Colonel +Cowles at the club, where the Colonel, a lone widower, repaired each day +at six P.M., there to talk over the state of the Union till nine-thirty. + +"Colonel," said West, dropping into a chair, "man to man, what is your +opinion of Doctor Queed's editorials?" + +"They are unanswerable," said the Colonel, and consulted his favorite +ante-prandial refreshment. + +West laughed. "Yes, but from the standpoint of the general public, +Constant Reader, Pro Bono Publico, and all that?" + +"No subscriber will ever be angered by them." + +"Would you say that they helped the editorial page or not?" + +"They lend to it an academic elegance, a scientific stateliness, a +certain grand and austere majesty--" + +"Colonel, I asked you for your opinion of those articles." + +"Damn it, sir," roared the Colonel, "I've never read one." + +Later West repeated the gist of this conversation to Miss Weyland, who +ornamented with him a tiny dinner given that evening at the home of +their very good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Byrd. + +It was a beautiful little dinner, as befitted the hospitable distinction +of the givers. The Stewart Byrds were hosts among a thousand. In him, as +it further happens, West (himself the beau ideal of so many) had from +long ago recognized his own paragon and pattern; a worthy one, indeed, +this tall young man whose fine abilities and finer faiths were already +writing his name so large upon the history of his city. About the +dim-lit round of his table there were gathered but six this evening, +including the host and hostess; the others, besides Sharlee Weyland and +West, being Beverley Byrd and Miss Avery: the youngest of the four Byrd +brothers, and heir with them to one of the largest fortunes in the +State; and the only daughter of old Avery, who came to us from Mauch +Chunk, Pa., his money preceding him in a special train of box cars, +especially invented for the transportation of Pennsylvania millions to +places where the first families congregate. + +"And I had to confess that I'd never read one either. I did begin one," +said West--"it was called 'Elementary Principles of Incidence and +Distribution,' I remember--but the hour was eleven-thirty and I fell +asleep." + +"I know exactly how you felt about it," said Sharlee, "for I have read +them all--_moi!_" + +He looked at her with boundless admiration. "His one reader!" + +"There are two of us, if you please. I think of getting up a +club--Associated Sons and Daughters of Mr. Queed's Faithful Followers; +President, Me. I'll make the other member Secretary, for he is +experienced in that work. He's at present Secretary of the Tax Reform +League in New York. Did Colonel Cowles show you the wonderful letter +that came from him, asking the name of the man who was writing the +_Post's_ masterly tax articles, et cetera, et cetera?" + +"No--really! But tell me, how have you, as President, enjoyed them?" + +"I haven't understood a single word in any of them. Where on earth did +he dig up his fearful vocabulary? Yet it is the plain duty of both of us +to read these articles: you as one of his employers, I as the shrewd +landlady's agent who keeps a watchful eye upon the earning power of her +boarders." + +West mused. "He has a wonderful genius for crushing all the interest out +of any subject he touches, hasn't he? Yet manifestly the first duty of +an editorial is to get itself read. How old do you think he is?" + +"Oh--anywhere from twenty-five to--forty-seven." + +"He'll be twenty-four this month. I see him sometimes at the office, you +know, where he still treats me like an intrusive subscription agent. In +some ways, he is undoubtedly the oldest man in the world. In another way +he hasn't any age at all. Spiritually he is unborn--he simply doesn't +exist at all. I diagnose his complaint as ingrowing egoism of a +singularly virulent variety." + +It was beyond Sharlee's power to controvert this diagnosis. Mr. Queed +had in fact impressed her as the most frankly and grossly self-centred +person she had ever seen in her life. But unlike West, her uppermost +feeling in regard to him was a strong sense of pity. She knew things +about his life that West did not know and probably never would. For +though the little Doctor of Mrs. Paynter's had probably not intended to +give her a confidence, and certainly had no right to do so, she had thus +regarded what he said to her in the dining-room that night, and of his +pathetic situation in regard to a father she never meant to say a word +to anybody. + +"I sized him up for a remarkable man," said she, "when I saw the +wonderful way he sat upon his hat that afternoon. Don't you remember? He +struck me then as the most natural, unconscious, and direct human being +I ever saw--don't you think that?--and now think of his powers of +concentration. All his waking time, except what he gives to the _Post_, +goes to that awful book of his. He is ridiculous now because his theory +of life is ridiculous. But suppose it popped into his head some day to +switch all that directness and concentrated energy in some other +direction. Don't you think he might be rather a formidable young +person?" + +West conceded that there might be something in that. And happening to +glance across the flower-sweet table at the moment, he was adroitly +detached and re-attached by the superbly "finished" Miss Avery. + +The little dinner progressed. Nor was this the only spot in town where +evening meals were going forward amid stimulating talk. Far away over +the town, at the same hour, the paying guests of Mrs. Paynter's were +gathered about her hospitable board, plying the twin arts of supping and +talking. And as Sharlee's fellow-diners talked of Mr. Queed, it chanced +that Mr. Queed's fellow-suppers were talking of Sharlee, or at any rate +of her family's famous misfortune. Mr. Queed, it is true, did not +appreciate this fact, for the name of the female agent who had taken his +Twenty from him could not have been more unknown to him if she had been +a dweller in Phrygia or far Cappadocia. + +Major Brooke told, not by request, one of his well-known stories about +how he had flouted and routed the Republicans in 1875. The plot of these +stories was always the same, but the setting shifted about here and +there, and this one had to do with a county election in which, the Major +said, the Republicans and negroes had gone the limit trying to swindle +the Democrats out of the esteemed offices. + +"And I said, 'You'--the ladies will excuse me, I'm sure--'You lying +rascal,' s' I, 'don't you dare to contradict me! You're all tarred with +the same pitch,' s' I. 'Everything you touch turns corrupt and rotten. +Look at Henry G. Surface,' s' I. 'The finest fellow God ever made, till +the palsied hand of Republicanism fell upon him, and now cankering and +rotting in jail--'" + +"But Henry G. Surface wasn't rotting in jail in 1875," said William +Klinker, and boldly winked at the little Doctor. + +The Major, disconcerted for an instant by his anachronism, recovered +superbly. "My vision, sir, was prophetic. The stain was upon him. The +cloven foot had already been betrayed...." + +"And who was Henry G. Surface?" inquired Mr. Queed. + +"What! You haven't heard that infamous story!" cried the Major, with +the surprised delight of the inveterate raconteur who has unexpectedly +stumbled upon an audience. + +A chair-leg scraped, and Professor Nicolovius was standing, bowing in +his sardonic way to Mrs. Paynter. + +"Since I have happened to hear it often, madam, through Major Brooke's +tireless kindness, you will perhaps be so good as to excuse me." + +And he stalked out of the room, head up, his auburn goatee stabbing the +atmosphere before him, in rather a heavy silence. + +"Pish!" snapped the Major, when the door had safely shut. And tapping +his forehead significantly, he gave his head a few solemn wags and +launched upon the worn biography of Henry G. Surface. + +Tattered with much use as the story is, and was, the boarders listened +with a perennial interest while Major Brooke expounded the familiar +details. His wealth of picturesque language we may safely omit, and +briefly remind the student of the byways of history how Henry G. Surface +found himself, during the decade following Appomattox, with his little +world at his feet. He was thirty at the time, handsome, gifted, +high-spirited, a brilliant young man who already stood high in the +councils of the State. But he was also restless in disposition, +arrogant, over-weeningly vain, and ambitious past all belief--"a yellow +streak in him, and we didn't know it!" bellowed the Major. Bitterly +chagrined by his failure to secure, from a legislature of the early +seventies, the United States Senatorship which he had confidently +expected, young Surface, in a burst of anger and resentment, committed +the unforgivable sin. He went over bag and baggage to the other side, to +the "nigger party" whom all his family, friends, and relations, all his +"class," everybody else with his instincts and traditions, were +desperately struggling, by hook and by crook, to crush. + +In our mild modern preferences as between presidents, or this governor +and that, we catch no reminiscence of the fierce antagonisms of the +elections of reconstruction days. The idolized young tribune of the +people became a Judas Iscariot overnight, with no silver pieces as the +price of his apostasy. If he expected immediate preferment from the +other camp, he was again bitterly disappointed. Life meantime had become +unbearable to him. He was ostracized more studiously than any leper; it +is said that his own father cut him when they passed each other in the +street. His young wife died, heartbroken, it was believed, by the flood +of hatred and vilification that poured in upon her husband. One man +alone stood by Surface in his downfall, his classmate and friend of his +bosom from the cradle, John Randolph Weyland, a good man and a true. +Weyland's affection never faltered. When Surface withdrew from the State +with a heart full of savage rancor, Weyland went every year or two to +visit him, first in Chicago and later in New York, where the exile was +not slow in winning name and fortune as a daring speculator. And when +Weyland died, leaving a widow and infant daughter, he gave a final proof +of his trust by making Surface sole trustee of his estate, which was a +large one for that time and place. Few have forgotten how the political +traitor rewarded this misplaced confidence. The crash came within a few +months. Surface was arrested in the company of a woman whom he referred +to as his wife. The trust fund, saving a fraction, was gone, swallowed +up to stay some ricketty deal. Surface was convicted of embezzlement and +sentenced to ten years at hard labor, and every Democrat in the State +cried, "I told you so." What had become of him after his release from +prison, nobody knew; some of the boarders said that he was living in the +west, or in Australia; others, that he was not living anywhere, unless +on the shores of perpetual torment. All agreed that the alleged second +Mrs. Surface had long since died--all, that is, but Klinker, who said +that she had only pretended to die in order to make a fade-away with the +gate receipts. For many persons believed, it seemed, that Surface, by +clever juggling of his books, had managed to "hold out" a large sum of +money in the enforced settlement of his affairs. At any rate, very +little of it ever came back to the family of the man who had put trust +in him, and that was why the daughter, whose name was Charlotte Lee +Weyland, now worked for her daily bread. + +That Major Brooke's hearers found this story of evergreen interest was +natural enough. For besides the brilliant blackness of the narrative, +there was the close personal connection that all Paynterites had with +some of its chief personages. Did not the sister-in-law of John Randolph +Weyland sit and preside over them daily, pouring their coffee morning +and night with her own hands? And did not the very girl whose fortune +had been stolen, the bereft herself, come now and then to sit among +them, occupying that identical chair which Mr. Bylash could touch by +merely putting out his hand? Henry G. Surface's story? Why, Mrs. +Paynter's wrote it! + +These personal bearings were of course lost upon Mr. Queed, the name +Weyland being utterly without significance to him. He left the table the +moment he had absorbed all the supper he wanted. In the hall he ran upon +Professor Nicolovius, the impressive-looking master of Greek at Milner's +Collegiate School, who, already hatted and overcoated, was drawing on +his gloves under the depressed fancy chandelier. The old professor +glanced up at the sound of footsteps and favored Queed with a bland +smile. + +"I can't resist taking our doughty swashbuckler down a peg or two every +now and then," said he. "Did you ever know such an interminable ass?" + +"Really, I never thought about it," said the young man, raising his +eye-brows in surprise and annoyance at being addressed. + +"Then take my word for it. You'll not find his match in America. You +show your wisdom, at any rate, in giving as little of your valuable time +as possible to our charming supper-table." + +"That hardly argues any Solomonic wisdom, I fancy." + +"You're in the hands of the Philistines here, Mr. Queed," said +Nicolovius, snapping his final button. "May I say that I have read some +of your editorials in the _Post_ with--ah--pleasure and profit? I should +feel flattered if you would come to see me in my room some evening, +where I can offer you, at any rate, a fire and a so-so cigar." + +"Thank you. However, I do not smoke," said Doctor Queed, and, bowing +coldly to the old professor, started rapidly up the stairs. + +Aloft the young man went to his scriptorium, happy in the thought that +five hours of incorruptible leisure and unswerving devotion to his +heart's dearest lay before him. It had been a day when the _Post_ did +not require him; hour by hour since breakfast he had fared gloriously +upon his book. But to-night his little room was cold; unendurably cold; +not even the flamings of genius could overcome its frigor; and hardly +half an hour had passed before he became aware that his sanctum was +altogether uninhabitable. Bitterly he faced the knowledge that he must +fare forth into the outer world of the dining-room that night; irritably +he gathered up his books and papers. + +Half-way down the first flight a thought struck Queed, and he retraced +his steps. The last time that he had been compelled to the dining-room +the landlady's daughter had been there--(it was all an accident, poor +child! Hadn't she vowed to herself never to intrude on the little Doctor +again?)--and, stupidly breaking the point of her pencil, had had the +hardihood to ask him for the loan of his knife. Mr. Queed was determined +that this sort of thing should not occur again. A method for enforcing +his determination, at once firm and courteous, had occurred to him. One +could never tell when trespassers would stray into the dining-room--his +dining-room by right of his exalted claim. Rummaging in his bottom +bureau drawer, he produced a placard, like a narrow little sign-board, +and tucking it under his arm, went on downstairs. + +The precaution was by no means superfluous. Disgustingly enough the +landlady's daughter was once more in his dining-room before him, the +paraphernalia of her algebra spread over half the Turkey-red cloth. Fifi +looked up, plainly terrified at his entrance and his forbidding +expression. It was her second dreadful blunder, poor luckless little +wight! She had faithfully waited a whole half-hour, and Mr. Queed had +shown no signs of coming down. Never had he waited so long as this when +he meant to claim the dining-room. Mrs. Paynter's room, nominally heated +by a flume from the Latrobe heater in the parlor, was noticeably coolish +on a wintry night. Besides, there was no table in it, and everybody +knows that algebra is hard enough under the most favorable conditions, +let alone having to do it on your knee. It seemed absolutely safe; Fifi +had yielded to the summons of the familiar comforts; and now-- + +"Oh--how do you do?" she was saying in a frightened voice. + +Mr. Queed bowed, indignantly. Silently he marched to his chair, the one +just opposite, and sat down in offended majesty. To Fifi it seemed that +to get up at once and leave the room, which she would gladly have done, +would be too crude a thing to do, too gross a rebuke to the little +Doctor's Ego. She was wrong, of course, though her sensibilities were +indubitably right. Therefore she feigned enormous engrossment in her +algebra, and struggled to make herself as small and inoffensive as she +could. + +The landlady's daughter wore a Peter Thompson suit of blue serge, which +revealed a few inches of very thin white neck. She was sixteen and +reddish-haired, and it was her last year at the High School. The +reference is to Fifi's completion of the regular curriculum, and not to +any impending promotion to a still Higher School. She was a fond, +uncomplaining little thing, who had never hurt anybody's feelings in her +life, and her eyes, which were light blue, had just that look of +ethereal sweetness you see in Burne-Jones's women and for just that same +reason. Her syrup she took with commendable faithfulness; the doctor, +in rare visits, spoke cheerily of the time when she was to be quite +strong and well again; but there were moments when Sharlee Weyland, +looking at her little cousin's face in repose, felt her heart stop +still. + +Fifi dallied with her algebra, hoping and praying that she would not +_have_ to cough. She had been very happy all that day. There was no +particular reason for it; so it was the nicest kind of happiness, the +kind that comes from inside, which even the presence of the little +Doctor could not take away from her. Heaven knew that Fifi harbored no +grudge against Mr. Queed, and she had not forgotten what Sharlee said +about being gentle with him. But how to be gentle with so austere a +young Socrates? Raising her head upon the pretext of turning a page, +Fifi stole a hurried glance at him. + +The first thing Mr. Queed had done on sitting down was to produce his +placard, silently congratulating himself on having brought it. Selecting +the book which he would be least likely to need, he shoved it well +forward, nearly halfway across the table, and against the volume propped +up his little pasteboard sign, the printed part staring straight toward +Fifi. The sign was an old one which he had chanced to pick up years ago +at the Astor Library. It read: + + SILENCE + +Arch-type and model of courteous warning! + +When Fifi read the little Doctor's sign, her feelings were not in the +least wounded, insufficiently subtle though some particular people might +have thought its admonition to be. On the contrary, it was only by the +promptest work in getting her handkerchief into her mouth that she +avoided laughing out loud. The two of them alone in the room and his +_Silence_ sign gazing at her like a pasteboard Gorgon! + +Fifi became more than ever interested in Mr. Queed. An intense and +strictly feminine curiosity filled her soul to know something of the +nature of that work which demanded so stern a noiselessness. Observing +rigorously the printed Rule of the Dining-Room, she could not forbear to +pilfer glance after glance at the promulgator of it. Mr. Queed was +writing, not reading, to-night. He wrote very slowly on half-size yellow +pads, worth seventy-five cents a dozen, using the books only for +reference. Now he tore off a sheet only partly filled with his small +handwriting, and at the head of a new sheet inscribed a Roman numeral, +with a single word under that. Like her cousin Sharlee at an earlier +date, Fifi experienced a desire to study out, upside down, what this +heading was. Several peeks were needed, with artful attention to algebra +between whiles, before she was at last convinced that she had it. +Undoubtedly it was + + XVIII + + ALTRUISM + +There was nothing enormous about Fifi's vocabulary, but she well knew +what to do in a case like this. Behind her stood a battered little +walnut bookcase, containing the Paynter library. After a safe interval +of absorption in her sums, she pushed back her chair with the most +respectful quietude and pulled out a tall volume. The pages of it she +turned with blank studious face but considerable inner expectancy: +Af--Ai--Al--Alf.... + +A giggle shattered the academic calm, and Fifi, in horror, realized that +she was the author of it. She looked up quickly, and her worst fears +were realized. Mr. Queed was staring at her, as one scarcely able to +credit his own senses, icy rebuke piercing through and overflowing his +great round spectacles. + +"I beg your pardon!--Mr. Queed. It--it slipped out, really--" + +But the young man thought that the time had come when this question of +noise in his dining-room must be settled once and for all. + +"Indeed? Be kind enough to explain the occasion of it." + +"Why," said Fifi, too truthful to prevaricate and completely cowed, +"it--it was only the meaning of a word here. It--was silly of me. I--I +can't explain it--exactly--" + +"Suppose you try. Since your merriment interrupts my work, I claim the +privilege of sharing it." + +"Well! I--I--happened to see that word at the head of the page you are +writing--" + +"Proceed." + +"I--I looked it up in the dictionary. It _says_," she read out with a +gulp and a cough, "it means 'self-sacrificing devotion to the interests +of others.'" + +The poor child thought her point must now be indelicately plain, but the +lips of Doctor Queed merely emitted another close-clipped: "Proceed." + +At a desperate loss as she was, Fifi was suddenly visited by an idea. +"Oh! I see. You're--you're writing _against_ altruism, aren't you?" + +"What leads you to that conclusion, if I may ask?" + +"Why--I--I suppose it's the--way you--you do. Of course I oughtn't to +have said it--" + +"Go on. What way that I do?" + +Poor Fifi saw that she was floundering in ever more deeply. With the +boldness of despair she blurted out: "Well--one thing--you sent me out +of the room that night--when I coughed, you know. I--I don't understand +about altruism like you do, but I--should think it was--my interests to +stay here--" + +There followed a brief silence, which made Fifi more miserable than any +open rebuke, and then Mr. Queed said in a dry tone: "I am engaged upon a +work of great importance to the public, I may say to posterity. Perhaps +you can appreciate that such a work is entitled to the most favorable +conditions in which to pursue it." + +"Of course. Indeed I understand perfectly, Mr. Queed," said Fifi, +immediately touched by what seemed like kindness from him. And she added +innocently: "All men--writing men, I mean--feel that way about their +work--I suppose. I remember Mr. Sutro who used to have the very same +room you're in now. He was writing a five-act play, all in poetry, to +show the horrors of war, and he used to say--" + +The young man involuntarily shuddered. "I have nothing to do with other +men. I am thinking," he said with rather an unfortunate choice of words, +"only of myself." + +"Oh--I see! Now I understand exactly!" + +"What is it that you see and understand so exactly?" + +"Why, the way you feel about altruism. You believe in it for other +people, but not for yourself! Isn't that right?" + +They stared across the table at each other: innocent Fifi, who barely +knew the meaning of altruism, but had practiced it from the time she +could practice anything, and the little Doctor, who knew everything +about altruism that social science would ever formulate, and had stopped +right there. All at once, his look altered; from objective it became +subjective. The question seemed suddenly to hook onto something inside, +like a still street-car gripping hold of a cable and beginning to move; +the mind's eye of the young man appeared to be seized and swept inward. +Presently without a word he resumed his writing. + +Fifi was much disturbed at the effect of her artless question, and just +when everything was beginning to go so nicely too. In about half an +hour, when she got up to retire, she said timidly:-- + +"I'm sorry if I--I was rude just now, Mr. Queed. Indeed, I didn't mean +to be...." + +"I did not say that you were rude," he answered without looking up. + +But at the door Fifi was arrested by his voice. + +"Why do you think it to your advantage to work in here?" + +"It's--it's a good deal warmer, you know," said Fifi, flustered, +"and--then of course there's the table and lamp. But it's quite all +right upstairs--really!" + +He made no answer. + + + + +VI + + _Autobiographical Data imparted, for Sound Business Reasons, to a + Landlady's Agent; of the Agent's Other Title, etc._ + + +While all move in slots in this world, Mr. Queed's slot was infinitely +more clearly marked than any of his neighbors'. It ran exclusively +between the heaven of his room and the hades of the _Post_ office; +manifesting itself at the latter place in certain staid writings done in +exchange for ten dollars, currency of the realm, paid down each and +every Saturday. Into this slot he had been lifted, as it were by the +ears, by a slip of a girl of the name of Charlotte Lee Weyland, though +it was some time before he ever thought of it in that way. + +In the freemasonry of the boarding-house, the young man was early +accepted as he was. He was promptly voted the driest, most uninteresting +and self-absorbed savant ever seen. Even Miss Miller, ordinarily +indefatigable where gentlemen were concerned, soon gave him up. To Mr. +Bylash she spoke contemptuously of him, but secretly she was awed by his +stately manner of speech and his godlike indifference to all pleasures, +including those of female society. Of them all, Nicolovius was the only +one who seemed in the least impressed by Mr. Queed's appointment as +editorial writer on the _Post_. With the others the exalted world he +moved in was so remote from theirs that no surprises were possible +there, and if informed that the little Doctor had been elected president +of Harvard University, it would have seemed all in the day's work to +William Klinker. Klinker was six feet high, red-faced and friendly, and +Queed preferred his conversation above any heard at Mrs. Paynter's +table. It reminded him very much of his friend the yeggman in New York. + +What went on behind the door of the tiny Scriptorium the boarders could +only guess. It may be said that its owner's big grievance against the +world was that he had to leave it occasionally to earn his bread and +meat. Apart from this he never left it in those days except for one +reason, viz., the consumption three times a day of the said bread and +meat. Probably this was one explanation of the marked pallor of his +cheek, but of such details as this he never took the smallest notice. + +Under the tiny bed were three boxes of books, chief fruit of the savings +of an inexpensive lifetime. But the books were now merely the occasional +stimulus of a mind already well stored with their strength, well +fortified against their weaknesses. Nowadays nearly all of Queed's time, +which he administered by an iron-clad Schedule of Hours, duly drawn up, +went to the actual writing of his Magnum Opus. He had practically +decided that it should be called "The Science of Sciences." For his book +was designed to coördinate and unify the theories of all science into +the single theory which alone gave any of them a living value, namely, +the progressive evolution of a higher organized society and a higher +individual type. That this work would blaze a wholly new trail for a +world of men, he rarely entertained a doubt. To its composition he gave +fifteen actual hours a day on _Post_ days, sixteen hours on non-_Post_ +days. Many men speak of working hours like these, or even longer ones, +but investigation would generally show that all kinds of restful +interludes are indiscriminately counted in. Queed's hours, you +understand, were not elapsed time--they were absolutely net. He was one +of the few men in the world who literally "didn't have time." + +He sat in Colonel Cowles's office, scribbling rapidly, with his eye on +his watch, writing one of those unanswerable articles which were so much +dead space to a people's newspaper. It was a late afternoon in early +February, soon after the opening of the legislature; and he was alone in +the office. A knock fell upon the door, and at his "Come," a girl +entered who looked as pretty as a dewy May morning. Queed looked up at +her with no welcome in his eye, or greeting on his lip, or spring in the +pregnant hinges of his knee. Yet if he had been a less self-absorbed +young scientist, it must certainly have dawned on him that he had seen +this lady before. + +"Oh! How do you do!" said Sharlee, for it was indeed no other. + +"Oh--quite well." + +"Miss Leech tells me that Colonel Cowles has gone out. I particularly +wished to see him. Perhaps you know when he will be back?" + +"Perhaps in half an hour. Perhaps in an hour. I cannot say." + +She mused disappointedly. "I could hardly wait. Would you be good enough +to give him a message for me?" + +"Very well." + +"Well--just tell him, please, that if he can make it convenient, we'd +like the article about the reformatory to go in to-morrow, or the next +day, anyway. He'll understand perfectly; I have talked it all over with +him. The only point was as to when the article would have the most +effect, and we think the time has come now." + +"You would like an article written about a reformatory for to-morrow's +_Post_ or next day's. Very well." + +"Thank you so much for telling him. Good-afternoon." + +"_You_ would like," the young man repeated--"but one moment, if you +please. You have omitted to inform me who _you_ are." + +To his surprise the lady turned round with a gay laugh. Sharlee had +supposed that Mr. Queed, having been offended by her, was deliberately +cutting her. That her identity had literally dropped cleanly from his +mind struck her as both much better and decidedly more amusing. + +"Don't you remember me?" she reminded him once again, laughing full at +him from the threshhold. "My dog knocked you over in the street one +day--surely you remember the pleasure-dog?--and then that night I gave +you your supper at Mrs. Paynter's and afterwards collected twenty +dollars from you for back board. I am Mrs. Paynter's niece and my name +is Charlotte Weyland." + +Weyland?... Weyland? Oho! So this was the girl--sure enough--that Henry +G. Surface had stripped of her fortune. Well, well! + +"Ah, yes, I recall you now." + +She thought there was an inimical note in his voice, and to pay him for +it, she said with a final smiling nod: "Oh, I am _so_ pleased!" + +Her little sarcasm passed miles over his head. She had touched the +spring of the automatic card-index system known as his memory and the +ingenious machinery worked on. Presently it pushed out and laid before +him the complete record, neatly ticketed and arranged, the full dossier, +of all that had passed between him and the girl. But she was nearly +through the door before he had decided to say: + +"I had another letter from my father last night." + +"Oh!" she said, turning at once--"_Did_ you!" + +He nodded, gloomily. "However, there was not a cent of money in it." + +If he had racked his brains for a subject calculated to detain +her--which we may rely upon it that he did not do--he could not have hit +upon a surer one. Sharlee Weyland had a great fund of pity for this +young man's worse than fatherlessness, and did not in the least mind +showing it. She came straight back into the room and up to the table +where he sat. + +"Does it help you at all--about knowing where he is, I mean?" + +"Not in the least. I wonder what he's up to anyway?" + +He squinted up at her interrogatively through his circular glasses, as +though she ought to be able to tell him if anybody could. Then a thought +very much like that took definite shape in his mind. He himself had no +time to give to mysterious problems and will-o'-the-wisp pursuits; his +book and posterity claimed it all. This girl was familiar with the +city; doubtless knew all the people; she seemed intelligent and capable, +as girls went. He remembered that he had consulted her about securing +remunerative work, with some results; possibly she would also have +something sensible to say about his paternal problem. He might make an +even shrewder stroke. As his landlady's agent, this girl would of course +be interested in establishing his connection with a relative who had +twenty-dollar bills to give away. Therefore if it ever should come to a +search, why mightn't he turn the whole thing over to the agent--persuade +her to hunt his father for him, and thus leave his own time free for the +service of the race? + +"Look here," said he, with a glance at his watch. "I'll take a few +minutes. Kindly sit down there and I'll show you how the man is +behaving." + +Sharlee sat down as she was bidden, close by his side, piqued as to her +curiosity, as well as flattered by his royal condescension. She wore her +business suit, which was rough and blue, with a smart little pony coat. +She also wore a white veil festooned around her hat, and white gloves +that were quite unspotted from the world. The raw February winds had +whipped roses into her cheeks; her pure ultramarine eyes made the blue +of her suit look commonplace and dull. Dusk had fallen over the city, +and Queed cleverly bethought him to snap on an electric light. It +revealed a very shabby, ramshackle, and dingy office; but the long table +in it was new, oaken, and handsome. In fact, it was one of the repairs +introduced by the new management. + +"Here," said he, "is his first letter--the one that brought me from New +York." + +He took it from its envelope and laid it open on the table. A sense of +the pathos in this ready sharing of one's most intimate secrets with a +stranger took hold of Sharlee as she leaned forward to see what it might +say. + +"Be careful! Your feather thing is sticking my eye." + +Meekly the girl withdrew to a safer distance. From there she read with +amazement the six typewritten lines which was all that the letter proved +to be. They read thus: + + Your father asks that, if you have any of the natural feelings of a + son, you will at once leave New York and take up your residence in + this city. This is the first request he has ever made of you, as it + will be, if you refuse it, the last. But he earnestly begs that you + will comply with it, anticipating that it will be to your decided + advantage to do so. + +"The envelope that that came in," said Queed, briskly laying it down. +"Now here's the envelope that the twenty dollars came in--it is exactly +like the other two, you observe.--The last exhibit is somewhat +remarkable; it came yesterday. Read that." + +Sharlee required no urging. She read: + + Make friends; mingle with people, and learn to like them. This is + the earnest injunction of + + Your father. + +"Note especially," said the young man, "the initial Q on each of the +three envelopes. You will observe that the tail in every instance is +defective in just the same way." + +Sure enough, the tail of every Q was broken off short near the root, +like the rudimentary tail anatomists find in Genus Homo. Mr. Queed +looked at her with scholarly triumph. + +"I suppose that removes all doubt," said she, "that all these came from +the same person." + +"Unquestionably.--Well? What do they suggest to you?" + +A circle of light from the green-shaded desk-lamp beat down on the three +singular exhibits. Sharlee studied them with bewilderment mixed with +profound melancholy. + +"Is it conceivable," said she, hesitatingly--"I only suggest this +because the whole thing seems so extraordinary--that somebody is playing +a very foolish joke on you?" + +He stared. "Who on earth would wish to joke with me?" + +Of course he had her there. "I wish," she said, "that you would tell me +what you yourself think of them." + +"I think that my father must be very hard up for something to do." + +"Oh--I don't think I should speak of it in that way if I were you." + +"Why not? If he cites filial duty to me, why shall I not cite paternal +duty to him? Why should he confine his entire relations with me in +twenty-four years to two preposterous detective-story letters?" + +Sharlee said nothing. To tell the truth, she thought the behavior of +Queed Senior puzzling in the last degree. + +"You grasp the situation? He knows exactly where I am; evidently he has +known it all along. He could come to see me to-night; he could have come +as soon as I arrived here three months ago; he could have come five, +ten, twenty years ago, when I was in New York. But instead he elects to +write these curious letters, apparently seeking to make a mystery, and +throwing the burden of finding him on me. Why should I become excited +over the prospect? If he would promise to endow me now, to support or +pension me off, if I found him, that would be one thing. But I submit to +you that no man can be expected to interrupt a most important life-work +in consideration of a single twenty-dollar bill. And that is the only +proof of interest I ever had from him. No--" he broke off suddenly--"no, +that's hardly true after all. I suppose it was he who sent the money to +Tim." + +"To Tim?" + +"Tim Queed." + +Presently she gently prodded him. "And do you want to tell me who Tim +Queed is?" + +He eyed her thoughtfully. If the ground of his talk appeared somewhat +delicate, nothing could have been more matter-of-fact than the way he +tramped it. Yet now he palpably paused to ask himself whether it was +worth his while to go more into detail. Yes; clearly it was. If it ever +became necessary to ask the boarding-house agent to find his father for +him, she would have to know what the situation was, and now was the time +to make it plain to her once and for all. + +"He is the man I lived with till I was fourteen; one of my friends, a +policeman. For a long time I supposed, of course, that Tim was my +father, but when I was ten or twelve, he told me, first that I was an +orphan who had been left with him to bring up, and later on, that I had +a father somewhere who was not in a position to bring up children. That +was all he would ever say about it. I became a student while still a +little boy, having educated myself practically without instruction of +any sort, and when I was fourteen I left Tim because he married at that +time, and, with the quarreling and drinking that followed, the house +became unbearable. Tim then told me for the first time that he had, from +some source, funds equivalent to twenty-five dollars a month for my +board, and that he would allow me fifteen of that, keeping ten dollars a +month for his services as agent. You follow all this perfectly? So +matters went along for ten years, Tim bringing me the fifteen dollars +every month and coming frequently to see me in between, often bringing +along his brother Murphy, who is a yeggman. Last fall came this letter, +purporting to be from my father. Absurd as it appeared to me, I decided +to come. Tim said that, in that case, he would be compelled to cut off +the allowance entirely. Nevertheless, I came." + +Sharlee had listened to this autobiographical sketch with close and +sympathetic attention. "And now that you are here--and settled--haven't +you decided to do something--?" + +He leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at her. "Do something! +Haven't I done all that he asked? Haven't I given up fifteen dollars a +month for him? Decidedly, the next move is his." + +"But if you meant to take no steps when you got here, why did you come?" + +"To give him his chance, of course. One city is exactly like another to +me. All that I ask of any of them is a table and silence. Apart from the +forfeiture of my income, living here and living there are all one. Do! +You talk of it glibly enough, but what is there to do? There are no +Queeds in this city. I looked in the directory this morning. In all +probability that is not his name anyway. Kindly bear in mind that I have +not the smallest clue to proceed upon, even had I the time and +willingness to proceed upon it." + +"I am obliged to agree with you," she said, "in thinking that your--" + +"Besides," continued Doctor Queed, "what reason have I for thinking that +he expects or desires me to track him down? For all that he says here, +that may be the last thing in the world he wishes." + +Sharlee, turning toward him, her chin in her white-gloved hand, looked +at him earnestly. + +"Do you care to have me discuss it with you?" + +"Oh, yes, I have invited an expression of opinion from you." + +"Then I agree with you in thinking that your father is not treating you +fairly. His attitude toward you is extraordinary, to say the least of +it. But of course there must be some good reason for this. Has it +occurred to you that he may be in some--situation where it is not +possible for him to reveal himself to you?" + +"Such as what?" + +"Well, I don't know--" + +"Why doesn't he say so plainly in his letters then?" + +"I don't know." + +The young man threw out his hands with a gesture which inquired what in +the mischief she was talking about then. + +"Here is another thought," said Sharlee, not at all disconcerted. "Have +you considered that possibly he may be doing this way--as a test?" + +"Test of what?" + +"Of you. I mean that, wanting to--to have you with him now, he is taking +this way of finding out whether or not you want him. Don't you see what +I mean? He appeals here to the natural feelings of a son, and then again +he tells you to make friends and learn to like people. Evidently he is +expecting something of you--I don't know exactly what. But don't you +think, perhaps, that if you began a search for him, he would take it as +a sign--" + +"I told you that there was no way in which a search, as you call it, +could be begun. Nor, if there were, have I the smallest inclination to +begin it. Nor, again, if I had, could I possibly take the time from My +Book." + +She was silent a moment. "There is, of course, one way in which you +could find out at any moment." + +"Indeed! What is that, pray?" + +"Mr. Tim Queed." + +He smiled faintly but derisively. "Hardly. Of course Tim knows all about +it. He told me once that he was present at the wedding of my parents; +another time that my mother died when I was born. But he would add, and +will add, not a word to these confidences; not even to assure me +definitely that my father is still alive. He says that he has sworn an +oath of secrecy. I called on him before I left New York. No, no; I may +discover my father or he may discover me, or not, but we can rest +absolutely assured that I shall get no help from Tim." + +"But you can't mean simply to sit still--" + +"And leave matters to him. I do." + +"But--but," she still protested, "he is evidently unhappy Mr. +Queed--evidently counting on you for something--" + +"Then let him come out like a man and say plainly what he wants. I +cannot possibly drop my work to try to solve entirely superfluous +enigmas. Keep all this in mind--take an interest in it, will you?" he +added briskly. "Possibly I might need your help some day." + +"Certainly I will. I appreciate your telling me about it, and I'd be so +glad to help you in any way that I could." + +"How do you like my editorials?" he demanded abruptly. + +"I'm afraid I don't understand a line of them!" + +He waved his hand indulgently, like a grandfather receiving the just +tribute of his little ones. "They are for thinkers, experts," said he, +and picked up his pencil. + +The agent took the hint; pushed back her chair; her glove was unbuttoned +and she slowly fastened it. In her heart was a great compassion for the +little Doctor. + +"Mr. Queed, I want you to know that if I ever could be of help to you +about _anything_, I'd always think it a real pleasure. Please remember +that, won't you? Did you know I lived down this way, in the daytime?" + +"Lived?" + +She made a gesture toward the window, and away to the south and east. +"My office is only three blocks away, down there in the park--" + +"Your office? You don't work!" + +"Oh, don't I though!" + +"Why, I thought you were a _lady_!" + +They were so close together that she was compelled to laugh full in his +face, disclosing two rows of splendid little teeth and the tip of a rosy +little tongue. Probably she could have crushed him by another pointing +gesture, turned this time toward her honored great-grandfather who stood +in marble in the square; but what was the use? + +"What are you laughing at?" he inquired mildly. + +"At your definition of a lady. Where on earth did you get it? Out of +those laws of human society you write every night at my aunt's?" + +"No," said he, the careful scientist at once, "no, I admit, if you like, +that I used the term in a loose, popular sense. I would not seriously +contend that females of gentle birth and breeding--ladies in the +essential sense--are never engaged in gainful occupations--" + +"You shouldn't," she laughed, "not in this city at any rate. It might +astonish you to know how many females of gentle birth and breeding are +engaged in gainful occupations on this one block alone. It was not ever +thus with them. Once they had wealth and engaged in nothing but +delicious leisure. But in 1861 some men came down here, about six to +one, and took all this wealth away from them, at the same time +exterminating the males. Result: the females, ladies in the essential +sense, must either become gainful or starve. They have not starved. +Sociologically, it's interesting. Make Colonel Cowles tell you about it +some time." + +"He has told me about it. In fact he tells me constantly. And this work +that you do," he said, not unkindly and not without interest, "what is +it? Are you a teacher, perhaps, a ... no!--You speak of an office. You +are a clerk, doubtless, a bookkeeper, a stenographer, an office girl?" + +She nodded with exaggerated gravity. "You have guessed my secret. I am a +clerk, bookkeeper, stenographer, and office girl. My official title, of +course, is a little more frilly, but you describe--" + +"Well? What is it?" + +"They call it Assistant Secretary of the State Department of Charities." + +He looked astonished; she had no idea his face could take on so much +expression. + +"You! _You_! Why, how on earth did you get such a position?" + +"Pull," said Sharlee. + +Their eyes met, and she laughed him down. + +"Who is the real Secretary to whom you are assistant?" + +"The nicest man in the world. Mr. Dayne--Rev. George Dayne." + +"A parson! Does he know anything about his subject? Is he an expert?--a +trained relief worker? Does he know Willoughby? And Smathers? And +Conant?" + +"Knows them by heart. Quotes pages of them at a time in his letters +without ever glancing at the books." + +"And you?" + +"I may claim some familiarity with their theories." + +He fussed with his pencil. "I recall defining sociology for you one +night at my boarding-house...." + +"I remember." + +"Well," said he, determined to find something wrong, "those men whom I +mentioned to you are not so good as they think, particularly Smathers. I +may as well tell you that I shall show Smathers up completely in my +book." + +"We shall examine your arguments with care and attention. We leave no +stone unturned to keep abreast of the best modern thought." + +"It is extraordinary that such a position should be held by a girl like +you, who can have no scientific knowledge of the many complex +problems.... However," he said, a ray of brightness lightening his +displeasure, "your State is notoriously backward in this field. Your +department, I fancy, can hardly be more than rudimentary." + +"It will be much, much more than that in another year or two. Why, we're +only four years old!" + +"So this is why you are interested in having editorials written about +reformatories. It is a reformatory for women that you wish to +establish?" + +"How did you know?" + +"I merely argue from the fact that your State is so often held up to +reproach for lack of one. What is the plan?" + +"We are asking," said the Assistant Secretary, "for a hundred thousand +dollars--sixty thousand to buy the land and build, forty thousand for +equipment and two years' support. Modest enough, is it not? Of course we +shall not get a penny from the present legislature. Legislatures love to +say no; it dearly flatters their little vanity. We are giving them the +chance to say no now. Then when they meet again, two years from now, we +trust that they will be ready to give us what we ask--part of it, at any +rate. We can make a start with seventy-five thousand dollars." + +Queed was moved to magnanimity. "Look here. You have been civil to me--I +will write that article for you Myself." + +While Sharlee had become aware that the little Doctor was interested, +really interested, in talking social science with her, she thought he +must be crazy to offer such a contribution of his time. A guilty pink +stole into her cheek. A reformatory article by Mr. Queed would doubtless +be scientifically pluperfect, but nobody would read it. Colonel Cowles, +on the other hand, had never even heard of Willoughby and Smathers; but +when he wrote an article people read it, and the humblest understood +exactly what he was driving at. + +"Why--it's very nice of you to offer to help us, but I couldn't think of +imposing on your time--" + +"Naturally not," said he, decisively; "but it happens that we have +decided to allow a breathing-space in my series on taxation, that the +public may digest what I have already written. I am therefore free to +discuss other topics for a few days. For to-morrow's issue, I am +analyzing certain little understood industrial problems in Bavaria. On +the following day--" + +"It's awfully good of you to think of it," said Sharlee, embarrassed by +his grave gaze. "I can't tell you how I appreciate it. But--but--you +see, there's a lot of special detail that applies to this particular +case alone--oh, a great lot of it--little facts connected with peculiar +State conditions and--and the history of our department, you know--and I +have talked it over so thoroughly with the Colonel--" + +"Here is Colonel Cowles now." + +She breathed a sigh. Colonel Cowles, entering with the breath of winter +upon him, greeted her affectionately. Queed, rather relieved that his +too hasty offer had not been accepted, noted with vexation that his +conversation with the agent had cost him eighteen minutes of time. +Vigorously he readdressed himself to the currency problems of the +Bavarians; the girl's good-night, as applied to him, fell upon ears +deafer than any post. + +Sharlee walked home through the tingling twilight; fourteen blocks, and +she did them four times a day. It was a still evening, clear as a bell +and very cold; already stars were pushing through the dim velvet round; +all the world lay white with a light hard snow, crusted and sparkling +under the street lights. Her private fear about the whole matter was +that Queed Senior was a person of a criminal mode of life, who, +discovering the need of a young helper, was somehow preparing to sound +and size up his long-neglected son. + + + + +VII + + _In which an Assistant Editor, experiencing the Common Desire to + thrash a Proof-Reader, makes a Humiliating Discovery; and of how + Trainer Klinker gets a Pupil the Same Evening._ + + +The industrial problems of the Bavarians seemed an inoffensive thesis +enough, but who can evade Destiny? + +Queed never read his own articles when they appeared in print in the +_Post_. In this peculiarity he may be said to have resembled all the +rest of the world, with the exception of the Secretary of the Tax Reform +League, and the Assistant Secretary of the State Department of +Charities. But not by any such device, either, can a man elude his Fate. +On the day following his conversation with Mrs. Paynter's agent, Fortune +gave Queed to hear a portion of his article on the Bavarians read aloud, +and read with derisive laughter. + +The incident occurred on a street-car, which he had taken because of the +heavy snow-fall: another illustration of the tiny instruments with which +Providence works out its momentous designs. Had he not taken the car--he +was on the point of not taking it, when one whizzed invitingly up--he +would never have heard of the insult that the Post's linotype had put +upon him, and the course of his life might have been different. As it +was, two men on the next seat in front were reading the Post and making +merry. + +"... '_A lengthy procession of fleas harassed the diet._' Now what in +the name of Bob ..." + +Gradually the sentence worked its way into the closed fastness of the +young man's mind. It had a horrible familiarity, like a ghastly parody +on something known and dear. With a quick movement he leaned forward, +peering over the shoulder of the man who held the paper. + +The man looked around, surprised and annoyed by the strange face +breaking in so close to his own, but Queed paid no attention to him. Yes +... it was his article they were mocking at--HIS article. He remembered +the passage perfectly. He had written: "A lengthy procession of pleas +harassed the Diet." His trained eye swept rapidly down the half column +of print. There it was! "A procession of fleas." In _his_ article! +Fleas, unclean, odious vermin, in His Article! + +Relatively, Queed cared nothing about his work on the _Post_, but for +all the children of his brain, even the smallest and feeblest, he had a +peculiar tenderness. He was more jealous of them than a knight of his +honor, or a beauty of her complexion. No insult to his character could +have enraged him like a slight put upon the least of these his articles. +He sat back in his seat, feeling white, and something clicked inside his +head. He remembered having heard that click once before. It was the +night he determined to evolve the final theory of social progress, which +would wipe out all other theories as the steam locomotive had wiped out +the prairie schooner. + +He knew well enough what that click meant now. He had got a new purpose, +and that was to exact personal reparation from the criminal who had made +Him and His Work the butt of street-car loafers. Never, it seemed to +him, could he feel clean again until he had wiped off those fleas with +gore. + +To his grim inquiry Colonel Cowles replied that the head proof-reader, +Mr. Pat, was responsible for typographical errors, and Mr. Pat did not +"come on" till 6.30. It was now but 5.50. Queed sat down, wrote his next +day's article and handed it to the Colonel, who read the title and +coughed. + +"I shall require no article from you to-morrow or next day. On the +following day"--here the Colonel opened a drawer and consulted a +schedule--"I shall receive with pleasure your remarks on 'Fundamental +Principles of Distribution--Article Four.'" + +Queed ascended to the next floor, a noisy, discordant floor, full of +metal tables on castors, and long stone-topped tables not on castors, +and Mergenthaler machines, and slanting desk-like structures holding +fonts of type. Rough board partitions rose here and there; over +everything hung the deadly scent of acids from the engravers' room. + +"That's him now," said an ink-smeared lad, and nodded toward a tall, +gangling, mustachioed fellow in a black felt hat who had just come up +the stairs. + +Queed marched straight for the little cubbyhole where the proof-readers +and copy-holders sweated through their long nights. + +"You are Mr. Pat, head proof-reader of the _Post_?" + +"That's me, sor," said Mr. Pat, and he turned with rather a sharp glance +at the other's tone. + +"What excuse have you to offer for making my article ridiculous and me a +common butt?" + +"An' who the divil may you be, please?" + +"I am Mr. Queed, special editorial writer for this paper. Look at this." +He handed over the folded _Post_, with the typographical enormity +heavily underscored in blue. "What do you mean by falsifying my language +and putting into my mouth an absurd observation about the most loathsome +of vermin?" + +Mr. Pat was at once chagrined and incensed. He happened, further, to be +in most sensitive vein as regards little oversights in his department. +His professional pride was tortured with the recollection that, only +three days before, he had permitted the _Post_ to refer to old Major +Lamar as "that immortal veterinary," and upon the _Post's_ seeking to +retrieve itself the next day, at the Major's insistent demand, he had +fallen into another error. The hateful words had come out as "immoral +veteran." + +"Now look here!" said he, "there's nothing to be gained talking that +way. Ye've got me--I'll give ye that! But what do ye expect?--eighty +columns of type a night and niver a little harmless slip--?" + +"You must be taught to make no slips with my articles. I'm going to +punish you for that--" + +"What-a-at! Say that agin!" + +"Stand out here--I am going to give you a good thrashing. I shall whip +..." + +Another man would have laughed heartily and told the young man to trot +away while the trotting was good. He was nearly half a foot shorter than +Mr. Pat, and his face advertised his unmartial customs. But Mr. Pat had +the swift fierce passions of his race; and it became to him an +unendurable thing to be thus bearded by a little spectacled person in +his own den. He saw red; and out shot his good right arm. + +The little Doctor proved a good sailer, but bad at making a landing. His +course was arched, smooth, and graceful, but when he stopped, he did it +so bluntly that men working two stories below looked up to ask each +other who was dead. Typesetters left their machines and hurried up, +fearing that here was a case for ambulance or undertaker. But they saw +the fallen editor pick himself up, with a face of stupefied wonder, and +immediately start back toward the angry proof-reader. + +Mr. Pat lowered redly on his threshhold. "G'awn now! Get away!" + +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." + +Klinker laughed. "Look around you, Doc. Take a good gaze." + +Doc obeyed. Klinker picked up a "sneaker" from the floor and hurled it +with deadly precision at a weight-and-pulley across the room. + +"There's your medicine, Doc!" + +Orange-stick in mouth, he went around like a museum guide, introducing +the beloved apparatus to the visitor under its true names and uses, the +chest-weights, dumb-bells and Indian clubs, flying-rings, a +rowing-machine, the horizontal and parallel bars, the punching-bag and +trapeze. Klinker lingered over the ceremonial; it was plain that the +gymnasier was very dear to him. In fact, he loved everything pertaining +to bodily exercise and manly sport; he caressed a boxing-glove as he +never caressed a lady's hand; the smell of witch-hazel on a hard bare +limb was more titillating to him than any intoxicant. The introduction +over, Klinker sat down tenderly on the polished seat of the +rowing-machine, and addressed Doctor Queed, who stood with an academic +arm thrown gingerly over the horizontal bar. + +"There's your medicine, Doe. And if you don't take it--well, it may be +the long good-by for yours before the flowers bloom again." + +"How do you mean, Mr. Klinker--there is my medicine?" + +"I mean, you need half an hour to an hour's hardest kind of work right +here every day, reg'lar as meals." + +Queed started as though he had been stung. He cleared his throat +nervously. + +"No doubt that would be beneficial--in a sense, but I cannot afford to +take the time from My Book--" + +"That's where you got it dead wrong. You can't afford not to take the +time. Any doctor'll tell you the same as me, that you'll never finish +your book at all at the clip you're hitting now. You'll go with nervous +prostration, and it'll wipe you out like a fly. Why, Doc," said Klinker, +impressively, "you don't realize the kind of life you're leading--all +indoors and sedentary and working twenty hours a day. I come in pretty +late some nights, but I never come so late that there ain't a light +under your door. A man can't stand it, I tell you, playing both ends +against the middle that away. You got to pull up, or it's out the door +feet first for you." + +Queed said uneasily: "One important fact escapes you, Mr. Klinker. I +shall never let matters progress so far. When I feel my health giving +way--" + +"Needn't finish--heard it all before. They think they're going to stop +in time, but they never do. Old prostration catches 'em first every +crack. You think an hour a day exercise would be kind of a waste, ain't +that right? Kind of a dead loss off'n your book and studies?" + +"I certainly do feel--" + +"Well, you're wrong. Listen here. Don't you feel some days as if mebbe +you could do better writing and harder writing if only you didn't feel +so mean?" + +"Well ... I will frankly confess that sometimes--" + +"Didn't I know it! Do you know what, Doc? If you knocked out a little +time for reg'lar exercise, you'd find when bedtime came, that you'd done +better work than you ever did before." + +Queed was silent. He had the most logical mind in the world, and now at +last Klinker had produced an argument that appealed to his reason. + +"I'll put it to you as a promise," said Klinker, eyeing him earnestly. +"One hour a day exercise, and you do more work in twenty-four hours than +you're doing now, besides feelin' one hundred per cent better all the +time." + +Still Queed was silent. _One hour a day!_ + +"Try it for only a month," said Klinker the Tempter. + +"I'll help you--glad to do it--I need the drill myself. Gimme an hour a +day for just a month, and I'll bet you the drinks you wouldn't quit +after that for a hundred dollars." + +Queed turned away from Klinker's honest eyes, and wrestled the bitter +thing out. _Thirty Hours stolen from His Book!..._ Yesterday, even an +hour ago, he would not have considered such an outrage for a moment. But +now, driving him irresistibly toward the terrible idea, working upon him +far more powerfully than his knowledge of headache, even than Klinker's +promise of a net gain in his working ability, was this new irrationally +disturbing knowledge that he was a physical incompetent.... If he had +begun systematic exercise ten years ago, probably he could thrash Mr. +Pat to-day. + +Yet an hour a day is not pried out of a sacred schedule of work without +pains and anguish, and it was with a grim face that the Doc turned back +to William Klinker. + +"Very well, Mr. Klinker, I will agree to make the experiment, +tentatively--an hour a day for thirty days only." + +"Right for you, Doc! You'll never be sorry--take it from me." + +Klinker was a brisk, efficient young man. The old gang that had fitted +out the gymnasium had drifted away, and the thought of going once more +into regular training, with a pupil all his own, was breath to his +nostrils. He assumed charge of the ceded hour with skilled sureness. +Rain or shine, the Doctor was to take half an hour's hard walking in the +air every day, over and above the walk to the office. Every afternoon at +six--at which hour the managerial duties at Stark's terminated--he was +to report in the gym for half an hour's vigorous work on the apparatus. +This iron-clad regime was to go into effect on the morrow. + +"I'll look at you stripped," said Klinker, eyeing his new pupil +thoughtfully, "and see first what you need. Then I'll lay out a reg'lar +course for you--exercises for all parts of the body. Got any trunks?" + +Queed looked surprised. "I have one small one--a steamer trunk, as it is +called." + +Klinker explained what he meant, and the Doctor feared that his wardrobe +contained no such article. + +"Ne'mmind. I can fit you up with a pair. Left Hand Tom's they used to +be, him that died of the scarlet fever Thanksgiving. And say, Doc!" + +"Well?" + +"Here's the first thing I'll teach you. Never mister your +sparring-partner." + +The Doc thought this out, laboriously, and presently said: "Very well, +William." + +"Call me Buck, the same as all the boys." + +Klinker came toward him holding out an object made of red velveteen +about the size of a pocket handkerchief. + +"Put these where you can find them to-morrow. You can have 'em. Left +Hand Tom's gone where he don't need 'em any more." + +"What are they? What does one do with them?" + +"They're your trunks. You wear 'em." + +"Where? On--what portion, I mean?" + +"They're like little pants," said Klinker. + +The two men walked home together over the frozen streets. Queed was +taciturn and depressed. He was annoyed by Klinker's presence and +irritated by his conversation; he wanted nothing in the world so much as +to be let alone. But honest Buck Klinker remained unresponsive to his +mood. All the way to Mrs. Paynter's he told his new pupil grisly stories +of men he had known who had thought that they could work all day and all +night, and never take any exercise. Buck kindly offered to show the Doc +their graves. + + + + +VIII + + _Formal Invitation to Fifi to share Queed's Dining-Room (provided + it is very cold upstairs); and First Outrage upon the Sacred + Schedule of Hours._ + + +Queed supped in an impenetrable silence. The swelling rednesses both +above and below his left eye attracted the curious attention of the +boarders, but he ignored their glances, and even Klinker forbore to +address him. The meal done, he ascended to his sacred chamber, but not +alas, to remain. + +For a full week, the Scriptorium had been uninhabitable by night, the +hands of authors growing too numb there to write. On this night, +conditions were worse than ever; the usual valiant essay was defeated +with more than the usual case. Queed fared back to his dining-room, as +was now becoming his melancholy habit. And to-night the necessity was +exceptionally trying, for he found that the intrusive daughter of the +landlady had yet once again spread her mathematics there before him. + +Nor could Fifi this time claim misunderstanding and accident. She fully +expected the coming of Mr. Queed, and had been nervously awaiting it. +The state of mind thus induced was not in the least favorable to doing +algebra successfully or pleasurably. No amount of bodily comfort could +compensate Fifi for having to have it. But her mother had ruled the +situation to-night with a strong hand and a flat foot. The bedroom was +_entirely too cold_ for Fifi. She must, positively _must_, go down to +the warm and comfortable dining-room,--do you hear me, Fifi? As for Mr. +Queed--well, if he made himself objectionable, Sharlee would simply have +to give him another good talking to. + +Yet Fifi involuntarily cowered as she looked up and murmured: "Oh--good +evening!" + +Mr. Queed bowed. In the way of conveying displeasure, he had in all +probability the most expressive face in America. + +He passed around to his regular place, disposed his books and papers, +and placed his _Silence_ sign in a fairly conspicuous position. This +followed his usual custom. Yet his manner of making his arrangements +to-night wanted something of his ordinary aggressive confidence. In +fact, his promise to give an hour a day to exercise lay on his heart +like lead, and the lumps on his eye, large though they were, did not in +the least represent the dimensions of the fall he had received at the +hands of Mr. Pat. + +Fifi was looking a little more fragile than when we saw her last, a +little more thin-cheeked, a shade more ethereal-eyed. Her cough was +quite bad to-night, and this increased her nervousness. How could she +_help_ from disturbing him with that dry tickling going on right along +in her throat? It had been a trying day, when everything seemed to go +wrong from the beginning. She had waked up feeling very listless and +tired; had been late for school; had been kept in for Cicero. In the +afternoon she had been going to a tea given to her class at the school, +but her mother said her cold was too bad for her to go, and besides she +really felt too tired. She hadn't eaten any supper, and had been quite +cross with her mother in their talk about the dining-room, which was the +worst thing that had happened at all. And now at nine o'clock she wanted +to go to bed, but her algebra would not, _would not_ come right, and +life was horrible, and she was unfit to live it anyway, and she wished +she was ... + +"You are crying," stated a calm young voice across the table. + +Brought up with a cool round turn, greatly mortified, Fifi thought that +the best way to meet the emergency was just to say nothing. + +"What is the matter?" demanded the professorial tones. + +"Oh, nothing," she said, winking back the tears and trying to smile, +apologetically--"just silly reasons. I--I've spent an hour and ten +minutes on a problem here, and it won't come right. I'm--sorry I +disturbed you." + +There was a brief silence. Mr. Queed cleared his throat. + +"You cannot solve your problem?" + +"I haven't _yet_," she sniffed bravely, "but of course I will _soon_. +Oh, I understand it very well...." + +She kept her eyes stoutly fixed upon her book, which indicated that not +for worlds would she interrupt him further. Nevertheless she felt his +large spectacles upon her. And presently he astonished her by saying, +resignedly--doubtless he had decided that thus could the virginal calm +be most surely and swiftly restored:-- + +"Bring me your book. I will solve your problem." + +"Oh!" said Fifi, choking down a cough. And then, "Do you know all about +algebra, too?" + +It seemed that Mr. Queed in his younger days had once made quite a +specialty of mathematics, both lower, like Fifi's, and also far higher. +The child's polite demurs were firmly overridden. Soon she was +established in a chair at his side, the book open on the table between +them. + +"Indicate the problem," said Mr. Queed. + +Fifi indicated it: No. 71 of the collection of stickers known as +Miscellaneous Review. It read as follows: + + 71. A laborer having built 105 rods of stone fence, found that if + he had built 2 rods less a day he would have been 6 days longer in + completing the job. How many rods a day did he build? + +Queed read this through once and announced: "He built seven rods a day." + +Fifi stared. "Why--how in the world, Mr Queed--" + +"Let us see if I am right. Proceed. Read me what you have written down." + +"Let _x_ equal the number of rods he built each day," began Fifi +bravely. + +"Proceed." + +"Then _105_ divided by _x_ equals number of days consumed. And _105_ +divided by _x - 2_ equals number of days consumed, if he had built _2_ +rods less a day." + +"Of course." + +"And (_105_ ÷ _x - 2_) + _6_ = number of days consumed if it had taken +him six days longer." + +"Nothing of the sort." + +Fifi coughed. "I don't see why, exactly." + +"When the text says 'six days longer,' it means longer than what?" + +"Why--longer than ever." + +"Doubtless. But you must state it in terms of the problem." + +"In terms of the problem," murmured Fifi, her red-brown head bowed over +the bewildering book--"in terms of the problem." + +"Of course," said her teacher, "there is but one thing which longer can +mean; that is longer than the original rate of progress. Yet you add the +six to the time required under the new rate of progress." + +"I--I'm really afraid I don't quite see. I'm dreadfully stupid, I +know--" + +"Take it this way then. You have set down here two facts. One fact is +the number of days necessary under the old rate of progress; the other +is the number of days necessary under the new rate. Now what is the +difference between them?" + +"Why--isn't that just what I don't know?" + +"I can't say what you don't know. This is something that _I_ know very +well." + +"But you know everything," she murmured. + +Without seeking to deny this, Queed said: "It tells you right there in +the book." + +"I don't see it," said Fifi, nervously looking high and low, not only in +the book but all over the room. + +The young man fell back on the inductive method: "What is that six +then?" + +"Oh! _Now_ I see. It's the difference in the number of days +consumed--isn't it?" + +"Naturally. Now put down your equation. No, no! The greater the rate of +progress, the fewer the number of days. Do not attempt to subtract the +greater from the less." + +Now Fifi figured swimmingly:-- + + (105/(x-2)) - (105/x) = 6 + + 105x - 105x + 210 = 6x^2 - 12x + + 6x^2 - 12x - 210 = 0 + + 6x^2 - 12x - 210 = 0 + + x^2 - 2x - 35 = 0 + + (x - 7) (X + 5) = 0 + + x = 7 or -5 + +She smiled straight into his eyes, sweetly and fearlessly. "Seven! Just +what you said! Oh, if I could only do them like you! I'm ever and ever +so much obliged, Mr. Queed--and now I can go to bed." + +Mr. Queed avoided Fifi's smile; he obviously deliberated. + +"If you have any more of these terrible difficulties," he said slowly, +"it isn't necessary for you to sit there all evening and cry over them. +You ... may ask me to show you." + +"Oh, _could_ I really! Thank you ever so much. But no, I won't be here, +you see. I didn't mean to come to-night--truly, Mr. Queed--I know I +bother you _so_--only Mother made me." + +"Your mother made you? Why?" + +"Well--it's right cold upstairs, you know," said Fifi, gathering up her +books, "and she thought it might not be very good for my cough...." + +Queed glanced impatiently at the girl's delicate face. A frown deepened +on his brow; he cleared his throat with annoyance. + +"Oh, I am willing," he said testily, "for you to bring your work here +whenever it is very cold upstairs." + +"Oh, how good you are, Mr. Queed!" cried Fifi, staggered by his +nobility. "But of course I can't think of bothering--" + +"I should not have asked you," he interrupted her, irritably, "if I had +not been willing for you to come." + +But for all boarders, their comfort and convenience, Fifi had the great +respect which all of us feel for the source of our livelihood; and, +stammering grateful thanks, she again assured him that she could not +make such a nuisance of herself. However, of course Mr. Queed had his +way, as he always did. + +This point definitely settled, he picked up his pencil, which was his +way of saying, "And now, for heaven's sake--good-night!" But Fifi, her +heart much softened toward him, stood her ground, the pile of +school-books tucked under her arm. + +"Mr. Queed--I--wonder if you won't let me get something to put on your +forehead? That bruise is so dreadful--" + +"Oh, no! No! It's of no consequence whatever." + +"But I don't think you can have noticed how bad it is. Please let me, +Mr. Queed. Just a little dab of arnica or witch-hazel--" + +"My forehead does very well as it is, I assure you." + +Fifi turned reluctantly. "Indeed something on it would make it get well +so _much_ faster. I wish you would--" + +Ah! There was a thought. As long as he had this bruise people would be +bothering him about it. It was a world where a man couldn't even get a +black eye without a thousand busybodies commenting on it. + +"If you are certain that its healing will be hastened--" + +"Positive!" cried Fifi happily, and vanished without more speech. + +One Hour a Day to be given to Bodily Exercise.... How long, O Lord, how +long! + +Fifi returned directly with white cloths, scissors, and two large +bottles. + +"I won't take hardly a minute--you see! Listen, Mr. Queed. One of these +bottles heals fairly well and doesn't hurt at all worth mentioning. +That's witch-hazel. The other heals very well and fast, but +stings--well, a lot; and that's turpentine. Which will you take?" + +"The turpentine," said Mr. Queed in a martyr's voice. + +Fifi's hands were very deft. In less than no time, she made a little +lint pad, soaked it in the pungent turpentine, applied it to the +unsightly swelling, and bound it firmly to the young man's head with a +snowy band. In all of Mr. Queed's life, this was the first time that a +woman had ministered to him. To himself, he involuntarily confessed that +the touch of the girl's hands upon his forehead was not so annoying as +you might have expected. + +Fifi drew off and surveyed her work sympathetically yet professionally. +The effect of the white cloth riding aslant over the round glasses and +academic countenance was wonderfully rakish and devil-may-care. + +"Do you feel the sting much so far?" + +"A trifle," said the Doctor. + +"It works up fast to a kind of--climax, as I remember, and then slowly +dies away. The climax will be pretty bad--I'm so sorry! But when it's at +its worst just say to yourself, 'This is doing me lots and lots of +good,' and then you won't mind so much." + +"I will follow the directions," said he, squirming in his chair. + +"Thank you for letting me do it, and for the algebra, and--good-night." + +"Good-night." + +He immediately abandoned all pretense of working. To him it seemed that +the climax of the turpentine had come instantly; there was no more +working up about it than there was about a live red coal. The mordant +tooth bit into his blood; he rose and tramped the floor, muttering +savagely to himself. But he would not pluck the hateful thing off, no, +no--for that would have been an admission that he was wrong in putting +it on; and he was never wrong. + +So Bylash, reading one of Miss Jibby's works in the parlor, and pausing +for a drink of water at the end of a glorious chapter, found him +tramping and muttering. His flying look dared Bylash to address him, and +Bylash prudently took the dare. But he poured his drink slowly, stealing +curious glances and endeavoring to catch the drift of the little +Doctor's murmurings. + +In this attempt he utterly failed, because why? Obviously because the +Doctor cursed exclusively in the Greek and Latin languages. + +In five minutes, Queed was upon his work again. Not that the turpentine +was yet dying slowly away, as Fifi had predicted that it would. On the +contrary it burned like the fiery furnace of Shadrach and Abednego. But +_One Hour a Day to be given to Bodily Exercise!_... Oh, every second +must be made to count now, whether one's head was breaking into flame or +not. + +Whatever his faults or foibles, Mr. Queed was captain of his soul. But +the fates were against him to-night. In half an hour, when the +sting--they called this conflagration a sting!--was beginning to get +endurable and the pencil to move steadily, the door opened and in strode +Professor Nicolovius; he, it seemed, wanted matches. Why under heaven, +if a man wanted matches, couldn't he buy a thousand boxes and store them +in piles in his room? + +The old professor apologized blandly for his intrusion, but seemed in no +hurry to make the obvious reparation. He drew a match along the bottom +of the mantle-shelf, eyeing the back of the little Doctor's head as he +did so, and slowly lit a cigar. + +"I'm sorry to see that you've met with an accident, Mr. Queed. Is there +anything, perhaps, that I might do?" + +"Nothing at all, thanks," said Queed, so indignantly that Nicolovius +dropped the subject at once. + +The star-boarder of Mrs. Paynter's might have been fifty-five or he +might have been seventy, and his clothes had long been the secret envy +of Mr. Bylash. He leaned against the mantel at his ease, blowing blue +smoke. + +"You find this a fairly pleasant place to sit of an evening, I daresay!" +he purred, presently. + +The back of the young man's head was uncompromisingly stern. "I might as +well try to write in the middle of Centre Street." + +"So?" said Nicolovius, not catching his drift. "I should have thought +that--" + +"The interruptions," said Queed, "are constant." + +The old professor laughed. "Upon my word, I don't blame you for saying +that. The gross communism of a boarding-house ... it does gall one at +times! So far as I am concerned, I relieve you of it at once. +Good-night." + +The afternoon before Nicolovius had happened to walk part of the way +downtown with Mr. Queed, and had been favored with a fair amount of his +stately conversation. He shut the door now somewhat puzzled by the young +man's marked curtness; but then Nicolovius knew nothing about the +turpentine. + +The broken evening wore on, with progress slower than the laborer's in +Problem 71, when he decided to build two rods less a day. At eleven, +Miss Miller, who had been to the theatre, breezed in; she wanted a drink +of water. At 11.45--Queed's open watch kept accurate tally--there came +Trainer Klinker, who, having sought his pupil vainly in the Scriptorium, +retraced his steps to rout him out below. At sight of the tall bottle in +Klinker's hand Queed shrank, fearing that Fifi had sent him with a +second dose of turpentine. But the bottle turned out to contain merely a +rare unguent just obtained by Klinker from his friend Smithy, the +physical instructor at the Y.M.C.A., and deemed surprisingly effective +for the development of the academic bicep. + +At last there was blessed quiet, and he could write again. The city +slept; the last boarder was abed; the turpentine had become a peace out +of pain; only the ticking of the clock filtered into the perfect calm of +the dining-room. The little Doctor of Mrs. Paynter's stood face to face +with his love, embraced his heart's desire. He looked into the heart of +Science and she gave freely to her lord and master. Sprawled there over +the Turkey-red cloth, which was not unhaunted by the ghosts of dead +dinners, he became chastely and divinely happy. His mind floated away +into the empyrean; he saw visions of a far more perfect Society; dreamed +dreams of the ascending spiral whose law others had groped at, but he +would be the first to formulate; caught and fondled the secret of the +whole great Design; reduced it to a rule-of-thumb to do his bidding; +bestrode the whole world like a great Colossus.... + +From which flight he descended with a thud to observe that it was +quarter of two o'clock, and the dining-room was cold with the dying down +of the Latrobe, and the excellent reading-lamp in the death-throes of +going out. + +He went upstairs in the dark, annoyed with himself for having overstayed +his bedtime. Long experimentation had shown him that the minimum of +sleep he could get along with to advantage was six and one-half hours +nightly. This meant bed at 1.30 exactly, and he hardly varied it five +minutes in a year. To his marrow he was systematic; he was as definite +as an adding-machine, as practical as a cash register. But even now, on +this exceptional night, he did not go straight to bed. Something still +remained to be accomplished: an outrage upon his sacred Schedule. + +In the first halcyon days at Mrs. Paynter's, before the board question +ever came up at all, the iron-clad Schedule of Hours under which he was +composing his great work had stood like this: + + 8.20 Breakfast + 8.40 Evolutionary Sociology + 1.30 Dinner + 2 Evolutionary Sociology + 7 Supper + 7.20 to 1.30 Evolutionary Sociology + +But the course of true love never yet ran smooth, and this schedule was +too ideal to stand. First the _Post_ had come along and nicked a clean +hour out of it, and now his Body had unexpectedly risen and claimed yet +another hour. And, beyond even this ... some devilish whim had betrayed +him to-night into offering his time for the service and uses of the +landlady's daughter in the puling matter of algebra. + +No ... _no!_ He would not put that in. The girl could not be so selfish +as to take advantage of his over-generous impulse. She _must_ understand +that his time belonged to the ages and the race, not to the momentary +perplexities of a high school dunce.... At the worst it would be only +five minutes here and there--say ten minutes a week; forty minutes a +month. No, no! He would not put that in. + +But the hour of Bodily Exercise could not be so evaded. It must go in. +On land or sea there was no help for that. For thirty days henceforward +at the least--and a voice within him whispered that it would be for much +longer--his Schedule must stand like this: + + 8.20 Breakfast + 8.40 Evolutionary Sociology + 1.30 Dinner + 2 Evolutionary Sociology + 4.45 to 5.15 Open-Air Pedestrianism + 5.15 to 6.15 The _Post_ + 6.15 to 6.45 Klinker's Exercises for all Parts of the Body + 7 Supper + 7.20 Evolutionary Sociology + +Hand clasped in his hair, Queed stared long at this wreckage with a +sense of foreboding and utter despondency. Doubtless Mr. Pat, who was at +that moment peacefully pulling a pipe over his last galleys at the +_Post_ office, would have been astonished to learn what havoc his +accursed fleas had wrought with the just expectations of posterity. + + + + +IX + + _Of Charles Gardiner West, President-Elect of Blaines College, and + his Ladies Fair: all in Mr. West's Lighter Manner._ + + +The closing German of the Thursday Cotillon, hard upon the threshold of +a late Lent, was a dream of pure delight. Six of them in the heart of +every season since 1871, these Germans have become famous wherever the +light fantastic toe of aristocracy trips and eke is tripped. They are +the badge of quality, and the test of it, the sure scaling-rod by which +the frightened débutante may measure herself at last, to ask of her +mirror that night, with who can say what tremors: "_Am I a success?_" +Over these balls strangers go mad. They come from immense distances to +attend them, sometimes with superciliousness; are instantly captivated; +and returning to their homes, wherever they may be, sell out their +businesses for a song and move on, to get elected if they can, which +does not necessarily follow. + +Carriages, in stately procession, disembarked their precious freight; +the lift, laden with youth and beauty, shot up and down like a glorious +Jack-in-the-Box; over the corridors poured a stream of beautiful maidens +and handsome gentlemen, to separate for their several tiring-rooms, and +soon to remeet in the palm-decked vestibule. Within the great room, +couples were already dancing; Fetzy's Hungarians on a dais, concealed +behind a wild thicket of growing things, were sighing out a wonderful +waltz; rows of white-covered chairs stood expectantly on all four sides +of the room; and the chaperones, august and handsome, stood in a stately +line to receive and to welcome. And to them came in salutation Charles +Gardiner West and, beside him, the lady whom he honored with his hand +that evening, Miss Millicent Avery, late of Maunch Chunk, but now of +Ours. + +They made their devoirs to the dowagers; silently they chose their +seats, which he bound together with a handkerchief in a true lovers' +knot; and, Fetzy's continuing its heavenly work, he put his arm about +her without speech, and they floated away upon the rhythmic tide. + +At last her voice broke the golden silence: "I feel enormously happy +to-night. I don't know why." + +The observation might seem unnoteworthy to the casual, but it carried +them all around the room again. + +"Fortune is good to me," said he, as lightly as he could, "to let me be +with you when you feel like that." + +He had never seen her so handsome; the nearness of her beauty +intoxicated him; her voice was indolent, provocative. She was superbly +dressed in white, and on her rounded breast nodded his favor, a splendid +corsage of orchid and lily-of-the-valley. + +"Fortune?" she queried. "Don't you think that men bring these things to +pass for themselves?" + +They had made the circle on that, too, before West said: "I wonder if +you begin to understand what a power you have of bringing happiness to +me." + +He looked, and indeed, for the transient moment, he felt, like a man who +must have his answer, for better or worse, within the hour. She saw his +look, and her eyes fell before it, not wholly because she knew how to do +that to exactly the best advantage. Few persons would have mistaken Miss +Avery for a wholly inexperienced and unsophisticated girl. But how was +she to know that that same look had risen in the eyes of West, and that +same note, obviously sincere, broken suddenly into his pleasant voice, +for many, many of the fair? + +The music died in a splendid crash, and they threaded their way to their +seats, slowly and often stopped, across the crowded floor. Many eyes +followed them as they walked. She was still "new" to us; she was +beautiful; she was her own young lady, and something about her suggested +that she would be slightly unsafe for boys, the headstrong, and the +foolish; rumor made her colossally wealthy. As for him, he was the glass +of fashion and the mould of form, and much more than that besides. Of an +old name but a scanty fortune, he had won his place by his individual +merits; chiefly, perhaps, for so wags the world, by an exterior +singularly prepossessing and a manner that was a possession above +rubies. His were good looks of the best fashion of men's good looks; not +a tall man, he yet gave the effect of tallness, so perfect was his +carriage, so handsome his address. And he was as clever as charming; +cultured as the world knows culture; literary as the term goes; nor was +there any one who made a happier speech than he, whether in the forum or +around the festal board. Detractors, of course, he had--as which of +those who raise their heads above the dead level have not?--but they +usually contented themselves with saying, as Buck Klinker had once said, +that his manners were a little too good to be true. To most he seemed a +fine type of the young American of the modern South; a brave gentleman; +a true Democrat with all his honors; and, though he had not yet been +tested in any position of responsibility, a rising man who held the +future in his hand. + +They took their seats, and at last he freed himself from the unsteadying +embarrassment which had shaken him at the first sight of her under the +brilliant lights of the ballroom. + +"Two things have happened to make this seventh of March a memorable day +for me," said he. "Two great honors have come to me. They are both for +your ear alone." + +She flung upon him the masked battery of her eyes. They were +extraordinary eyes, gray and emerald, not large, but singularly long. He +looked fully into them, and she slowly smiled. + +"The other honor," said Charles Gardiner West, "is of a commoner kind. +They want to make me president of Blaines College." + +"Oh--really!" said Miss Avery, and paused. "And shall you let them do +it?" + +He nodded, suddenly thoughtful and serious. "Long before snow flies, +Semple & West will be Semple and Something else. They'll elect me in +June. I needn't say that no one must know of this now--but you." + +"Of course. It is a great honor," she said, with faint enthusiasm. "But +why are you giving up your business? Doesn't it interest you?" + +He made a large gesture. "Oh, it interests me.... But what does it all +come to, at the last? A man aspires to find some better use for his +abilities than dollar-baiting, don't you think?" + +Miss Avery privately thought not, though she certainly did not like his +choice of terms. + +"If a man became the greatest stock-jobber in the world, who would +remember him after he was gone? Miss Avery, I earnestly want to serve. +My deepest ambition is to leave some mark for the better upon my +environment, my city, and my State. I am baring my small dream for you +to look at, you see. Now this little college ..." + +But a daring youth by the name of Beverley Byrd bore Miss Avery away for +the figure which was just then forming, and the little college hung in +the air for the nonce. Mr. West was so fortunate as to secure the hand +of Miss Weyland for the figure, he having taken the precaution to ask +that privilege when he greeted her some minutes since. Couple behind +couple they formed, the length of the great room, and swung away on a +brilliant march. + +"It's going to be a delicious German--can't you tell by the _feel_?" +began Sharlee, doing the march with a _deux-temps_ step. "I'm so glad to +see you, for it seems ages since we met, though, you know, it was only +last week. Is not that a nice speech for greeting? Only I must tell you +that I've said it to four other men already, and the evening is yet +young." + +"Is there nothing in all the world that you can say, quite new and +special, for me?" + +"Oh, yes! For one thing your partner to-night is altogether the +loveliest thing I ever saw. And for another--" + +"I am listening." + +"For another, _her_ partner to-night is quite the nicest man in all this +big, big room." + +"And how many men have you said that to to-night, here in the youth of +the evening?" + +But the figure had reached that point where the paths of partners must +diverge for a space, and at this juncture Sharlee whirled away from him. +Around and up the room swept the long file of low-cut gowns and pretty +faces, and step for step across the floor moved a similar line of +swallow-tail and masculinity. At the head of the room the two lines +curved together again, round meeting round, and here, in good time, the +lovely billow bore on Sharlee, who slipped her little left hand into +West's expectant right with the sweetest air in the world. + +"Nobody but you, Charles Gardiner West," said she. + +The whistle blew; the music changed; and off they went upon the dreamy +valse. + +There are dancers in this world, and other dancers; but Sharlee was the +sort that old ladies stop and watch. Of her infinite poetry of motion it +is only necessary to say that she could make even "the Boston" look +graceful; as witness her now. In that large room, detectives could have +found men who thought Sharlee decidedly prettier than Miss Avery. Her +look was not languorous; her voice was not provocative; her eyes were +not narrow and tip-tilted; they did not look dangerous in the least, +unless you so regard all extreme pleasure derived from looking at +anything in the nature of eyes. Nor was there anything in the least +businesslike, official, or stenographic about her manner. If her head +bulged with facts about the treatment of the deficient classes, no hint +of that appeared in her talk at parties. Few of the young men she danced +with thought her clever, and this shows how clever she really was. For +there are men in this world who will run ten city blocks in any weather +to avoid talking to a woman who knows more than they do, and knows it, +and shows that she knows that she knows it. + +Charles Gardiner West looked down at Sharlee; and the music singing in +his blood, and the measure that they trod together, was all a part of +something splendid that belonged to them alone in the world. Another man +at such a moment would have contented himself with a pretty speech, but +West gave his sacred confidence. He told Sharlee about the presidency of +Blaines College. + +Sharlee did not have to ask what he would do with such an offer. She +recognized at sight the opportunity for service he had long sought; and +she so sincerely rejoiced and triumphed in it for him that his heart +grew very tender toward her, and he told her all his plans; how he meant +to make of Blaines College a great enlightened modern institution which +should turn out a growing army of brave young men for the upbuilding of +the city and the state. + +"They elect me the first of June. Of course I am supposed to know +nothing about it yet, and you must keep it as a great secret if you +please. I give up my business in April. The next month goes to my plans, +arranging and laying out a great advertising campaign for the September +opening. Early in June I shall sail for Europe, nominally for a little +rest, but really to study the school systems of the old world. The +middle of August will find me at my new desk, oh, so full of enthusiasms +and high hopes!" + +"It's splendid.... Oh, how fine!" pæaned she. + +Upon the damask wrapping of Sharlee's chair lay a great armful of red, +red roses, the gift of prodigal young Beverley Byrd, and far too large +to carry. She lifted them up; scented their fragrance; selected and +broke a perfect flower from its long stem; and held it out with a look. + +"The Assistant Secretary of the State Department of Charities presents +her humble duty to President West." + +"Ah! Then the president commands his minion to place it tenderly in his +buttonhole." + +"Look at the sea of faces ... lorgnettes, too. The minion _dassen't_." + +"Oh, that we two were Maying!" + +"You misread our announcement," said Beverley Byrd, romping up. "No +opening for young men here, Gardy! Butt out." + +West left her, his well-shaped head in something of a whirl. In another +minute he was off with Miss Avery upon a gallant two-step. + +Fetzy's played on; the dancers floated or hopped according to their +nature; and presently a waltz faded out and in a breath converted itself +into the march for supper, the same air always for I don't know how many +years. + +Miss Avery rose slowly from her seat, a handsome siren shaped, drilled, +fitted, polished from her birth for nothing else than the beguiling of +lordly man. From the heart of her beautiful bouquet she plucked a spray +of perfect lily-of-the-valley, and, eyes upon her own flowers, held it +out to West. + +"They are beautiful," she said in her languorous voice. "I hadn't +thanked you for them, had I? Wear this for me, will you not?" She looked +up and her long eyes fell--we need not assume for the first time--upon +the flower in his lapel. "I beg your pardon," she said, with the +slightest change of expression and voice. "I see that you are already +provided. Shall we not go up?" + +Laughing, he plucked a red, red rose from his buttonhole and jammed it +carelessly in his pocket. + +"Give it to me." + +"Why, it's of no consequence. Flowers quickly fade." + +"Won't you understand?... you maddening lady. I've known all these girls +since they were born. When they offer me flowers, shall I hurt their +feelings and refuse? Give it to me." + +She shook her head slowly. + +"Don't you know that I'll prize it--and why?" said he in a low voice. +"Give it to me." + +Their eyes met; hers fluttered down; but she raised them suddenly and +put the flower in his buttonhole, her face so close that he felt her +breath on his cheek. + +Beside him at supper, she took up the thread of their earlier talk. + +"If you must give up your business, why shouldn't it be for something +bigger than the college--public life for instance?" + +"I may say," West answered her, "that as yet there has not been that +sturdy demand from the public, that uproarious insistence from the +honest voter ..." + +"At dinner the other evening I met one of your fine old patriarchs, +Colonel Cowles. He told us that the new Mayor of this city, if he was at +all the right sort, would go from the City Hall to the Governorship. And +do you know who represents his idea of the right sort of Mayor?" + +West, picking at a bit of duck, said that he hadn't the least idea. + +"So modest--so modest! He said that the city needed a young progressive +man of the better class and the highest character, and that man +was--you. No other, by your leave! The Mayoralty, the Governorship, the +Senate waiting behind that, perhaps--who knows? Is it wise to bottle +one's self up in the blind alley of the college?" + +Thus Delilah: to which Samson replied that a modern college is by no +means a blind alley; that from the presidential retreat he would keep a +close eye upon the march of affairs, doubtless doing his share toward +moulding public opinion through contributions to the _Post_ and the +reviews; that, in fact, public life had long had an appeal for him, and +that if at any time a cry arose in the land for him to come forward ... + +"For a public career," said Delilah, with a sigh, "I should think you +had far rather be editor of the _Post_, for example, than head of this +college." + +Samson made an engaging reply that had to do with Colonel Cowles. The +talk ran off into other channels, but somehow Delilah's remark stuck in +the young man's head. + +Soul is not all that flows at the Thursday German, and it has frequently +been noticed that the dance becomes gayest after supper. But it +becomes, too, sadly brief, and _Home Sweet Home_ falls all too soon upon +the enthralled ear. Now began the movement toward that place, be it +never so humble, like which there is none; and amid the throng gathered +in the vestibule before the cloak-rooms, West again found himself face +to face with Miss Weyland with whom he had stepped many a measure that +evening. + +"I've been thinking about it lots, President West," said she; "it grows +better all the time. Won't you please teach all your boys to be very +good, and to work hard, and never to grow up to make trouble for the +State Department of Charities." + +She had on a carriage-robe of light blue, collared and edged with white +fur, and her arms were as full of red roses as arms could be. + +"But if I do that too well," said he, "what would become of you? Blaines +College shall never blot out the Department of Charities. I nearly +forgot a bit of news. Gloomy news. The _Post_ is going to fire your +little Doctor." + +"Ah--_no!_" + +"It looks that way. The directors will take it up definitely in April. +Colonel Cowles is going to recommend it. He says the Doc has more +learning than society requires." + +"But don't you think his articles give a--a tone to the paper--and--?" + +"I do; a sombre, awful, majestic tone, if you like, but still one that +ought to be worth something." + +Sharlee looked sad, and it was one of her best looks. + +"Ah, me! I don't know what will become of him if he is turned adrift. +Could you, _could_ you do anything?" + +"I can, and will," said he agreeably. "I think the man's valuable, and +you may count on it that I shall use my influence to have him kept." + +So the Star and the Planet again fought in their courses for Mr. Queed. +West, gazing down at her, overcoat on arm, looked like a Planet who +usually had his way. The Star, too, had strong inclinations in the same +direction. For example, she had noted at supper the lily-of-the-valley +in the Planet's buttonhole, and she had not been able to see any good +reason for that. + +Her eyes became dreamy. "How shall I say thank you?... I know. I must +give you one of my pretty flowers for your buttonhole." She began +pulling out one of the glorious roses, but suddenly checked herself and +gazed off pensively into space, a finger at her lip. "Ah! I thought this +gesture seemed strangely familiar, and now I remember. I gave him a +flower once before, and ah, look!... the president of the college has +tossed it away." + +West glanced hastily down at his buttonhole. The lily-of-the-valley was +gone; he had no idea where he had lost it, nor could he now stay to +inquire. The rose he took with tender carefulness from the upper pocket +of his waistcoat. + +"What did Mademoiselle expect?" said he, with a courtly bow. "The +president wears it over his heart." + +Sharlee's smile was a coronation for a man. + +"That one was for the president. This new one," said she, plucking it +out, "is for the director and--the man." + +This new one, after all, she put into his buttonhole with her own hands, +while he held her great bunch of them. As she turned away from the +dainty ceremony, her color faintly heightened, Sharlee looked straight +into the narrow eyes of Miss Avery, who, talking with a little knot of +men some distance away, had been watching her closely. The two girls +smiled and bowed to each other with extraordinary sweetness. + + + + +X + + _Of Fifi on Friendship, and who would be sorry if Queed died; of + Queed's Mad Impulse, sternly overcome; of his Indignant Call upon + Nicolovius, the Old Professor_. + + +Could I interrupt you for just a minute, Mr. Queed?" + +"No. It is not time yet." + +"Cicero's so horrid to-night." + +"Don't scatter your difficulties, as I've told you before. Gather them +all together and have them ready to present to me at the proper time. I +shall make the usual pause," said Mr. Queed, "at nine sharp." + +Fifi, after all, had been selfish enough to take the little Doctor at +his word. He had both given her the freedom of his dining-room and +ordered her to bring her difficulties to him, instead of sitting there +and noisily crying over them. And she had done his bidding, night after +night. For his part he had stuck manfully by his moment of reckless +generosity, no matter how much he may have regretted it. He helped Fifi, +upon her request, without spoken protest or censure. But he insisted on +doing it after an iron-clad schedule: Absolute silence until nine +o'clock; then an interlude for the solving of difficulties; absolute +silence after that; then at 9.45 a second interlude for the solving of +the last difficulties of the night. The old rule of the dining-room, the +_Silence_ sign, had been necessarily suspended, but the young man +enforced his schedule of hours far more strictly than the average +railroad. + +"Nine o'clock," he announced presently. "Bring me your difficulties." + +Fifi's brain was at low ebb to-night. She came around with several +books, and he jabbed his pencil at her open Cicero with some contempt. + +"You have a fundamental lack of acquaintance with Latin grammar, +Miss--Miss Fifi. You badly need--" + +"Why don't you call me Fifi, Mr. Queed? That's what all my friends call +me." + +He stared at her startled; she thought his eyes looked almost terrified. +"My dear young lady! _I'm_ not your friend." + +A rare color sprang into Fifi's pallid cheeks: "I--I thought you liked +me--from your being so good about helping me with my lessons--and +everything." + +Queed cleared his throat. "I do like you--in a way. Yes--in that way--I +like you very well. I will call you F--Fifi, if you wish. But--friends! +Oh, no! They take up more time than such a man as I can afford." + +"I don't think I would take up one bit more time as your friend than I +do now," said Fifi, in a plaintive voice. + +Queed, uncomfortably aware of the flying minutes, felt like saying that +that was impossible. + +"Oh, I know what I'm talking about, I assure you," said the possessor of +two friends in New York. "I have threshed the whole question out in a +practical way." + +"Suppose," said Fifi, "your book came out and you were very famous, but +all alone in the world, without a friend. And you died and there was not +one single person to cry and miss you--would you think that was a--a +successful life?" + +"Oh, I suppose so! Yes, yes!" + +"But don't--don't you want to have people like you and be your friend?" + +"My dear young lady, it is not a question of what I want. I was not put +here in the world to frivol through a life of gross pleasure. I have +serious work to do in the service of humankind, and I can do it only by +rigid concentration and ruthless elimination of the unessential. Surely +you can grasp that?" + +"But--if you died to-morrow," said Fifi, fearfully fascinated by this +aspect of the young man's majestic isolation,--"don't you know of +anybody who'd be really and truly sorry?" + +"Really, I've never thought of it, but doubtless my two friends in New +York would be sorry after their fashion. They, I believe, are all." + +"No they aren't! There's somebody else!" + +Queed supposed she was going to say God, but he dutifully inquired, +"Who?" + +Fifi looked decidedly disappointed. "I thought you knew," she said, +gazing at him with childlike directness. "Me." + +Queed's eyes fell. There was a brief silence. The young man became aware +of a curious sensation in his chest which he did not understand in the +least, but which he was not prepared to describe as objectionable. To +pass over it, and to bring the conversation to an immediate close, he +rapped the open book austerely with his pencil. + +"We must proceed with the difficulties. Let me hear you try the passage. +Come! _Quam ob rem, Quirites_...." + +The nine o'clock difficulties proceeded with, and duly cleared up, Fifi +did not stay for the second, or 9.45, interlude. She closed _M.T. +Ciceronis Orationes Selectæ_, gathered together her other paraphernalia, +and then she said suddenly:-- + +"I may leave school next week, Mr. Queed. I--don't think I'm going to +graduate." + +He looked up, surprised and displeased. "Why on earth do you think +that?" + +"Well, you see, they don't think I'm strong enough to keep up the work +right now. The Doctor was here to-day, and that's what he says. It's +silly, I think--I know I am." + +Queed was playing the devil's tattoo with his pencil, scowling somewhat +nervously. "Did you want to graduate particularly?" + +A look of exquisite wistfulness swept the child's face, and was gone. +"Yes, I wanted to--lots. But I won't mind so much after I've had time +to get used to it. You know the way people are." + +There was a silence, during which the young man wrestled with the sudden +mad idea of offering to help Fifi with all her lessons each night--not +merely with the difficulties--thus enabling her to keep up with her +class with a minimum of work. Where such an impulse came from he could +not conjecture. He put it down with a stern hand. Personally, he felt, +he might be almost willing to make this splendid display of altruism; +but for the sake of posterity and the common good, he could not dream of +stealing so much time from the Magnum Opus. + +"Well!" he said rather testily. "That is too bad." + +"I know you'll be glad not to have me bothering you any more with my +lessons, and all." + +"I will not say that." + +He looked at Fifi closely, examined her face in a searching, personal +manner, which he had probably never before employed in reviewing a human +countenance. + +"You don't look well--no, not in the least. You are not well. You are a +sick girl, and you ought to be in bed at this moment." + +Fifi colored with pleasure. "No," she said, "I am not well." + +Indeed Fifi was not well. Her cheek spoke of the three pounds she had +lost since he had first helped her with her difficulties, and the eleven +pounds before that. The hand upon the Turkey-red cloth was of such +transparent thinness that you were sure you could see the lamplight +shining through. Her eyes were startling, they were so full of +other-worldly sweetness and so ringed beneath with shadows. + +"And if I stopped coming down here to work nights," queried Fifi +shamelessly, "would you--miss me?" + +"Miss you?" + +"You wouldn't--you wouldn't! You'd only be glad not to have me around--" + +"I can truthfully say," said the little Doctor, glancing at his watch, +"that I am sorry you are prevented from graduating." + +Fifi retired in a fit of coughing. She and her cough had played fast and +loose with Queed's great work that evening, and, moreover, it took him a +minute and a half to get her out of his mind after she had gone. Not +long afterwards, he discovered that the yellow sheet he wrote upon was +the last of his pad. That meant that he must count out time to go +upstairs and get another one. + +Count out time! Why, that was what his whole life had come down to now! +What was it but a steady counting out of ever more and more time? + +The thirty days of hours ceded to Klinker were up, and instead of at +once bringing the prodigal experiment to a close, Doctor Queed found +himself terribly tempted to listen to his trainer's entreaties and +extend by fifty per centum the time allotted to the gymnasium and +open-air pedestrianism. He could not avoid the knowledge that he felt +decidedly better since he had begun the exercises, especially during +these last few days. For a week "the" headache and he had been +strangers. Much more important, he was conscious of bringing to his +work, not indeed a livelier interest, for that would have been +impossible, but an increasing vitality and an enlarged capacity. He kept +the most careful sort of tabs upon himself, and his records seemed to +show, at least for the past week or two, that his net volume of work had +not been seriously lowered by the hour per day wrung from the Schedule. +The exercises, then, seemed to be paying their own freight. And besides +all this, they were clearly little mile-stones on the path which led men +to physical competency and the ability to protect their articles from +public affront. + +Still, an hour out was an hour out--three hundred and sixty-five hours a +year--three months' delay in finishing his book. Making allowance for +increased productivity, a month and a half's delay. And that was only a +beginning. The _Post_--Klinker's Exercises for All Parts of the +Body--Klinker himself, who called frequently--now Fifi (eighteen minutes +this very evening)--who could say where the mad dissipation would end? +On some uncharted isle in the far South Seas, perchance, a man might be +let alone to do his work. But in this boarding-house, it was clear now, +the effort was foredoomed and hopeless. Once make the smallest +concession to the infernal ubiquity of the race, once let the topmost +bar of your gate down never so little, and the whole accursed public +descended with a whoop to romp all over the premises. What, oh, what was +the use of trying?... + +"Ah, Mr. Queed--well met! Won't you stop in and see me a little while? +You're enormously busy, I know--but possibly I can find something to +interest you in my poor little collection of books." + +Nicolovius, coming up the stairs, had met Queed coming down, pad in +hand. The impertinence of the old professor's invitation fitted superbly +with the bitterness of the little Doctor's humor. It pressed the +martyr's crown upon his brow till the perfectness of his grudge against +a hateful world lacked nor jot nor tittle. + +"Oh, certainly! Certainly!" he replied, with the utmost indignation. + +Nicolovius, bowing courteously, pushed open the door. + +It was known in the boarding-house that the remodeling of the Second +Hall Back into a private bathroom for Nicolovius had been done at his +own expense, and rumor had it that for his two rooms--his "suite," as +Mrs. Paynter called it--he paid down the sum of eighteen dollars weekly. +The bed-sitting-room into which he now ushered his guest was the +prettiest room ever seen by Mr. Queed, who had seen few pretty rooms in +his life. Certainly it was a charming room of a usual enough type: +lamp-lit and soft-carpeted; brass fittings about the fireplace where a +coal fire glowed; a large red reading-table with the customary litter of +books and periodicals; comfortable chairs to sit in; two uncommonly +pretty mahogany bookcases with quaint leaded windows. The crude central +identity about all bedrooms that had hitherto come within Queed's ken, +to wit, the bed, seemed in this remarkable room to be wanting +altogether. For how was he, with his practical inexperience, to know +that the handsome leather lounge in the bay-window had its in'ards +crammed full of sheets, and blankets, and hinges and collapsible legs? + +The young man gravitated instinctively toward the bookcases. His expert +eye swept over the titles, and his gloom lightened a little. + +"You have some fair light reading here, I see," he said, plucking out a +richly bound volume of Lecky's _History of European Morals_. + +Nicolovius, who was observing him closely, smiled to himself. "Ah, yes. +I'm the merest dilettante, without your happiness of being a specialist +of authority." + +The old professor was a tall man, though somewhat stooped and shrunken, +and his head was as bare of hair as the palm of your hand; which of +course was why he wore the black silk skull cap about the house. On the +contrary his mustaches were singularly long and luxuriant, they, and the +short, smart goatee, being of a peculiar deep auburn shade. His eyes +were dark, brilliant, and slightly sardonic; there were yellow pouches +under them and deep transverse furrows on his forehead; his nose, once +powerfully aquiline, appeared to have been broken cleanly across the +middle. Taken all in all, he was a figure to be noticed in any company. + +He came forward on his rubber heels and stood at his guest's elbow. + +"Your field is science, I believe? This Spencer was bound for me years +ago, by a clever devil in Pittsburg, of all places; Huxley, too. My +Darwin is hit and miss. Mill is here; Hume; the American John Fiske. By +chance I have _The Wealth of Nations_. Here is a fine old book, Sir +Henry Maine's _Ancient Law_. You know it, of course?" + +"All--all! I know them all," murmured the little Doctor, standing with +two books under his arm and plucking out a third. "I look back sometimes +and stand amazed at the immensity of my reading. Benjamin Kidd--ha! He +won't be in so many libraries when I get through with him. You are +rather strong on political economy, I see. Alfred Marshall does very +well. Nothing much in philosophy. The _Contrat Social_--absurd." + +"Do you care for these?" asked Nicolovius, pointing to a row of +well-worn works of Bible criticism. "Of course the Germans are far in +the lead in this field, and I am unhappily compelled to rely on +translations. Still I have--" + +"Here! Look here! I must have this! I must take this book from you!" +interrupted Queed, rather excitedly dragging a fat blue volume from a +lower shelf. "Crozier's _Civilization and Progress_. What a find! I need +it badly. I'll just take it with me now, shall I not? Eh?" + +"I shall be only too happy to have you take it," said Nicolovius, +blandly, "and as many others as you care for." + +"I'll have another look and see," said Queed. "My copy of Crozier +disappeared some time before I left New York, and so far I have been +unable to replace it. I am showing him up completely.... Why, this is +singular--extraordinary! There's not a history among all these +books--not a volume!" + +Nicolovius's expression oddly changed; his whole face seemed to tighten. +"No," he said slowly, "I have some reason to dislike history." + +The young man straightened sharply, horrified. "Why don't you say at +once that you hate Life--Man--the Evolution of the Race--and be done +with it?" + +"Would that seem so dreadful to you?" The old man's face wore a sad +smile. "I might say even that, I fear. Try one of those chairs by the +fire. I shall not mind telling you how I came by this feeling. You don't +smoke, I believe! You miss a good deal, but since you don't know it, how +does it matter?" + +Nicolovius's haughty aloofness, his rigid uncommunicativeness, his +grand ducal bearing and the fact that he paid eighteen dollars a week +for a suite had of course made him a man of mark and mystery in the +boarding-house, and in the romancings of Miss Miller he had figured as +nearly everything from a fugitive crown prince to a retired +counterfeiter. However, Queed positively refused to be drawn away from +the book-shelves to listen to his story, and the old professor was +compelled to turn away from the fire and to talk, at that, to the back +of the young man's head. + +Nicolovius, so he told Queed, was not an American at all, but an +Irishman, born at Roscommon, Connaught. His grandfather was a German, +whence he got his name. But the lad grew up in the image of his mother's +people. He became an intense patriot even for Ireland, an extremist +among extremists, a notorious firebrand in a land where no wood glows +dully. Equipped with a good education and natural parts, he had become a +passionate leader in the "Young Ireland" movement; was a storm-centre +all during the Home Rule agitations; and suddenly outgrew Ireland +overnight during the "Parnellism and Crime" era. He got away to the +coast, disguised as a coster, and once had the pleasure of giving a lift +in his cart to the search-party who wanted him, dead or alive. This was +in the year 1882. + +"You were mixed up in the Phoenix Park murders, I daresay?" interjected +Queed, in his matter-of-fact way. + +"You will excuse my preference for a certain indefiniteness," said +Nicolovius, with great sweetness. + +On this side, he had drifted accidentally into school-teaching, as a +means of livelihood, and stuck at it, in New York, St. Paul, and, for +many years, in Chicago. The need of a warmer climate for his health's +sake, he said, had driven him South, and some three years before an +appointment at Milner's Collegiate School had brought him to the city +which he and the young man now alike called their own. + +Queed, still sacking the shelves for another find, asked if he had never +revisited Ireland. + +"Ah, no," said Nicolovius, "there was no gracious pardon for my little +peccadillo, no statute of limitations to run after me and pat me on the +head. I love England best with the sea between us. You may fancy that a +refugee Irishman has no fondness for reading history." + +He flicked the fire-ash from his cigar and looked at Queed. All the time +he talked he had been watching the young man, studying him, conning him +over.... + +"My life ended when I was scarcely older than you. I have been dead +while I was alive.... God pity you, young man, if you ever taste the +bitter misery of that!" + +Queed turned around surprised at the sudden fierceness of the other's +tone. Nicolovius instantly sprang up and went over to poke the fire; he +came back directly, smiling easily and pulling at his long cigar. + +"Ah, well! Forgive the saddening reminiscences of an old man--not a +common weakness with me, I assure you. May I say, Mr. Queed, how much +your intellect, your culture, your admirable--ah--poise--amazing they +seem to me in so young a man--have appealed to me among a population of +Brookes, Bylashes, and Klinkers? You are the first man in many a day +that has inspired me with an impulse toward friendship and confidence. +It would be a real kindness if you'd come in sometimes of an evening." + +At the word "friendship" the young man flinched uncontrollably. Was the +whole diabolical world in league to spring out and make friends with +him? + +"Unfortunately," he said, with his iciest bow, "my time is entirely +engrossed by my work." + +But as his eye went round the pretty, dim-lit room, he could not help +contrasting it with the bleak Scriptorium above, and he added with a +change of tone and a sigh:-- + +"You appear wonderfully comfortable here." + +Nicolovius shrugged. "So-so," he said indifferently. "However, I shall +make a move before long." + +"Indeed?" + +"I want more space and independence, more quiet--surcease from meeting +fellow-boarders at every step. I plan to move into an apartment, or +perhaps a modest little house, if I can manage it. For I am not rich, +unhappily, though I believe the boarders think I am, because I make Emma +a present of a dollar each year at the anniversary of the birth of our +Lord." + +Queed ignored his little pleasantry. He was struck with the fact that +Nicolovius had described exactly the sort of living arrangement that he +himself most earnestly desired. + +"I should have made the move last year," continued Nicolovius, pulling +at his auburn mustaches, "except that--well, I am more sensitive to my +loneliness as I grow older, and the fact was that I lacked a congenial +companion to share a pleasanter home with." + +The eyes of the two men met, and they moved away from each other as by +common consent. Apparently the same thought popped simultaneously into +both their minds. Queed dallied with his thought, frankly and with the +purest unaltruism. + +Though this was the first time he had ever been in the old professor's +pretty room, it was the third or fourth time he had been invited there. +Nothing could be clearer than that Nicolovius liked him +enormously,--where on earth did he get his fatal gift for attracting +people?--nothing than that he was exactly the sort of congenial +companion the old man desired. Why shouldn't he go and live with +Nicolovius in his new home, the home of perfect quiet and immunity from +boarders? And unbroken leisure, too, for of course Nicolovius would bear +all expenses, and he himself would fly from all remunerative work as +from the Black Death. Nay more, the old chap would very likely be +willing to pay him a salary for his society, or at least, see that he +was kept well supplied with everything he needed--books to demolish like +this one under his arm, and ... + +He looked up and found the sardonic Italian eyes of the old professor +fixed on him with a most curious expression.... No, no! Better even Mrs. +Paynter's than solitude shared with this stagey old man, with his +repellent face and his purring voice which his eyes so belied. + +"I must be going," said Queed hastily. + +His host came forward with suave expressions of regret. "However, I feel +much complimented that you came at all. Pray honor me again very soon--" + +"I'll return this book sometime," continued the young man, already at +the door. "You won't mind if I mark it, of course?" + +"My dear sir--most certainly not. Indeed I hoped that you would consent +to accept it for your own, as a--" + +"No, I'll return it. I daresay you will find," he added with a faint +smile, but his grossest one, "that my notes have not lessened its value +exactly!" + +In the hall Queed looked at his watch; ten minutes to ten. _Twenty-five +minutes to his visit upon the old professor!_ + +However, let us be calm and just about it. The twenty-five minutes was +not a flat loss: he had got Crozier by it. Crozier was worth twenty-five +minutes; thirty-five, if it came to that--fifty!... But how to fit such +a thing as this into the Schedule--and Klinker's visits--and the time he +had given to Fifi to-night and very likely would have to give through an +endless chain of to-morrows? Here was the burning crux. Was it endurable +that the Schedule must be corrupted yet again? + +So far as little Fifi was concerned, it turned out that these agonies +were superfluous; he had helped her with her lessons for the last time. +She did not appear in the dining-room the next night, or the next, or +the next. Inquiries from the boarders drew from Mrs. Paynter the +information that the child's cough had pulled her down so that she had +been remanded to bed for a day or two to rest up. But resting up +appeared not to prove so simple a process as had been anticipated, and +the day or two was soon running into weeks. + +Halcyon nights Queed enjoyed in the dining-room in Fifi's absence, yet +faintly marred in a most singular way by the very absence which alone +made them halcyon. It is a fact that you cannot give to any person +fifteen minutes of valuable time every night, and not have your +consciousness somewhat involved in that person's abrupt disappearance +from your horizon. Messages from Fifi on matters of most trivial import +came to Queed occasionally, and these served to keep alive his subtle +awareness of her absence. But he never took any notice of the messages, +not even of the one which said that he could look in and see her some +afternoon if he wanted to. + + + + +XI + + _Concerning a Plan to make a Small Gift to a Fellow-Boarder, and + what it led to in the Way of Calls; also touching upon Mr. Queed's + Dismissal from the Post, and the Generous Resolve of the Young + Lady, Charles Weyland._ + + +The State Department of Charities was a rudimentary affair in those +days, just as Queed had said. Its appropriation was impossibly meager, +even with the niggard's increase just wrung from the legislature. The +whole Department fitted cozily into a single room in the Capitol; it was +small as a South American army, this Department, consisting, indeed, of +but the two generals. But the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary +worked together like a team of horses. They had already done wonders, +and their hopes were high with still more wonders to perform. In +especial there was the reformatory. The legislature had adjourned +without paying any attention to the reformatory, exactly as it had been +meant to do. But a bill had been introduced, at all events, and the +_Post_ had carried a second editorial, expounding and urging the plan; +several papers in the smaller cities of the State had followed the +_Post's_ lead; and thus the issue had been fairly launched, with the +ground well broken for a successful campaign two years later. + +The office of the Department was a ship-shape place, with its two desks, +a big one and a little one; the typewriter table; the rows and rows of +letter-files on shelves; a sectional bookcase containing Charities +reports from other States, with two shelves reserved for authoritative +books by such writers as Willoughby, Smathers, and Conant. Here, +doubtless, would some day stand the colossal work of Queed. At the big +desk sat the Rev. Mr. Dayne, a practical idealist of no common sort, a +kind-faced man with a crisp brown mustache. At the typewriter-table sat +Sharlee Weyland, writing firm letters to thirty-one county almshouse +keepers. It was hard upon noon. Sharlee looked tired and sad about the +eyes. She had not been to supper at Mrs. Paynter's for months, but she +went there nearly every afternoon from the office to see Fifi, who had +been in bed for four weeks. + +The Department door opened, with no premonitory knock, and in walked, of +all people, Mr. Queed. + +Sharlee came forward very cordially to greet the visitor, and at once +presented him to the Secretary. However Queed dismissed Mr. Dayne very +easily, and gazing at Sharlee sharply through his spectacles, said: + +"I should like to speak to you in private a moment." + +"Certainly," said Sharlee. + +"I'll step into the hall," said kind-faced Mr. Dayne. + +"No, no. Indeed you mustn't. We will." + +Sharlee faced the young man in the sunlit hail with sympathetic +expectancy and some curiosity in her eyes. + +"There is," he began without preliminaries, "a girl at the house where I +board, who has been confined to her bed with sickness for some weeks. It +appears that she has grown thin and weak, so that they will not permit +her to graduate at her school. This involves a considerable +disappointment to her." + +"You are speaking of Fifi," said Sharlee, gently. + +"That is the girl's name, if it is of any interest to you--" + +"You know she is my first cousin." + +"Possibly so," he replied, as though to say that no one had the smallest +right to hold him responsible for that. "In this connection, a small +point has arisen upon which advice is required, the advice of a woman. +You happen to be the only other girl I know. This," said Queed, "is why +I have called." + +Sharlee felt flattered. "You are most welcome to my advice, Mr. Queed." + +He frowned at her through glasses that looked as big and as round as +butter-saucers, with an expression in which impatience contended with +faint embarrassment. + +"As her fellow-lodger," he resumed, precisely, "I have been in the habit +of assisting this girl with her studies and have thus come to take an +interest in her--a small interest. During her sickness, it seems, many +of the boarders have been in to call upon her. In a similar way, she has +sent me several messages inviting me to call, but I have not been in +position to accept any of these invitations. It does not follow that, +because I gave some of my time in the past to assisting her with her +lessons, I can afford to give more of it now for purposes of--of mere +sociability. I make the situation clear to you?" + +Sharlee, to whom Fifi had long since made the situation clear, puckered +her brow like one carefully rehearsing the several facts. "Yes, I +believe that is all perfectly clear, Mr. Queed." + +He hesitated visibly; then his lips tightened and, gazing at her with a +touch of something like defiance, he said: "On the other hand, I do not +wish this girl to think that I bear her ill-will for the time I have +given her in the past. I--ahem--have therefore concluded to make her a +present, a small gift." + +Sharlee stood looking at him without a reply. + +"Well?" said he, annoyed. "I am not certain what form this small gift +had best take." + +She turned away from him and walked to the end of the hall, where the +window was. To Queed's great perplexity, she stood there looking out for +some time, her back toward him. Soon it came into his mind that she +meant to indicate that their interview was over, and this attitude +seemed extremely strange to him. He could not understand it at all. + +"I fear that you have failed to follow me, after all," he called after +her, presently. "This was the point--as to what form the gift should +take--upon which I wanted a woman's advice." + +"I understand." She came back to him slowly, with bright eyes. "I know +it would please Fifi very much to have a gift from you. Had you thought +at all, yourself, what you would like to give?" + +"Yes," he said, frowning vaguely, "I examined the shop windows as I came +down and pretty well decided on something. Then at the last minute I was +not altogether sure." + +"Yes? Tell me what." + +"I thought I would give her a pair of silk mitts." + +Sharlee's eyes never left his, and her face was very sweet and grave. + +"White silk ones," said he--"or black either, for that matter, for the +price is the same." + +"Well," said she, "why did you select mitts, specially?" + +"What first attracted me to them," he said simply, "was that they came +to precisely the sum I had planned to spend: seventy-five cents." + +The little corrugation in Sharlee's brow showed how carefully she was +thinking over the young man's suggestion from all possible points of +view. You could easily follow her thought by her speaking sequence of +expressions. Clearly it ran like this: "Mitts--splendid! Just the gift +for a girl who's sick in bed. The one point to consider is, could any +other gift possibly be better? No, surely none.... Wait a minute, +though! Let's take this thing slowly and be absolutely sure we're right +before we go ahead.... Run over carefully all the things that are ever +used as gifts. Anything there that is better than mitts? Perhaps, after +all ... Mitts ... Why, look here, isn't there one small objection, one +trifling want of the fulness of perfection to be raised against the gift +of mitts?" + +"There's this point against mitts," said Sharlee slowly. "Fifi's in bed +now, and I'm afraid she's likely to be there for some time. Of course +she could not wear the mitts in bed. She would have to tuck them away in +a drawer somewhere. Don't you think it might be a good idea to give her +something that she could enjoy at once--something that would give her +pleasure _now_ and so help to lighten these tedious hours while she must +be in her room?" + +The mitts were the child of Queed's own brain. Unconsciously he had set +his heart on them; but his clock-like mind at once grasped the logic of +this argument, and he met it generously. + +"Your point is well taken. It proves the wisdom of getting the advice of +a woman on such a matter. Now I had thought also of a book--" + +"I'll tell you!" cried Sharlee, nearly bowled over by a brilliant +inspiration. "A _great_ many men that I know make it a rule to send +flowers to girls that are sick, and--" + +"_Flowers!_" + +"It does seem foolish--_such_ a waste, doesn't it?--but really you've no +idea how mad girls are about flowers, or how much real joy they can +bring into a sick-room. And, by changing the water often, and--so on, +they last a _long_ time, really an incredible time--" + +"You recommend flowers, then? Very well," he said resolutely--"that is +settled then. Now as to the kind. I have only a botanical knowledge of +flowers--shall we say something in asters, perhaps, chrysanthemums or +dahlias? What is your advice as to that?" + +"Well, I advise roses." + +"Roses--good. I had forgotten them for the moment. White roses?" + +A little shiver ran through her. "No, no! Let them be the reddest you +can find." + +"Next, as to the cost of red roses." + +"Oh, there'll be no trouble about _that_. Simply tell the florist that +you want seventy-five cents' worth, and he will give you a fine bunch of +them. By the way, I'd better put his name and address down on a piece of +paper for you. Be sure to go to this one because I know him, and he's +extremely reliable." + +He took the slip from her, thanked her, bowed gravely, and turned to go. +A question had risen involuntarily to the tip of her tongue; it hung +there for a breath, its fate in the balance; and then she released it, +casually, when another second would have been too late. + +"How is your work on the _Post_ going?" + +He wheeled as though she had struck him, and looked at her with a sudden +odd hardening of the lower part of his face. + +"The _Post_ discharged me this morning." + +"Oh--" + +It was all that she could say, for she knew it very well. She had had it +from Colonel Cowles two days before it happened, which was three days +after the April meeting of the directors. Charles Gardiner West, who was +to have raised his voice in behalf of Mr. Queed on that occasion, +happened not to be present at all. Having effected the dissolution of +Semple and West, he had gone to the country for a month's rest, in +preparation for that mapping out of collegiate plans which was to +precede his tour of Europe. Hence the directors, hearing no protests +from intercessors, unanimously bestowed discretion upon the Colonel to +replace the transcendental scientist with a juicier assistant at a +larger salary. + +"At least," the young man qualified, with a curious mixture of +aggressiveness and intense mortification, "the _Post_ will discharge me +on the 15th day of May unless I show marked improvement. I believe that +improvement was exactly the word the estimable Colonel employed." + +"I'm awfully sorry," said Sharlee--"awfully! But after all, you want +only some routine hack-work--any routine hack-work--to establish a +little income. It will not be very hard to find something else, as good +or even better." + +"You do not appear to grasp the fact that, apart from any considerations +of that sort, this is an unpleasant, a most offensive thing to have +happen--" + +"Oh, but that is just what it isn't, Mr. Queed," said Sharlee, who quite +failed to appreciate his morbid tenderness for even the least of his +intellectual offspring. "You have taken no pride in the newspaper work; +you look down on it as altogether beneath you. You cannot mind this in +any personal way--" + +"I mind it," said he, "like the devil." + +The word fell comically from his lips, but Sharlee, leaning against the +shut door, looked at him with grave sympathy in her eyes. + +"Mr. Queed, if you had tried to write nursery rhymes and--failed, would +you have taken it to heart?" + +"Never mind arguing it. In fact, I don't know that I could explain it to +you in a thoroughly logical and convincing way. The central fact, the +concrete thing, is that I do object most decidedly. I have spent too +much time in equipping myself to express valuable ideas in +discriminating language to be kicked out of a second-rate newspaper +office like an incompetent office-boy. Of course I shall not submit to +it." + +"Do you care to tell me what you mean to do?" + +"Do!" He hit the door-post a sudden blow with an unexpectedly large +hand. "I shall have myself elected editor of the _Post_." + +"But--but--but--" said the girl, taken aback by the largeness of this +order--"But you don't expect to oust Colonel Cowles?" + +"We are not necessarily speaking of to-morrow or next day. An actuary +will tell you that I am likely to outlive Colonel Cowles. I mean, first, +to have my dismissal recalled, and, second, to be made regular +assistant editor at three times my present salary. That is my immediate +reply to the directors of the Post. I am willing to let the editorship +wait till old Cowles dies." + +"Tell me," said Sharlee, "would you personally like to be editor of the +_Post?_" + +"_Like it!_ I'll resign the day after they elect me. Call it sheer +wounded vanity--anything you like! The name makes no difference. I know +only that I will have the editorship for a day--and all for the +worthless pleasure of pitching it in their faces." He looked past her +out of the window, and his light gray eyes filled with an indescribable +bitterness. "And to have the editorship," he thought out loud, "I must +unlearn everything that I know about writing, and deliberately learn to +write like a demagogic ass." + +Sharlee tapped the calcimine with her pointed fingernails. He spoke, as +ever, with overweening confidence, but she knew that he would never win +any editorship in this spirit. He was going at the quest with a new +burst of intellectual contempt, though it was this very intellectual +contempt that had led to his downfall. + +"But your own private work?" + +"Don't speak of it, I beg!" He flinched uncontrollably; but of his own +accord he added, in carefully repressed tones: "To qualify for the +editorship of course means--a terrible interruption and delay. It means +that _I must side-track My Book for two months or even longer!_" + +Two months! It would take him five years and probably he would not be +qualified then. + +Sharlee hesitated. "Have you fully made up your mind to--to be editor?" + +He turned upon her vehemently. "May I ask you never to waste my time +with questions of that sort. I never--_never_--say anything until I have +fully made up my mind about it. Good-morning." + +"No, no, no! Don't go yet! Please--I want to speak to you a minute." + +He stopped and turned, but did not retrace the three steps he had taken. +Sharlee leaned against the door and looked away from him, out into the +park. + +The little Doctor was badly in need of a surgical operation. Somebody +must perform it for him, or his whole life was a dusty waste. That he +still had glimmerings, he had shown this very hour, in wanting to make a +gift to his sick little fellow-lodger. His resentment over his dismissal +from the _Post_, too, was an unexpectedly human touch in him. But in the +same breath with these things the young man had showed himself at his +worst: the glimmerings were so overlaid with an incredible snobbery of +the mind, so encrusted with the rankest and grossest egotism, that soon +they must flutter and die out, leaving him stone-blind against the +sunshine and the morning. No scratch could penetrate that Achilles-armor +of self-sufficiency. There must be a shock to break it apart, or a +vicious stabbing to cut through it to such spark as was still alive. + +Somebody must administer that shock or do that stabbing. Why not she? He +would hate the sight of her forevermore, but ... + +"Mr. Queed," said Sharlee, turning toward him, "you let me see, from +what you are doing this morning, that you think of Fifi as your friend. +I'd like to ask if you think of me in that way, too." + +O Lord, _Lord!_ Here was another one! + +"No," he said positively. "Think of you as I do of Fifi! No, no! No, I +do not." + +"I don't mean to ask if you think of me as you do of Fifi. Of course I +am sure you don't. I only mean--let me put it this way: Do you believe +that I have your--interests at heart, and would like to do anything I +could to help you?" + +He thought this over warily. Doubtless doomed Smathers would have smiled +to note the slowness with which his great rival's mind threshed out such +a question as this. + +"If you state your proposition in that way, I reply, tentatively, yes." + +"Then can you spare me half an hour to-night after supper?" + +"For what purpose?" + +"For you and me," she smiled. "I'd like you to come and see me, at my +house, where we could really have a little talk. You see, I know Colonel +Cowles very well indeed, and I have read the _Post_ for oh, many, many +years! In this way I know something about the kind of articles people +here like to read, and about--what is needed to write such articles. I +think I might make a suggestion or two that--would help. Will you +come?" + +After somewhat too obvious a consideration, Queed consented. Sharlee +thanked him. + +"I'll put my address down on the back of that paper, shall I? And I +think I'll put my name, too, for I don't believe you have the faintest +idea what it is." + +"Oh, yes. The name is Miss Charlie Weyland. It appears that you were +named after a boy?" + +"Oh, it's only a silly nickname. Here's your little directory back. I'll +be very glad to see you--at half-past eight, shall we say? But, Mr. +Queed--don't come unless you feel sure that I really want to help. For +I'm afraid I'll have to say a good deal that will make you very mad." + +He bowed and walked away. Sharlee went to the telephone and called +Bartlett's, the florist. She told Mr. Bartlett that a young man would +come in there in a few minutes--full description of the young +man--asking for seventy-five cents' worth of red roses; Mr. Bartlett +would please give him two dozen roses, and charge the difference to her, +Miss Weyland; the entire transaction to be kept discreetly quiet. + +However the transaction was not kept entirely quiet. The roses were +delivered promptly, and became the chief topic of conversation at Mrs. +Paynter's dinner-table. Through an enforced remark of Mr. Queed's, and +the later discursive gossip of the boarders, it became disseminated over +the town that Bartlett's was selling American Beauties at thirty-seven +and a half cents a dozen, and the poor man had to buy ten inches, double +column, in the _Post_ next morning to get himself straightened out and +reestablish Bartlett's familiar quotations. + + + + +XII + + _More Consequences of the Plan about the Gift, and of how Mr. Queed + drinks his Medicine like a Man; Fifi on Men, and how they do; + Second Corruption of The Sacred Schedule._ + + +Queed's irrational impulse to make Fifi a small gift cost him the heart +of his morning. A call would have been cheaper, after all. Nor was the +end yet. In this world it never is, where one event invariably hangs by +the tail of another in ruthless concatenation. Starting out for Open-air +Pedestrianism at 4.45 that afternoon, the young man was waylaid in the +hail by Mrs. Paynter, at the very door of the big bedroom into which +Fifi had long since been moved. The landlady, backing Queed against the +banisters, told him how much her daughter had been pleased by his +beautiful remembrance. The child, she said, wanted particularly to thank +him herself, and wouldn't he please come in and see her just a moment? + +As Mrs. Paynter threw open the door in the act of making the +extraordinary request, escape was impossible. Queed found himself inside +the room before he knew what he was doing. As for Mrs. Paynter, she +somewhat treacherously slipped away to consult with Laura as to what for +supper. + +It was a mild sunny afternoon, with a light April wind idly kicking at +the curtains. Fifi sat over by the open window in a tilted-back Morris +chair, a sweet-faced little thing, all eyes and pallor. From her many +covers she extricated a fragile hand, frilled with the sleeve of a +pretty flowered kimono. + +"Look at them! Aren't they glorious!" + +On a table at her elbow his roses nodded from a wide-lipped vase, a +gorgeous riot of flame and fragrance. Gazing at them, the young man +marvelled at his own princely prodigality. + +"I don't know _how_ to thank you for them, Mr. Queed, They are so, so +sweet, and I do love roses so!" + +Indeed her joy in them was too obvious to require any words. Queed +decided to say nothing about the mitts. + +"I'm glad that they please you," said he, pulling himself together for +the ordeal of the call. "How are you getting along up here? Very well, I +trust?" + +"Fine. It's so quiet and nice.... And I don't mind about graduating a +bit any more. Isn't that funny?" + +"You must hurry up and get well and return to the dining-room again, +F--F--Fifi--, and to the algebra lessons--" + +"Don't," said Fifi. "I can't bear it." + +But she whisked at her eyes with a tiny dab of a handkerchief, and when +she looked at him she was smiling, quite clear and happy. + +"Have you missed me since I stopped coming?" + +"Missed you?" he echoed, exactly as he had done before. + +But this time Fifi said, shamelessly, "I'll bet you have!--Haven't you?" + +Come, Mr. Queed, be honest. You are supposed to have the scientist's +passion for veracity. You mercilessly demand the truth from others. Now +take some of your own medicine. Stand out like a man. Have you or have +you not missed this girl since she stopped coming? + +"Yes," said the little Doctor, rather hollowly, "I ... have missed you." + +Fifi's smile became simply brazen. "Do you know what, Mr. Queed? You +like me _lots_ more than you will say you do." + +The young man averted his eyes. But for some time there had been in his +mind the subtle consciousness of something left undone, an occasion +which he had failed to meet with the final word of justice. Since he had +been in the room, a vague, unwelcome resolve had been forming in his +mind, and at Fifi's bold words, it hardened into final shape. He drew a +deep breath. + +"You referred to me as your friend once, F--Fifi. And I said that I was +not." + +"I know." + +"I was--mistaken"--so he drained his medicine to the dregs. "I ... am +your friend." + +Now the child's smile was the eternal motherly. "Lor', Mr. Queed, I knew +it all the time." + +Queed looked at the floor. The sight of Fifi affected him most curiously +to-day. He felt strangely ill at ease with her, only the more so because +she was so amazingly at home with him. She wore her reddish-brown hair +not rounded up in front as of old, but parted smoothly in the middle, +and this only emphasized the almost saintly purity of her wasted little +face. Her buoyant serenity puzzled and disconcerted him. + +Meantime Fifi was examining Queed carefully. "You've been doing +something to yourself, Mr. Queed! What is it? Why, you look ten times +better than even four weeks ago!" + +"I think," he said drearily, "it must be Klinker's Exercises. I give +them," broke from him, "_one hour and twenty minutes a day!_" + +But he pulled himself together, conscientiously determined to take the +cheery view with Fifi. + +"It is an extraordinary thing, but I am feeling better, physically and +mentally, than I ever felt before, and this though I never had a really +sick day in my life. It must be the exercises, for that is the only +change I have made in my habits. Yet I never supposed that exercise had +any such practical value as that. However," he went on slowly, "I am +beginning to believe that there are several things in this world that I +do not understand." + +Here, indeed, was a most humiliating, an epoch-making, confession to +come from the little Doctor. It was accompanied with a vague smile, +intended to be cheering and just the thing for a sick-room. But the +dominant note in this smile was bewildered and depressed helplessness, +and at it the maternal instinct sprang full-grown in Fifi's thin little +bosom. A passionate wish to mother the little Doctor tugged at her +heart. + +"You know what you need, Mr. Queed? Friends--lots of good friends--" + +He winced as from a blow. "I assure you--" + +"Yes--you--DO!" said Fifi, with surprising emphasis for so weak a little +voice. "You need first a good girl friend, one lots older and better +than me--one just like Sharlee. O if only you and she _would_ be +friends!--she'd be the very best in the world! And then you need men +friends, plenty of them, and to go around with them, and everything. You +ought to like _men_ more, Mr. Queed! You ought to learn to _be_ like +them, and--" + +"Be like them!" he interrupted, "I am like them. Why," he conceded +generously, "I am one of them." + +Fifi dismissed this with a smile, but he immediately added: "Has it +occurred to you that, apart from my greater concentration on my work, I +am different from other men?" + +"Why, Mr. Queed, you are no more like them than I am! You don't do any +of the things they do. You don't--" + +"Such as what? Now, Fifi, let us be definite as we go along. Suppose +that it was my ambition to be, as you say, like other men. Just what +things, in your opinion, should I do?" + +"Well, smoke--that's one thing that all men do. And fool around more +with people--laugh and joke, and tell funny stories and all. And then +you could take an interest in your appearance--your clothes, you know; +and be interested in all sorts of things going on around you, like +politics and baseball. And go to see girls and take them out sometimes, +like to the theatre. Some men that are popular drink, but of course I +don't care for that." + +Fifi, of course, had no idea that the little Doctor's world had been +shattered to its axis that morning by three minutes' talk from Colonel +Cowles. Therefore, though conscious that there never was a man who did +not get a certain pleasure from talking himself over, she was secretly +surprised at the patience, even the interest, with which he listened to +her. She would have been still more surprised to know that his wonderful +memory was nailing down every word with machine-like accuracy. + +She expounded her little thesis in considerable detail, and at the end +he said:-- + +"As I've told you, Fifi, my first duty is toward my book--to give it to +the cause of civilization at the earliest possible moment. Therefore, +the whole question is one of time, rather than of deliberate personal +inclination. At present I literally cannot afford to give time to +matters which, while doubtless pleasant enough in their fashion--" + +"That's what you would have said about the exercise, two months ago. And +now look, how it's helped you! And then, Mr. Queed--are you happy?" + +Surprised and a little amused, he replied: "Really, I've never stopped +to think. I should say, though, that I was perfectly content." + +Fifi laughed and coughed. "There's a big difference--isn't there? Why, +it's just like the exercise, Mr. Queed. Before you began it you were +just _not sick_; now you are _very well_. That's the difference between +content and happiness. Now I," she ran on, "am very, very happy. I wake +up in the mornings _so_ glad that I'm alive that sometimes I can hardly +bear it, and all through the day it's like something singing away inside +of me! Are you like that?" + +No, Mr. Queed must confess that he was not like that. Indeed, few +looking at his face at this moment would ever have suspected him of it. +Fifi regarded him with a kind of wistful sadness, but he missed the +glance, being engaged in consulting his great watch; after which he +sprang noisily to his feet, horrified at himself. + +"Good heavens--it's ten minutes past five! I must go immediately. Why, +I'm twenty-five minutes behind My Schedule!" + +Fifi smiled through her wistfulness. "Don't ask me to be sorry, Mr. +Queed, because I don't think I can. You see, I haven't taken up a minute +of your time for nearly a month, so I was entitled to some of it +to-day." + +You see! Hadn't he figured it exactly right from the beginning? Once +give a human being a moment of your time, as a special and extraordinary +kindness, and before you can turn around there that being is claiming it +wholesale as a matter-of-course right! + +"It was so sweet of you to send me these flowers, and then to come and +see me, too.... Do you know, it's been the very best day I've had since +I've been sick, and you've made it so!" + +"It's all right. Well, good-bye, Fifi." + +Fifi held out both her tiny hands, and he received them because, in the +sudden emergency, he could think of no way of avoiding them. + +"You'll remember what I said about friends, and _men_--won't you, Mr. +Queed? Remember it begins with liking people, liking everybody. Then +when you really like them you want to do things for them, and that is +happiness." + +He looked surprised at this definition of happiness, and then: "Oh--I +see. That's your religion, isn't it?" + +"No, it's just common sense." + +"I'll remember. Well, Fifi, good-bye." + +"Good-bye--and thank you for everything." + +Into her eyes had sprung a tenderness which he was far from +understanding. But he did not like the look of it in the least, and he +extricated his hands from the gentle clasp with some abruptness. + +From the safe distance of the door he looked back, and wondered why +Fifi's great eyes were fixed so solemnly on him. + +"Well--good-bye, again. Hurry up and get well--" + +"Good-bye--oh, good-bye," said Fifi, and turned her head toward the open +window with the blue skies beyond. + +Did Fifi know? How many have vainly tortured themselves with that +question, as they have watched dear ones slipping without a word down +the slopes to the dark Valley! If this child knew that her name had been +read out for the greater Graduation, she gave no sign. Sometimes in the +mornings she cried a little, without knowing why. Sometimes she said a +vague, sad little thing that brought her mother's heart, stone cold, to +her mouth. But her talk was mostly very bright and hopeful. Ten minutes +before Queed came in she had been telling Mrs. Paynter about something +she would do in the fall. If sometimes you would swear that she knew +there would never be another fall for her, her very next remark might +confound you. So her little face turned easily to the great river with +the shining farther shore, and, for her part, there would be no sadness +of farewell when she embarked. + +By marvelous work, Queed closed up the twenty-five minutes of time he +had bestowed upon Fifi, and pulled into supper only three minutes behind +running-time. Afterwards, he sat in the Scriptorium, his face like a +carven image, the sacred Schedule in his hands. For it had come down to +that. Either he must at any cost hew his way back to the fastness of his +early days, or he must corrupt the Schedule yet again. + +Every minute that he took away from his book meant just that much delay +in giving the great work to the world. That fact was the eternal +backbone of all his consciousness. On the other balance of his personal +equation, there was Buck Klinker and there was Fifi Paynter. + +Klinker evidently felt that all bars were down as to him. It would be a +hard world indeed if a trainer was denied free access to his only pupil, +and Klinker, though he had but the one, was always in as full blast as +Muldoon's. He had acquired a habit of "dropping in" at all hours, +especially late at night, which, to say the least, was highly wasteful +of time. It was Queed's privilege to tell Klinker that he must keep away +from the Scriptorium; but in that case Klinker might fairly retort that +he would no longer give the Doc free physical culture. Did he care to +bring that issue to the touch? No, he did not. In fact, he must admit +that he had a distinct need of Buck, a distinct dependence upon him, for +awhile yet at any rate. So he could make no elimination of the +non-essential there. + +Then there was Fifi. In a week, or possibly two weeks, Fifi would +doubtless reappear in his dining-room, and if she had no lessons to +trouble him with, she would at any rate feel herself free to talk to him +whenever the whim moved her. Had she not let out this very day that she +considered that she had a kind of title to his time? So it would be to +the end of the chapter. It had been his privilege to tell Fifi that he +could not spare her another minute of time till his work was +finished.... Had been--but no longer was. Looking back now, he found it +impossible to reconstruct the chain of impulse and circumstance which +had trapped him into it, but the stark fact was that his own lips had +authorized Fifi to profane at will his holy time. Not three hours before +he had been betrayed into weakly telling her that he was her friend. He +was a man of truth and honor. He could not possibly get back of that +confession of friendship, or of the privileges it bestowed. So there was +no elimination of the non-essential he could make there. + +These were the short and ugly facts. And now he must take official +cognizance of them. + +With a leaden heart and the hands of lamentation, he took the Schedule +to pieces and laboriously fitted it together again with a fire-new item +in its midst. The item was Human Intercourse, and to it he allotted the +sum of thirty minutes per diem. + +It was a historic moment in his life, and, unlike most men at such +partings of the ways, he was fully conscious of it. Nevertheless, he +passed straight from it to another performance hardly less +extraordinary. From his table drawer he produced a little memorandum +book, and in it--just below a diagram of a new chest-developing exercise +invented last night by Klinker--he jotted down the things that Fifi said +a man must do to be like other men. + +A clean half-hour remained before he must go and call on the young lady +with the tom-boy name, Charles Weyland, who knew "what the public +liked." He spent it, he, the indefatigable minute-shaver, sitting with +the head that no longer ached clamped in his hand. It had been the most +disturbing day of his life, but he was not thinking of that exactly. He +was thinking what a mistake it had been to leave New York. There he had +had but two friends with no possibility of getting any more. Here--it +was impossible to blink the fact any longer--he already had two, with at +least two more determinedly closing in on him. He had Fifi and he had +Buck--yes, Buck; the young lady Charles Weyland had offered him her +friendship this very day; and unless he looked alive he would wake up +some morning to find that Nicolovius also had captured him as a friend. + +He was far better off in New York, where days would go by in which he +never saw Tim or Murphy Queed. And yet ... did he want to go back? + + + + +XIII + + _"Taking the Little Doctor Down a Peg or Two": as performed for the + First and Only Time by Sharlee Weyland._ + + +The Star that fought in its course for men through Sharlee Weyland was +of the leal and resolute kind. It did not swerve at a squall. Sharlee +had thought the whole thing out, and made up her mind. Gentle raillery, +which would do everything necessary in most cases, would be wholly +futile here. She must doff all gloves and give the little Doctor the +dressing-down of his life. She must explode a mine under that enormously +exaggerated self-esteem which swamped the young man's personality like a +goitre. Sharlee did not want to do this. She liked Mr. Queed, in a +peculiar sort of way, and yet she had to make it impossible for him ever +to speak to her again. Her nature was to give pleasure, and therefore +she was going to do her utmost to give him pain. She wanted him to like +her, and consequently she was going to insult him past forgiveness. And +she was not even sure that it was going to do him any good. + +When her guest walked into her little back parlor that evening, Sharlee +was feeling very self-sacrificing and noble. However, she merely looked +uncommonly pretty and tremendously engrossed in herself. She was in +evening dress. It was Easter Monday, and at nine, as it chanced, she was +to go out under the escortage of Charles Gardiner West to some +forgathering of youth and beauty. But her costume was so perfectly +suited to the little curtain-raiser called Taking the Little Doctor Down +a Peg or Two, that it might have been appointed by a clever +stage-manager with that alone in mind. She was the haughty beauty, the +courted princess, graciously bestowing a few minutes from her crowding +fêtes upon some fourth-rate dependant. And indeed the little Doctor, +with his prematurely old face and his shabby clothes, rather looked the +part of the dependant. Sharlee's greeting was of the briefest. + +"Ah, Mr. Queed.... Sit down." + +Her negligent nod set him away at an immense distance; even he was aware +that Charles Weyland had undergone some subtle but marked change since +the morning. The colored maid who had shown him in was retained to +button her mistress' long gloves. It proved to be a somewhat slow +process. Over the mantel hung a gilt-framed mirror, as wide as the +mantel itself. To this mirror, the gloves buttoned, Miss Weyland passed, +and reviewed her appearance with slow attention, giving a pat here, +making a minor readjustment there. But this survey did not suffice for +details, it seemed; a more minute examination was needed; over the floor +she trailed with leisurely grace, and rang the bell. + +"Oh, Mary--my vanity-box, please. On the dressing-table." + +Seating herself under the lamp, she produced from the contrivance the +tiniest little mirror ever seen. As she raised it to let it perform its +dainty function, her glance fell on Queed, sitting darkly in his +rocking-chair. A look of mild surprise came into her eye: not that it +was of any consequence, but plainly she had forgotten that he was there. + +"Oh ... You don't mind waiting a few minutes?" + +"I do m--" + +"You promised half an hour I think? Never fear that I shall take +longer--" + +"I did not promise half an hour for such--" + +"It was left to me to decide in what way the time should be employed, I +believe. What I have to say can be said briefly, but to you, at least, +it should prove immensely interesting." She stifled a small yawn with +the gloved finger-tips of her left hand. "However, of course don't let +me keep you if you are pressed for time." + +The young man made no reply. Sharlee completed at her leisure her +conference with the vanity-box; snapped the trinket shut; and, rising, +rang the bell again. This time she required a glass of water for her +good comfort. She drank it slowly, watching herself in the mantel mirror +as she did so, and setting down the glass, took a new survey of her +whole effect, this time in a long-distance view. + +"Now, Mr. Queed!" + +She sat down in a flowered arm-chair so large that it engulfed her, and +fixed him with a studious, puckering gaze as much as to say: "Let's see. +Now, what was his trouble?" + +"Ah, yes!--the _Post_." + +She glanced at the little clock on the mantel, appeared to gather in her +thoughts from remote and brilliant places, and addressed the dingy youth +briskly but not unkindly. + +"Unfortunately, I have an engagement this evening and can give you very +little time. You will not mind if I am brief. Here, then, is the case. A +man employed in a minor position on a newspaper is notified that he is +to be discharged for incompetence. He replies that, so far from being +discharged, he will be promoted at the end of a month, and will +eventually be made editor of the paper. Undoubtedly this is a +magnificent boast, but to make it good means a complete transformation +in the character of this man's work--namely, from entire incompetence to +competence of an unusual sort, all within a month's time. You are the +man who has made this extraordinary boast. To clear the ground before I +begin to show you where your trouble is, please tell me how you propose +to make it good." + +Not every man feeling inside as the little Doctor felt at that moment +would have answered with such admirable calm. + +"I purpose," he corrected her, "to take the files of the _Post_ for the +past few years and read all of Colonel Cowles's amusing articles. He, I +am informed, is the editorial mogul and paragon. I purpose to study +those articles scientifically, to analyze them, to take them apart and +see exactly how they are put together. I purpose to destroy my own +style and build up another one precisely like the Colonel's--if +anything, a shade more so. In short I purpose to learn to write like an +ass, of asses, for asses." + +"That is your whole programme?" + +"It is more than enough, I think." + +"Ah?" She paused a moment, looking at him with faint, distant amusement. +"Now, as my aunt's business woman, I, of course, take an interest in the +finances of her boarders. Therefore I had better begin at once looking +about for a new place for you after May 15th. What other kinds of work +do you think yourself qualified to do, besides editorial writing and the +preparation of thesauruses?" + +He looked at her darkly. "You imagine that the _Post_ will discharge me +on May 15th?" + +"There is nothing in the world that seems to me so certain." + +"And why?" + +"Why will the Post discharge you? For exactly the same reason it +promises to discharge you now. Incompetence." + +"You agree with Colonel Cowles, then? You consider me incompetent to +write editorials for the _Post_?" + +"Oh, totally. And it goes a great deal deeper than style, I assure you. +Mr. Queed, you're all wrong from the beginning." + +Her eyes left his face; went first to the clock; glanced around the +room. Sharlee's dress was blue, and her neck was as white as a wave's +foamy tooth. Her manner was intended to convey to Mr. Queed that he was +the smallest midge on all her crowded horizon. It did not, of course, +have that effect, but it did arrest and pique his attention most +successfully. It was in his mind that Charles Weyland had been of some +assistance to him in first suggesting work on the _Post_; and again +about the roses for Fifi. He was still ready to believe that she might +have some profitable suggestion about his new problem. Was she not that +"public" and that "average reader" which he himself so despised and +detested? Yet he could not imagine where such a little pink and white +chit found the hardihood to take this tone with one of the foremost +scientists of modern times. + +"You interest me. I am totally incompetent now; I will be totally +incompetent on May 15th; this because I am all wrong from the beginning. +Pray proceed." + +Sharlee, her thoughts recalled, made a slight inclination of her head. +"Forgive my absent-mindedness. First, then, as to why you are a failure +as an editorial writer. You are quite mistaken in supposing that it is a +mere question of style, though right in regarding your style as in +itself a fatal handicap. However, the trouble has its root in your +amusing attitude of superiority to the work. You think of editorial +writing as small hack-work, entirely beneath the dignity of a man who +has had one or two articles accepted by a prehistoric magazine which +nobody reads. In reality, it is one of the greatest and most splendid of +all professions, fit to call out the very best of a really big man. You +chuckle and sneer at Colonel Cowles and think yourself vastly his +superior as an editorial writer, when, in the opinion of everybody else, +he is in every way your superior. I doubt if the _Post_ has a single +reader who would not prefer to read an article by him, on any subject, +to reading an article by you. I doubt if there is a paper in the world +that would not greatly prefer him as an editor to you--" + +"You are absurdly mistaken," he interrupted coldly. "I might name +various papers--" + +"Yes, the _Political Science Quarterly_ and the _Journal of the +Anthropological Institute_." Sharlee smiled tolerantly, and immediately +resumed: "When you sit down at the office to write an article, whom do +you think you are writing for? A company of scientists? An institute of +gray-bearded scholars? An academy of fossilized old doctors of laws? +There are not a dozen people of that sort who read the _Post_. Has it +never occurred to you to call up before your mind's eye the people you +actually are writing for? You can see them any day as you walk along the +street. Go into a street car at six o'clock any night and look +around at the faces. There is your public, the readers of the +_Post_--shop-clerks, stenographers, factory-hands, office-men, plumbers, +teamsters, drummers, milliners. Look at them. Have you anything to say +to interest them? Think. If they were to file in here now and ask you to +make a few remarks, could you, for the life of you, say one single thing +that would interest them?" + +"I do not pretend, or aspire," said Mr. Queed, "to dispense frothy +nothings tricked out to beguile the tired brick-layer. My duty is to +give forth valuable information and ripened judgment couched in +language--" + +"No, your duty is to get yourself read; if you fail there you fail +everywhere. Is it possible that you don't begin to grasp that point yet? +I fancied that your mind was quicker. You appear to think that the duty +of a newspaper is to back people up against a wall and ram helpful +statistics into them with a force-pump. You are grotesquely mistaken. +Your ideal newspaper would not keep a dozen readers in this city: that +is to say, it would be a complete failure while it lasted and would +bankrupt Mr. Morgan in six months. A dead newspaper is a useless one, +the world over. At the same time, every living and good newspaper is a +little better, spreads a little more sweetness and light, gives out a +little more valuable information, ripened judgment, et cetera, than the +vast majority of its readers want or will absorb. The _Post_ is that +sort of newspaper. It is constantly tugging its readers a little higher +than they--I mean the majority, and not the cultured few--are willing to +go. But the _Post_ always recognizes that its first duty is to get +itself read: if it does not succeed in that, it lacks the principle of +life and dies. Perhaps the tired bricklayer you speak of, the +middle-class, commonplace, average people who make up nearly all of the +world, ought to be interested in John Stuart Mill's attitude toward the +single-tax. But the fact is that they aren't. The _Post_ wisely deals +with the condition, and not a theory: it means to get itself read. It is +your first duty, as a writer for it, to get yourself read. If you fail +to get yourself read, you are worse than useless to the _Post_. Well, +you have completely failed to do this, and that is why the _Post_ is +discharging you. Come, free yourself from exaggerated notions about your +own importance and look at this simple point with the calm detachment of +a scientist. The _Post_ can save money, while preserving just the same +effect, by discharging you and printing every morning a half-column from +the Encyclopedia Britannica." + +She rose quickly, as though her time was very precious, and passed over +to the table, where a great bowl of violets stood. The room was pretty: +it had reminded Queed, when he entered it, of Nicolovius's room, though +there was a softer note in it, as the flowers, the work-bag on the +table, the balled-up veil and gloves on the mantel-shelf. He had liked, +too, the soft-shaded lamps; the vague resolve had come to him to install +a lamp in the Scriptorium later on. But now, thinking of nothing like +this, he sat in a thick silence gazing at her with unwinking sternness. + +Sharlee carefully gathered the violets from the bowl, shook a small +shower of water from their stems, dried them with a pocket handkerchief +about the size of a silver dollar. Next she wrapped the stems with +purple tinfoil, tied them with a silken cord and tassel and laid the +gorgeous bunch upon a magazine back, to await her further pleasure. +Then, coming back, she resumed her seat facing the shabby young man she +was assisting to see himself as others saw him. + +"I might," she said, "simply stop there. I might tell you that you are a +failure as an editorial writer because you have nothing at all to say +that is of the smallest interest to the great majority of the readers of +editorials, and would not know how to say it if you had. That would be +enough to satisfy most men, but I see that I must make things very plain +and definite for you. Mr. Queed, you are a failure as an editorial +writer because you are first a failure in a much more important +direction. You're a failure as a human being--as a man." + +She was watching his face lightly, but closely, and so she was on her +feet as soon as he, and had her hand out before he had even thought of +making this gesture. + +"It is useless for this harangue to continue," he said, with a brow of +storm. "Your conception of helpful advice ..." + +But Sharlee's voice, which had begun as soon as his, drowned him out.... +"Complimented you a little too far, I see. I shall be sure to remember +after this," she said with such a sweet smile, "that, after all your +talk, you are just the average man, and want to hear only what flatters +your little vanity. _Good_-night. So nice to have seen you." + +She nodded brightly, with faint amusement, and turning away, moved off +toward the door at the back. Queed, of course, had no means of knowing +that she was thinking, almost jubilantly: "I _knew_ that mouth meant +spirit!" He only knew that, whereas he had meant to terminate the +interview with a grave yet stinging rebuke to her, she had given the +effect of terminating the interview with a graceful yet stinging rebuke +to him. This was not what he wanted in the least. Come to think of it, +he doubted if he wanted the interview to end at all. + +"Miss Weyland ..." + +She turned on the threshold of the farther door. "I beg your pardon! I +thought you'd gone! Your hat?--I think you left it in the hall, didn't +you?" + +"It is not my hat." + +"Oh--what is it?" + +"God knows," said the little Doctor, hoarsely. + +He was standing in the middle of the floor, his hands jammed into his +trousers pockets, his hair tousled over a troubled brow, his breast torn +by emotions which were entirely new in his experience and which he +didn't even know the names of. All the accumulation of his disruptive +day was upon him. He felt both terrifically upset inside, and interested +to the degree of physical pain in something or other, he had no idea +what. Presently he started walking up and down the room, nervous as a +caged lion, eyes fixed on space or on something within, while Sharlee +stood in the doorway watching him casually and unsurprised, as though +just this sort of thing took place in her little parlor regularly, seven +nights a week. + +"Go ahead! Go ahead!" he broke out abruptly, coming to a halt. "Pitch +into me. Do it for all you're worth. I suppose you think it's what I +need." + +"Certainly," said Sharlee, pleasantly. + +She stood beside her chair again, flushed with a secret sense of +victory, liking him more for his temper and his control than she ever +could have liked him for his learning. But it was not her idea that the +little Doctor had got it anywhere near hard enough as yet. + +"Won't you sit down, Mr. Queed?" + +It appeared that Mr. Queed would. + +"I am paying you the extraordinary compliment," said Sharlee, "of +talking to you as others might talk about you behind your back--in fact, +as everybody does talk about you behind your back. I do this on the +theory that you are a serious and honest-minded man, sincerely +interested in learning the truth about yourself and your failures, so +that you may correct them. If you are interested only in having your +vanity fed by flattering fictions, please say so right now. I have no +time," she said, hardly able for her life to suppress a smile, "for +butterflies and triflers." + +_Butterflies and triflers!_ Mr. Queed, proprietor of the famous +Schedule, a butterfly and a trifler! + +He said in a muffled voice: "Proceed." + +"Since an editorial writer," said Sharlee, seating herself and beginning +with a paragraph as neat as a public speaker's, "must be able, as his +first qualification, to interest the common people, it is manifest that +he must be interested in the common people. He must feel his bond of +humanity with them, sympathize with them, like them, love them. This is +the great secret of Colonel Cowles's success as an editor. A fine +gentleman by birth, breeding, and tradition, he is yet always a human +being among human beings. All his life he has been doing things with and +for the people. He went all through the war, and you might have thought +the whole world depended on him, the way he went up Cemetery Ridge on +the 3rd of July, 1863. He was shot all to pieces, but they patched him +together, and the next year there he was back in the fighting around +Petersburg. After the war he was a leader against the carpet-baggers, +and if this State is peaceful and prosperous and comfortable for you to +live in now, it is because of what men like him and my father did a +generation ago. When he took the _Post_ he went on just the same, +working and thinking and fighting for men and with men, and all in the +service of the people. I suppose, of course, his views through all these +years have not always been sound, but they have always been honest and +honorable, sensible, manly, and sweet. And they have always had a +practical relation with the life of the people. The result is that he +has thousands and thousands of readers who feel that their day has been +wanting in something unless they have read what he has to say. There is +Colonel Cowles--Does this interest you, Mr. Queed? If not, I need not +weary us both by continuing." + +He again requested her, in the briefest possible way, to proceed. + +"Well! There is Colonel Cowles, whom you presume to despise, because you +know, or think you know, more political and social science than he does. +Where you got your preposterously exaggerated idea of the value of +text-book science I am at a loss to understand. The people you aspire to +lead--for that is what an editorial writer must do--care nothing for it. +That tired bricklayer whom you dismiss with such contempt of course +cares nothing for it. But that bricklayer is the People, Mr. Queed. He +is the very man that Colonel Cowles goes to, and puts his hand on his +shoulder, and tries to help--help him to a better home, better education +for his children, more and more wholesome pleasures, a higher and +happier living. Colonel Cowles thinks of life as an opportunity to live +with and serve the common, average, everyday people. You think of it as +an opportunity to live by yourself and serve your own ambition. He +writes to the hearts of the people. You write to the heads of +scientists. Doubtless it will amaze you to be told that his paragraph on +the death of Moses Page, the Byrds' old negro butler, was a far more +useful article in every way than your long critique on the currency +system of Germany which appeared in the same issue. Colonel Cowles is a +big-hearted human being. You--you are a scientific formula. And the +worst of it is that _you're proud of it!_ The hopeless part of it is +that you actually consider a few old fossils as bigger than the live +people all around you! How can I show you your terrible mistake?... Why, +Mr. Queed, the life and example of a little girl ..." she stopped, +rather precipitately, stared hard at her hands, which were folded in her +lap, and went resolutely on: "The life and example of a little girl like +Fifi are worth more than all the text-books you will ever write." + +A silence fell. In the soft lamplight of the pretty room, Queed sat +still and silent as a marble man; and presently Sharlee, plucking +herself together, resumed:-- + +"Perhaps you now begin to glimpse a wider difference between yourself +and Colonel Cowles than mere unlikeness of literary style. If you +continue to think this difference all in your own favor, I urge you to +abandon any idea of writing editorials for the _Post_. If on the other +hand, you seriously wish to make good your boast of this morning, I urge +you to cease sneering at men like Colonel Cowles, and humbly begin to +try to imitate them. I say that you are a failure as an editorial writer +because you are a failure as a man, and I say that you are a failure as +a man because you have no relation at all with man's life. You aspire to +teach and lead human beings, and you have not the least idea what a +human being is, and not the slightest wish to find out. All around you +are men, live men of flesh and blood, who are moving the world, and you, +whipping out your infinitesimal measuring-rod, dismiss them as inferior +cattle who know nothing of text-book science. Here is a real and living +world, and you roll through it like a billiard-ball. And all because you +make the fatal error of mistaking a sorry handful of mummies for the +universe." + +"It is a curious coincidence," said Queed, with great but deceptive +mildness, "that Fifi said much the same thing to me, though in quite a +different way, this afternoon." + +"She told me. But Fifi was not the first. You had the same advice from +your father two months ago." + +"My father?" + +"You have not forgotten his letter that you showed me in your office one +afternoon?" + +It seemed that he had; but he had it in his pocket, as it chanced, and +dug it out, soiled and frayed from long confinement. Stooping forward to +introduce it into the penumbra of lamplight, he read over the +detective-story message: "_Make friends: mingle with people and learn to +like them. This is the earnest injunction of Your father_." + +"You complain of your father's treatment of you," said Sharlee, "but he +offered you a liberal education there, and you declined to take it." + +She glanced at the clock, turned about to the table and picked up her +beautiful bouquet. A pair of long bodkins with lavender glass heads were +waiting, it appeared; she proceeded to pin on her flowers, adjusting +them with careful attention; and rising, again reviewed herself in the +mantel-mirror. Then she sat down once more, and calmly said: + +"As you are a failure as an editorial writer and as a man, so you are a +failure as a sociologist ..." + +It was the last straw, the crowning blasphemy. She hardly expected him +to endure it, and he did not; she was glad to have it so. But the +extreme mildness with which he interrupted her almost unnerved her, so +confidently had she braced herself for violence. + +"Do you mind if we omit that? I think I have heard enough about my +failures for one night." + +He had risen, but stood, for a wonder, irresolute. It was too evident +that he did not know what to do next. Presently, having nowhere else to +go, he walked over to the mantel-shelf and leant his elbow upon it, +staring down at the floor. A considerable interval passed, broken only +by the ticking of the clock before he said:-- + +"You may be an authority on editorial writing--even on manhood--life. +But I can hardly recognize you in that capacity as regards sociology." + +Sharlee made no reply. She had no idea that the young man's dismissal +from the _Post_ had been a crucifixion to him, an unendurable infamy +upon his virginal pride of intellect. She had no conception of his +powers of self-control, which happened to be far greater than her own, +and she would have given worlds to know what he was thinking at that +moment. For her part she was thinking of him, intensely, and in a +personal way. Manners he had none, but where did he get his manner? Who +had taught him to bow in that way? He had mentioned insults: where had +he heard of insults, this stray who had raised himself in the house of a +drunken policeman? + +"Well," said Queed, with the utmost calmness, "you might tell me, in a +word, why you think I am a failure as a sociologist." + +"You are a failure as a sociologist," said Sharlee, immediately, "for +the same reason as both your other failures: you are wholly out of +relation with real life. Sociology is the science of human society. You +know absolutely nothing about human society, except what other men have +found out and written down in text-books. You say that you are an +evolutionary sociologist. Yet a wonderful demonstration in social +evolution is going on all around you, and _you don't even know it_. You +are standing here directly between two civilizations. On the one side +there are Colonel Cowles and my old grandmother--mother of your +landlady, plucky dear! On the other there are our splendid young men, +men who, with traditions of leisure and cultured idleness in their +blood, have pitched in with their hands and heads to make this State +_hum_, and will soon be meeting and beating your Northern young men at +every turn. On one side there is the old slaveholding aristocracy; on +the other the finest Democracy in the world; and here and now human +society is evolving from one thing to the other. A real sociologist +would be absorbed in watching this marvelous process: social evolution +actually surprised in her workshop. But you--I doubt if you even knew it +was going on. A tremendous social drama is being acted out under your +very window and you yawn and _pull down the blind_." + +There was a brief silence. In the course of it the door-bell was heard +to ring; soon the door opened; a masculine murmur; then the maid Mary's +voice, clearly: "Yassuh, she's in.... Won't you rest your coat, Mr. +West?" + +Mary entered the little back parlor, a card upon a tray. "Please draw +the folding doors," said Sharlee. "Say that I'll be in in a few +minutes." + +They were alone once more, she and the little Doctor; the silence +enfolded them again; and she broke it by saying the last word she had to +say. + +"I have gone into detail because I wanted to make the unfavorable +impression you produce upon your little world clear to you, for once. +But I can sum up all that I have said in less than six words. If you +remember anything at all that I have said, I wish you would remember +this. Mr. Queed, you are afflicted with a fatal malady. Your cosmos is +all Ego." + +She started to rise, thought better of it, and sat still in her flowered +chair full in the lamplight. The little Doctor stood at the +mantel-shelf, his elbow upon it, and the silence lengthened. To do +something, Sharlee pulled off her right long glove and slowly put it +back again. Then she pulled off her left long glove, and about the time +she was buttoning the last button he began speaking, in a curious, +lifeless voice. + +"I learned to read when I was four years old out of a copy of the New +York _Evening Post_. It came to the house, I remember, distinctly, +wrapped around two pork chops. That seemed to be all the reading matter +we had in the house for a long time--I believe Tim was in hard luck in +those days--and by the time I was six I had read that paper all through +from beginning to end, five times. I have wondered since if that +incident did not give a bent to my whole mind. If you are familiar with +the _Evening Post_, you may appreciate what I mean.... It came out in me +exactly like a duck's yearning for water; that deep instinct for the +printed word. Of course Tim saw that I was different from him. He helped +me a little in the early stages, and then he stood back, awed by my +learning, and let me go my own gait. When I was about eight, I learned +of the existence of public libraries. I daresay it would surprise you to +know the books I was reading in this period of my life--and writing too: +for in my eleventh year I was the author of a one-volume history of the +world, besides several treatises. And I early began to think, too. What +was the fundamental principle underlying the evolution of a higher and +higher human type? How could this principle be unified through all +branches of science and reduced to an operable law? Questions such as +these kept me awake at night while I still wore short trousers. At +fourteen I was boarding alone in a kind of tenement on the East Side. Of +course I was quite different from all the people around me. Different. I +don't remember that they showed any affectionate interest in me, and why +on earth should they? As I say, I was different. There was nothing there +to suggest a conception of that brotherhood of man you speak of. I was +born with this impulse for isolation and work, and everything that +happened to me only emphasized it. I never had a day's schooling in my +life, and never a word of advice or admonition--never a scolding in all +my life till now. Here is a point on which your Christian theory of +living seems to me entirely too vague: how to reconcile individual +responsibility with the forces of heredity and circumstance. From my +point of view your talk would have been better rounded if you had +touched on that. Still, it was striking and interesting as it was. I +like to hear a clear statement of a point of view, and that your +statement happens to riddle me, personally, of course does not affect +the question in any way. If I regard human society and human life too +much as the biologist regards his rabbit, which appears to be the gist +of your criticism, I can at least cheerfully take my own turn on the +operating table as occasion requires. There is, of course, a great deal +that I might say in reply, but I do not understand that either of us +desires a debate. I will simply assert that your fundamental conception +of life, while novel and piquant, will not hold water for a moment. Your +conception is, if I state it fairly, that a man's life, to be useful, to +be a life of service, must be given immediately to his fellows. He must +do visible and tangible things with other men. I think a little +reflection will convince you that, on the contrary, much or most of the +best work of the world has been done by men whose personal lives were +not unlike my own. There was Palissy, to take a familiar minor instance. +Of course his neighbors saw in him only a madman whose cosmos was all +Ego. Yet people are grateful to Palissy to-day, and think little of the +suffering of his wife and children. Newton was no genial leader of the +people. Bacon could not even be loyal to his friends. The living world +around Socrates put him to death. The world's great wise men, inventors, +scientists, philosophers, prophets, have not usually spent their days +rubbing elbows with the bricklayer. Yet these men have served their race +better than all the good-fellows that ever lived. To each his gifts. If +I succeed in reducing the principle of human evolution to its eternal +law, I need not fear the judgment of posterity upon my life. I shall, in +fact, have performed the highest service to humankind that a finite mind +can hope to compass. Nevertheless, I am impressed by much that you say. +I daresay a good deal of it is valuable. All of it I engage to analyze +and consider dispassionately at my leisure. Meantime, I thank you for +your interest in the matter. Good-evening." + +"Mr. Queed." + +Sharlee rose hurriedly, since hurry was so evidently necessary. She felt +profoundly stirred, she hardly knew why; all her airs of a haughty +princess were fled; and she intercepted him with no remnant of her +pretense that she was putting a shabby inferior in his place. + +"I want to tell you," she said, somewhat nervously, "that I--I--admire +very much the way you've taken this. No ordinary man would have listened +with such--" + +"I never pretended to be an ordinary man." + +He moved, but she stood unmoving in front of him, the pretty portrait of +a lady in blue, and the eyes that she fastened upon him reminded him +vaguely of Fifi's. + +"Perhaps I--should tell you," said Sharlee, "just why I--" + +"Now don't," he said, smiling faintly at her with his old air of a +grandfather--"don't spoil it all by saying that you didn't mean it." + +Under his smile she colored a little, and, despite herself, looked +confused. He took advantage of her embarrassment to pass her with +another bow and go out, leaving her struggling desperately with the +feeling that he had got the best of her after all. + +But the door opened again a little way, almost at once, and the +trim-cut, academic face, with the lamplight falling upon the round +glasses and blotting them out in a yellow smudge, appeared in the +crevice. + +"By the way, you were wrong in saying that I pulled down my blind on the +evolutionary process now going on in the South. I give four thousand +words to it in my Historical Perspective, volume one." + + + + +XIV + + _In which Klinker quotes Scripture, and Queed has helped Fifi with + her Lessons for the Last Time._ + + +The tax-articles in the _Post_ had ceased after the adjournment of the +Legislature, which body gave no signs of ever having heard of them. Mr. +Queed's new series dealt authoritatively with "Currency Systems of the +World." He polished the systems off at the rate of three a week. But he +had asked and obtained permission to submit, also, voluntary +contributions on topics of his own choosing, and now for a fortnight +these offerings had died daily in Colonel Cowles's waste-basket. + +As for his book, Queed could not bear to think of it in these days. +Deliberately he had put a winding-sheet about his heart's desire, and +laid it away in a drawer, until such time as he had indisputably +qualified himself to be editor of the _Post_. Having qualified, he could +open that drawer again, with a rushing access of stifled ardor, and +await the Colonel's demise; but to do this, he figured now, would take +him not less than two months and a half. Two months and a half wrenched +from the Schedule! That sacred bill of rights not merely corrupted, but +for a space nullified and cancelled! Yes, it was the ultimate sacrifice +that outraged pride of intellect had demanded; but the young man would +not flinch. And there were moments when Trainer Klinker was startled by +the close-shut misery of his face. + +The Scriptorium had been degraded into a sickening school of journalism. +Day after day, night after night, Queed sat at his tiny table poring +over back files of the _Post_, examining Colonel Cowles's editorials as +a geologist examines a Silurian deposit. He analyzed, classified, +tabulated, computed averages, worked out underlying laws; and +gradually, with great travail--for the journalese language was to him as +Greek to another--he deduced from a thousand editorials a few broad +principles, somewhat as follows:-- + +1. That the Colonel dealt with a very wide range of concrete topics, +including many that appeared extremely trivial. (Whereas he, Queed, had +dealt almost exclusively with abstract principles, rarely taking +cognizance of any event that had happened later than 1850.) + +2. That nearly all the Colonel's "best" articles--_i.e._, best-liked, +most popular: the kind that Major Brooke and Mr. Bylash, or even Miss +Miller, were apt to talk about at the supper-table--dealt with topics of +a purely local and ephemeral interest. + +3. That the Colonel never went deeply or exhaustively into any group of +facts, but that, taking one broad simple hypothesis as his text, he +hammered that over and over, saying the same thing again and again in +different ways, but always with a wealth of imagery and picturesque +phrasing. + +4. That the Colonel invariably got his humorous effects by a +good-natured but sometimes sharp ridicule, the process of which was to +exaggerate the argument or travesty the cause he was attacking until it +became absurd. + +5. That the Colonel, no matter what his theme, always wrote with vigor +and heat and color: so that even if he were dealing with something on +the other side of the world, you might suppose that he, personally, was +intensely gratified or extremely indignant about it, as the case might +be. + +These principles Queed was endeavoring, with his peculiar faculty for +patient effort, to apply practically in his daily offerings. It is +enough to say that he found the task harder than Klinker's Exercises, +and that the little article on the city's method of removing garbage, +which failed to appear in this morning's _Post_, had stood him seven +hours of time. + +It was a warm rainy night in early May. Careful listening disclosed the +fact that Buck Klinker, who had as usual walked up from the gymnasium +with Queed, was changing his shoes in the next room, preparatory for +supper. Otherwise the house was very still. Fifi had been steadily +reported "not so well" for a long time and, for two days, very ill. +Queed sitting before the table, his gas ablaze and his shade up, tilted +back his chair and thought of her now. All at once, with no conscious +volition on his part, he found himself saying over the startling little +credo that Fifi had suggested for his taking, on the day he sent her the +roses. + +_To like men and do the things that men do. To smoke. To laugh. To joke +and tell funny stories. To take a ..._ + +The door of the Scriptorium-editorium opened and Buck Klinker, entering +without formalities, threw himself, according to his habit, upon the +tiny bed. This time he came by invitation, to complete the decidedly +interesting conversation upon which the two men had walked up town; but +talk did not at once begin. A book rowelled the small of Klinker's back +as he reclined upon the pillow, and plucking it from beneath him, he +glanced at the back of it. + +"_Vanity Fair_. Didn't know you ever read story-books, Doc." + +The Doc did not answer. He was occupied with the thought that not one of +the things that Fifi had urged upon him did he at present do. Smoking he +could of course take up at any time. Buck Klinker worked in a +tobacconist's shop; it might be a good idea to consult him as to what +was the best way to begin. As for telling funny stories--did he for the +life of him know one to tell? He racked his brain in vain. There were +two books that he remembered having seen in the Astor Library, _The +Percy Anecdotes_, and Mark Lemon's _Jest Book_; perhaps the State +Library had them.... Stay! Did not Willoughby himself somewhere +introduce an anecdote of a distinctly humorous nature? + +"It ain't much," said Buck, dropping Thackeray to the floor. "I read the +whole thing once.--No, I guess I'm thinkin' of _The County Fair_, a +drammer that I saw at the Bee-jou. But I guess they're all the same, +those Fairs." + +"Say Doc," he went on presently, "I'm going to double you on Number +Seven, beginning from to-morrow, hear?" + +Number Seven was one of the stiffest of Klinker's Exercises for All +Parts of the Body. Queed looked up absently. + +"That's right," said his trainer, inexorably. "It's just what you need. +I had a long talk with Smithy, last night." + +"Buck," said the Doctor, clearing his throat, "have I ever--ahem--told +you of the famous reply of Dr. Johnson to the Billingsgate fishwives?" + +"Johnson? Who? Fat, sandy-haired man lives on Third Street?" + +"No, Dr. Samuel Johnson, the well-known English author and--character. +It is related that on one occasion Dr. Johnson approached the fishwives +at Billingsgate to purchase of their wares. The exact details of the +story are not altogether clear in my memory, but, as I recall it, +something the good Doctor said angered these women, for they began +showering him with profane and blasphemous names. At this style of +language the fishwives are said to be extremely proficient. What do you +fancy that Dr. Johnson called them in return? But you could hardly +guess. He called them parallelopipedons. I am not entirely certain +whether it was parallelopipedons or isosceles triangles. Possibly there +are two versions of the story." + +Buck stared at him, frankly and greatly bewildered, and noticed that the +little Doctor was staring at him, with strong marks of anxiety on his +face. + +"I should perhaps say," added Queed, "that parallelopipedons and +isosceles triangles are not profane or swearing words at all. They are, +in fact, merely the designations applied to geometrical figures." + +"Oh," said Klinker. "Oh." + +There was a brief pause. + +"Ah, well!... Go on with what you were telling me as we walked up, +then!" + +"Sure thing. But I don't catch the conversation. What was all that con +you were giving me--?" + +"Con?" + +"About Johnson and the triangles." + +"It simply occurred to me to tell you a funny story, of the sort that +men are known to like, with the hope of amusing you--" + +"Why, that wasn't a funny story, Doc." + +"I assure you that it was." + +"Don't see it," said Klinker. + +"That is not my responsibility, in any sense." + +Thus Doctor Queed, sitting stiffly on his hard little chair, and gazing +with annoyance at Klinker through the iron bars at the foot of the bed. + +"Blest if I pipe," said Buck, and scratched his head. + +"I cannot both tell the stories and furnish the brains to appreciate +them. Kindly proceed with what you were telling me." + +So Buck, obliging but mystified, dropped back upon the bed and +proceeded, tooth-pick energetically at work. His theme was a problem +with which nearly every city is unhappily familiar. In Buck's +terminology, it was identified as "The Centre Street mashers": those +pimply, weak-faced, bad-eyed young men who congregate at prominent +corners every afternoon, especially Saturdays, to smirk at the +working-girls, and to pass, wherever they could, from their murmured, +"Hello, Kiddo," and "Where you goin', baby?" to less innocent things. + +Buck's air of leisureliness dropped from him as he talked; his +orange-stick worked ever more and more furiously; his honest voice grew +passionate as he described conditions as he knew them. + +"... And some fool of a girl, no more than a child for knowing what +she's doin', laughs and answers back--just for the fun of it, not +looking for harm, and right there's where your trouble begins. Maybe +that night after doin' the picture shows; maybe another night; but it's +sure to come. Dammit, Doc, I'm no saint nor sam-singer and I've done +things I hadn't ought like other men, and woke up shamed the next +morning, too, but I've got a sister who's a decent good girl as there is +anywhere, and by God, sir, I'd _kill_ a man who just looked at her with +the dirty eyes of them little soft-mouth blaggards!" + +Queed, unaffectedly interested, asked the usual question--could not the +girls be taught at home the dangers of such acquaintances?--and Buck +pulverized it in the usual way. + +"Who in blazes is goin' to teach 'em? Don't you know _anything_ about +what kind of homes they got? Why, man, they're _the sisters of the +little blaggards!_" + +He painted a dark picture of the home-life of many of these girls: its +hard work and unrelenting poverty; its cheerlessness; the absence of any +fun; the irresistible allurement of the flashily-dressed stranger who +jingles money in his pocket and offers to "show a good time." Then he +told a typical story, the story of a little girl he knew, who worked in +a department store for three dollars and a half a week, and whose +drunken father took over the last cent of that every Saturday night. +This girl's name was Eva Bernheimer, and she was sixteen years old and +"in trouble." + +"You know what, Doc?" Buck ended. "You'd ought to take it up in the +_Post_--that's what. There's a fine piece to be written, showin' up them +little hunters." + +It was characteristic of Doctor Queed that such an idea had not and +would not have occurred to him: applying his new science of editorial +writing to a practical problem dipped from the stream of everyday life +was still rather beyond him. But it was also characteristic of him that, +once the idea had been suggested to him, he instantly perceived its +value. He looked at Buck admiringly through the iron bars. + +"You are quite right. There is." + +"You know they are trying to get up a reformatory--girls' home, some +call it. That's all right, if you can't do better, but it don't get to +the bottom of it. The right way with a thing like this is to _take it +before it happens!_" + +"You are quite right, Buck." + +"Yes--but how're you goin' to do it? You sit up here all day and night +with your books and studies, Doc--where's your cure for a sorry trouble +like this?" + +"That is a fair question. I cannot answer definitely until I have +studied the situation out in a practical way. But I will say that the +general problem is one of the most difficult with which social science +has to deal." + +"I know what had ought to be done. The blaggards ought to be shot. Damn +every last one of them, I say." + +Klinker conversed in his anger something like the ladies of +Billingsgate, but Queed did not notice this. He sat back in his chair, +absorbedly thinking that here, at all events, was a theme which had +enough practical relation with life. He himself had seen a group of the +odious "mashers" with his own eyes; Buck had pointed them out as they +walked up. Never had a social problem come so close home to him as this: +not a thing of text-book theories, but a burning issue working out +around the corner on people that Klinker knew. And Klinker's question +had been an acute one, challenging the immediate value of social science +itself. + +His thought veered, swept out of its channel by an unwonted wave of +bitterness. Klinker had offered him this material, Klinker had advised +him to write an editorial about it, Klinker had pointed out for him, in +almost a superior way, just where the trouble lay. Nor was this all. Of +late everybody seemed to be giving him advice. Only the other week it +was Fifi; and that same day, the young lady Charles Weyland. What was +there about him that invited this sort of thing?... And he was going to +take Klinker's advice; he had seized upon it gratefully. Nor could he +say that he was utterly insensate to Fifi's: he had caught himself +saying over part of it not ten minutes ago. As for Charles Weyland's +ripsaw criticisms, he had analyzed them dispassionately, as he had +promised, and his reason rejected them in toto. Yet he could not +exactly say that he had wholly purged them out of his mind. No ... the +fact was that some of her phrases had managed to burn themselves into +his brain. + +Presently Klinker said another thing that his friend the little Doctor +remembered for a long time. + +"Do you know what's the finest line in Scripture, Doc? _But He spake of +the temple of His body._ I heard a minister get that off in a church +once, in a sermon, and I don't guess I'll ever forget it. A dandy, ain't +it?... Exercise and live straight. Keep your temple strong and clean. If +I was a parson, I tell you, I'd go right to Seventh and Centre next +Saturday and give a talk to them blaggards on that. _But He spake of_ +..." + +Klinker stopped as though he had been shot. A sudden agonized scream +from downstairs jerked him off the bed and to his feet in a second +solemn as at the last trump. He stared at Queed wide-eyed, his honest +red face suddenly white. + +"God forgive me for talkin' so loud.... I'd ought to have known...." + +"What is it? Who was that?" demanded Queed, startled more by Klinker's +look than by that scream. + +But Klinker only turned and slipped softly out of the door, tipping on +his toes as though somebody near at hand were asleep. + +Queed was left bewildered, and completely at a loss. Whatever the matter +was, it clearly concerned Buck Klinker. Equally clearly, it did not +concern him. People had a right to scream if they felt that way, without +having a horde of boarders hurry out and call them to book. + +However, his scientist's fondness for getting at the underlying +causes--or as some call it, curiosity--presently obtained control of +him, and he went downstairs. + +There is no privacy of grief in the communism of a middle-class +boarding-house. It is ordered that your neighbor shall gaze upon your +woe and you shall stare at his anguish, when both are new and raw. That +cry of pain had been instantly followed by a stir of movement; a little +shiver ran through the house. Doors opened and shut; voices murmured; +quick feet sounded on the stairs. Now the boarders were gathered in the +parlor, very still and solemn, yet not to save their lives unaware that +for them the humdrum round was to go on just the same. And here, of +course, is no matter of a boarding-house: for queens must eat though +kings lie high in state. + +To Mrs. Paynter's parlor came a girl, white-faced and shadowy-eyed, but +for those hours at least, calm and tearless and the mistress of +herself. The boarders rose as she appeared in the door, and she saw that +after all she had no need to tell them anything. They came and took her +hand, one by one, which was the hardest to bear, and even Mr. Bylash +seemed touched with a new dignity, and even Miss Miller's pompadour +looked human and sorry. But two faces Miss Weyland did not see among the +kind-eyed boarders: the old professor, who had locked himself in his +room, and the little Doctor who was at that moment coming down the +steps. + +"Supper's very late," said she. "Emma and Laura ... have been much +upset. I'll have it on the table in a minute." + +She turned into the hail and saw Queed on the stairs. He halted his +descent five steps from the bottom, and she came to the banisters and +stood and looked up at him. And if any memory of their last meeting was +with them then, neither of them gave any sign of it. + +"You know--?" + +"No, I don't know," he replied, disturbed by her look, he did not know +why, and involuntarily lowering his voice. "I came down expressly to +find out." + +"Fifi--She--" + +"Is worse again?" + +"She ... stopped breathing a few minutes ago." + +"_Dead!_" + +Sharlee winced visibly at the word, as the fresh stricken always will. + +The little Doctor turned his head vaguely away. The house was so still +that the creaking of the stairs as his weight shifted from one foot to +another, sounded horribly loud; he noticed it, and regretted having +moved. The idea of Fifi's dying had of course never occurred to him. +Something put into his head the simple thought that he would never help +the little girl with her algebra again, and at once he was conscious of +an odd and decidedly unpleasant sensation, somewhere far away inside of +him. He felt that he ought to say something, to sum up his attitude +toward the unexpected event, but for once in his life he experienced a +difficulty in formulating his thought in precise language. However, the +pause was of the briefest. + +"I think," said Sharlee, "the funeral will be Monday afternoon.... You +will go, won't you?" + +Queed turned upon her a clouded brow. The thought of taking personal +part in such mummery as a funeral--"barbaric rites," he called them in +the forthcoming Work--was entirely distasteful to him. "No," he said, +hastily. "No, I could hardly do that--" + +"Fifi--would like it. It is the last time you will have to do anything +for her." + +"Like it? It is hardly as if she would know--!" + +"Mightn't you show your regard for a friend just the same, even if your +friend was never to know about it?... Besides--I think of these things +another way, and so did Fifi." + +He peered down at her over the banisters, oddly disquieted. The flaring +gas lamp beat mercilessly upon her face, and it occurred to him that she +looked tired around her eyes. + +"I think Fifi will know ... and be glad," said Sharlee. "She liked and +admired you. Only day before yesterday she spoke of you. Now she ... has +gone, and this is the one way left for any of us to show that we are +sorry." + +Long afterwards, Queed thought that if Charles Weyland's lashes had not +glittered with sudden tears at that moment he would have refused her. +But her lashes did so glitter, and he capitulated at once; and turning +instantly went heavy-hearted up the stairs. + + + + +XV + + _In a Country Churchyard, and afterwards; of Friends: how they take + your Time while they live, and then die, upsetting your Evening's + Work; and what Buck Klinker saw in the Scriptorium at 2 a.m._ + + +Queed was caught, like many another rationalist before him, by the +stirring beauty of the burial service of the English church. + +Fifi's funeral was in the country, at a little church set down in a +beautiful grove which reminds all visitors of the saying about God's +first temples. Near here Mrs. Paynter was born and spent her girlhood; +here Fifi, before her last illness, had come every Sabbath morning to +the Sunday-school; here lay the little strip of God's acre that the now +childless widow called her own. You come by the new electric line, one +of those high-speed suburban roads which, all over the country, are +doing so much to persuade city people back to the land. The cars are +steam-road size. Two of them had been provided for the mourners, and +there was no room to spare; for the Paynter family connection was large, +and it seemed that little Fifi had many friends. + +From Stop 11, where the little station is, your course is by the +woodland path; past the little springhouse, over the tiny rustic bridge, +and so on up the shady slope to the cluster of ancient pines. In the +grove stood carriages; buggy horses reined to the tall trees; even that +abomination around a church, the motor of the vandals. In the walk +through the woods, Queed found himself side by side with a fat, +scarlet-faced man, who wore a vest with brass buttons and immediately +began talking to him like a lifelong friend. He was a motorman on the +suburban line, it seemed, and had known Fifi very well. + +"No, sir, I wouldn't believe it when my wife seen it in the paper and +called it out to me, an' I says there's some mistake, you can be sure, +and she says no, here it is in the paper, you can read it for y'self. +But I wouldn't believe it till I went by the house on the way to my run, +and there was the crape on the door. An' I tell you, suh, I couldn't a +felt worse if 'twas one o' my own kids. Why, it seems like only the +other morning she skipped onto my car, laughin' and sayin', 'How are you +to-day, Mr. Barnes?' Why she and me been buddies for nigh three years, +and she took my 9.30 north car every Sunday morning, rain or shine, just +as reg'lar, and was the only one I ever let stand out on _my_ platform, +bein' strictly agin all rules, and my old partner Hornheim was fired for +allowin' it, it ain't six months since. But what could I do when she +asked me, _please, Mr. Barnes_, with that sweet face o' hers, and her +rememberin' me every Christmas that came along just like I was her +Pa...." + +The motorman talked too much, but he proved useful in finding seats up +near the front, where, being fat, he took up considerably more than his +share of room. + +Unless Tim had taken him to the Cathedral once, twenty years ago, it was +the first time that Queed had ever been inside a church. He had read +Renan at fourteen, finally discarding all religious beliefs in the same +year. Approximately Spencer's First Cause satisfied his reason, though +he meant to buttress Spencer's contention in its weakest place and carry +it deeper than Spencer did. But in fact, the exact limits he should +assign to religious beliefs as an evolutionary function were still +indeterminate in his system. He, like all cosmic philosophers, found +this the most baffling and elusive of all his problems. Meantime, here +in this little country church, he was to witness the supreme rite of the +supreme religious belief. There was some compensation for his enforced +attendance in that thought. He looked about him with genuine and candid +interest. The hush, the dim light, the rows upon rows of sober-faced +people, seemed to him properly impressive. He was struck by the wealth +of flowers massed all over the chancel, and wondered if that was its +regular state. The pulpit and the lectern; the altar, which he easily +identified; the stained-glass windows with their obviously symbolic +pictures; the bronze pipes of the little organ; the unvested choir, +whose function he vaguely made out--over all these his intelligent eye +swept, curiously; and lastly it went out of the open window and lost +itself in the quiet sunny woods outside. + +Strange and full of wonder. This incredible instinct for adoration--this +invincible insistence in believing, in defiance of all reason, that man +was not born to die as the flesh dies. What, after all, was the full +significance of this unique phenomenon? + +_I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth +in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live...._ + +A loud resonant voice suddenly cut the hush with these words and +immediately they were all standing. Queed was among the first to rise; +the movement was like a reflex action. For there was something in the +thrilling timbre of that voice that seemed to pull him to his feet +regardless of his will; something, in fact, that impelled him to crane +his neck around and peer down the dim aisle to discover immediately who +was the author of it. + +His eye fell on a young man advancing, clad in white robes the like of +which he had never seen, and wearing the look of the morning upon his +face. In his hands he bore an open book, but he did not glance at it. +His head was thrown back; his eyes seemed fastened on something outside +and beyond the church; and he rolled out the victorious words as though +he would stake all that he held dearest in this world that their +prophecy was true. + +_Whom I shall see for myself, and_ MINE _eyes shall behold, and not +another...._ + +But behind the young man rolled a little stand on wheels, on which lay a +long box banked in flowers; and though the little Doctor had never been +at a funeral before, and never in the presence of death, he knew that +here must lie the mortal remains of his little friend, Fifi. From this +point onward Queed's interest in the service became, so to say, less +purely scientific. + +There was some antiphonal reciting, and then a long selection which the +young man in robes read with the same voice of solemn triumph. It is +doubtful if anybody in the church followed him with the fascinated +attention of the young evolutionist. Soon the organ rumbled, and the +little choir, standing, broke into song. + + For all the Saints who from their labors rest.... + +Saints! Well, well, was it imaginable that they thought of Fifi that way +_already_? Why, it was only three weeks ago that he had sent her the +roses and she.... + +A black-gloved hand, holding an open book, descended out of the dim +space behind him. It came to him, as by an inspiration, that the book +was being offered for his use in some mysterious connection. He grasped +it gingerly, and his friend the motorman, jabbing at the text with a +scarlet hand, whispered raucously: "'S what they're singin'." But the +singers had traveled far before the young man was able to find and +follow them. + + And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, + Steals on the ear the distant triumph song, + And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. + +The girls in the choir sang on, untroubled by a doubt:-- + + But lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day; + The saints triumphant rise in bright array; + The King of glory passes on His way. + +They marched outside following the flower-banked casket into the little +cemetery, and Queed stood with bared head like the others, watching the +committal of dust unto dust. In the forefront of the mournful gathering, +nearest the grave's edge, there stood three women heavily swathed in +black. Through all the rite now, suppressed sobbing ran like a motif. +Soon fell upon all ears the saddest of all sounds, the pitiless thud of +the first earth upon the stiff lid. On the other side of the irregular +circle, Queed saw the coarse red motorman; tears were rolling down his +fat cheeks; but never noticing them he was singing loudly, far off the +key, from the book the black-gloved hand had given Queed. The hymn they +were singing now also spoke surely and naturally of the saints. The same +proud note, the young man observed, ran through the service from +beginning to end. Hymn and prayer and reading all confidently assumed +that Fifi was dead only to this mortal eye, but in another world, open +to all those gathered about the grave for their seeking, she lived in +some marvelously changed form--her body being made _like unto his own +glorious body_.... + +In the homeward-bound car, Queed fully recaptured his poise, and +redirected his thoughts into rational channels. + +The doctrine of the immortality of the soul had not a rational leg to +stand on. The anima, or spirit, being merely the product of certain +elements combined in life, was wiped out when those elements dissolved +their union in death. It was the flame of a candle blown out. Yet with +what unbelievable persistence this doctrine had survived through +history. Science had annihilated it again and again, but these people +resolutely stopped their ears to science. They could not answer science +with argument, so they had answered her with the axe and the stake; and +they were still capable of doing that whenever they thought it +desirable. Strange spectacle! What was the "conflict between Religion +and Science" but man's desperate struggle against his own reason? +Benjamin Kidd had that right at any rate. + +Yet did these people really believe their doctrine of the saved body and +the saved soul? They said they did, but did they? If they believed it +surely, as they believed that this night would be followed by a new day, +if they believed it passionately as they believed that money is the +great earthly good, then certainly the biggest of their worldly affairs +would be less than a grain of sand by the sea against the everlasting +glories that awaited them. Yet ... look at them all about him in the +car, these people who told themselves that they had started Fifi on the +way to be a saint, in which state they expected to remeet her. Did they +so regard their worldly affairs? By to-morrow they would be at each +other's throats, squabbling, cheating, slandering, lying, fighting +desperately to gain some ephemeral advantage--all under the eye of the +magnificent guerdon they pretended to believe in and knew they were +jeopardizing by such acts. No, it was pure self-hypnosis. Weak man +demanded offsets for his earthly woes, and he had concocted them in a +world of his own imagining. That was the history of man's religions; the +concoction of other-worldly offsets for worldly woes. In their heart of +hearts, all knew that they were concoctions, and the haruspices laughed +when they met each other. + +Supper was early at Mrs. Paynter's, as though to atone for the tardiness +of yesterday. The boarders dispatched it not without recurring +cheerfulness, broken now and again by fits of decorous silence. You +could see that by to-morrow, or it might be next day, the house would be +back in its normal swing again. + +Mr. Queed withdrew to his little chamber. He trod the steps softly for +once, and perhaps this was why, as he passed Mrs. Paynter's room, his +usually engrossed ear caught the sound of weeping, quiet but +unrestrained, ceaseless, racking weeping, running on evermore, the +weeping of Rachel for her children, who would not be comforted. + +The little Doctor shut the door of the Scriptorium and lit the gas. So +far, his custom; but here his whim and his wont parted. Instead of +seating himself at his table, where the bound _Post_ for January-March, +1902, awaited his exploration, he laid himself down on his tiny bed. + +If he were to die to-night, who would weep for him like that? + +The thought had come unbidden to his mind and stuck in his metaphysics +like a burr. Now he remembered that the question was not entirely a new +one. Fifi had once asked him who would be sorry if he died, and had +answered herself by saying that she would. However, Fifi was dead, and +therefore released from her promise. + +Yes, Fifi was dead. He would never help her with her algebra again. The +thought filled him with vague, unaccountable regrets. He felt that he +would willingly take twenty minutes a night from the wrecked Schedule to +have her come back, but unfortunately there was no way of arranging that +now. He remembered the night he had sent Fifi out of the dining-room for +coughing, and the remembrance made him distinctly uncomfortable. He +rather wished that he had told Fifi he was sorry about that, but it was +too late now. Still he had told her that he was her friend; he was glad +to remember that. But here, from a new point of view, was the trouble +about having friends. They took your time while they lived, and then +they went off and died and upset your evening's work. + +Clearly, Fifi left behind many sorrowful friends, as shown by her +remarkable funeral. If he himself were to die, Tim and Murphy Queed +would probably feel sorrowful, but they would hardly come to the +funeral. For one thing, Tim could not come because of his duties on the +force, and Murphy, for all he knew, was undergoing incarceration. About +the only person he could think of as a probable attendant at his +graveside was William Klinker. Yes, Buck would certainly be there, +though it was asking a good deal to expect him to weep. A funeral +consisting of only one person would look rather odd to those who were +familiar with such crowded churches as that he had seen to-day. People +passing by would nudge each other and say that the dead must have led an +eccentric life, indeed, to be so alone at the end.... Come to think of +it, though, there wouldn't be any funeral. He had nothing to do with +those most interesting but clearly barbaric rites. Of course his body +would be cremated by directions in the will. The operation would be +private, attracting no attention from anybody. Buck would make the +arrangements. He tried to picture Buck weeping near the incinerator, and +failed. + +Then there was his father, whom, in twenty-four years' sharing of the +world together, he had never met. The man's behavior was odd, to say the +least. From the world's point of view he had declined to own his son. +For such an unusual breach of custom, there must be some adequate +explanation, and the circumstances all pointed one way. This was that +his mother (whom his boyhood had pictured as a woman of distinction who +had eloped with somebody far beneath her) had failed to marry his +father. The persistent mystery about his birth had always made him +skeptical of Tim's statement that he had been present at the marriage. +But he rarely thought of the matter at all now. The moral responsibility +was none of his; and as for a name, Queed was as good as any other. X or +Y was a good enough name for a real man, whose life could demonstrate +his utter independence of the labels so carefully pasted upon him by +environment and circumstance. + +Still, if he were to die, he felt that his father, if yet alive, should +come forward and weep for him, even as Mrs. Paynter was weeping for Fifi +down in the Second Front. He should stand out like a man and take from +Buck's hand the solemn ceremonies of cremation. He tried to picture his +father weeping near the incinerator, and failed, partly owing to the +mistiness surrounding that gentleman's bodily appearance. He felt that +his father was dodging his just responsibilities. For the first time in +his life he perceived that, under certain circumstances, it might be an +advantage to have some definite individual to whom you can point and +say: "There goes my father." + +As it was, it all came down to him and Buck. He and Buck were alone in +the world together. He rather clung to the thought of Buck, and +instantly caught himself at it. Very well; let him take it that way +then. Take Buck as a symbol of the world, of those friendships which +played such certain havoc with a man's Schedule. Was he glad that he had +Buck or was he not? + +The little Doctor lay on his back in the glare thinking things out. The +gas in his eyes was an annoyance, but he did not realize it, and so did +not get up, as another man would have done, and put it out. + +Certainly it was an extraordinary thing that the only critics he had +ever had in his life had all three attacked his theory of living at +precisely the same point. They had all three urged him to get in touch +with his environment. He himself could unanswerably demonstrate that in +such degree as he succeeded in isolating himself from his +environment--at least until his great work was done--in just that degree +would his life be successful. But these three seemed to declare, with +the confidence of those who state an axiom, that in just that degree was +his life a failure. Of course they could not demonstrate their +contention as he could demonstrate his, but the absence of reasoning did +not appear to shake their assurance in the smallest. Here then was +another apparent conflict of instinct with reason: their instinct with +his reason. Perhaps he might have dismissed the whole thing as merely +their religion, but that his father, with that mysterious letter of +counsel, was among them. He did not picture his father as a religious +man. Besides, Fifi, asked point-blank if that was her religion, had +denied, assuring him, singularly enough, that it was only common-sense. + +And among them, among all the people that had touched him in this new +life, there was no denying that he had had some curiously unsettling +experiences. + +He had been ready to turn the pages of the book of life for Fifi, an +infant at his knee, and all at once Fifi had taken the book from his +hands and read aloud, in a language which was quite new to him, a +lecture on his own short-comings. There was no denying that her question +about his notions on altruism had given him an odd, arresting glimpse of +himself from a new peak. He had set out in his pride to punish Mr. Pat, +and Mr. Pat had severely punished him, revealing him humiliatingly to +himself as a physical incompetent. He had dismissed Buck Klinker as a +faintly amusing brother to the ox, and now Buck Klinker was giving him +valuable advice about his editorial work, to say nothing of jerking him +by the ears toward physical competency. He had thought to honor the +_Post_ by contributing of his wisdom to it, and the _Post_ had replied +by contemptuously kicking him out. He had laughed at Colonel Cowles's +editorials, and now he was staying out of bed of nights slavishly +struggling to imitate them. He had meant to give Miss Weyland some +expert advice some day about the running of her department, and suddenly +she had turned about and stamped him as an all-around failure, meet not +for reverence, but the laughter and pity of men. + +So far as he knew, nobody in the world admired him. They might admire +his work, but him personally they felt sorry for or despised. Few even +admired his work. The _Post_ had given him satisfactory proof of that. +Conant, Willoughby, and Smathers would admire it--yes, wish to the Lord +that they had written it. But would that fill his cup to overflowing? By +the way, had not Fifi asked him that very question, too--whether he +would consider a life of that sort a successful life? Well--would he? Or +could it imaginably be said that Fifi, rather, had had a successful +life, as evidenced by her profoundly interesting funeral? + +Was it possible that a great authority on human society could make +himself an even greater authority by personally assuming a part in the +society which he theoretically administered? Was it possible that he was +missing some factor of large importance by his addiction to isolation +and a schedule? + +In short, was it conceivable that he had it all wrong from the +beginning, as the young lady Charles Weyland had said? + +The little Doctor lay still on his bed and his precious minutes slipped +into hours.... If he finished his book at twenty-seven, what would he do +with the rest of his life? Besides defending it from possible criticism, +besides expounding and amplifying it a little further as need seemed to +be, there would be no more work for him to do. Supreme essence of +philosophy, history, and all science as it was, it was the final word of +human wisdom. You might say that with it the work of the world was done. +How then should he spend the remaining thirty or forty years of his +life? As matters stood now he had, so to say, twenty years start on +himself. Through the peculiar circumstances of his life, he had reached +a point in his reading and study at twenty-four which another man could +not hope to reach before he was forty-five or fifty. Other men had done +daily work for a livelihood, and had only their evenings for their +heart's desire. Spencer was a civil engineer. Mill was a clerk in an +India house. Comte taught mathematics. But he, in all his life, had not +averaged an hour a week's enforced distraction: all had gone to his own +work. You might say that he was entitled to a heavy arrears in this +direction. If he liked, he could idle for ten years, twenty years, and +still be more than abreast of his age. + +And as it was, he could not pretend that he had kept the faith, that he +was inviolably holding his Schedule unspotted from the world. No, he +himself had outraged and deflowered the Schedule. Klinker's Exercises +and the _Post_ were deliberate impieties. And he could not say that they +had the sanction of his reason. The exercises had only a partial +sanction; the _Post_ no sanction at all. Both were but sops to wounded +pride. Here, then, was a pretty situation: he, the triumphant +rationalist, the toy of utterly irrational impulses--of an utterly +irrational instinct. And this new impulse tugging at his inside, driving +him to heed the irrational advice of his critics--what could it be but +part and parcel of the same mysterious but apparently deep-seated +instinct? And what was the real significance of this instinct, and what +in the name of Jerusalem was the matter with him anyway? + + * * * * * + +He was twenty-four years old, without upbringing, and utterly alone in +the world. He had raised himself, body and soul, out of printed books, +and about all the education he ever had was half an hour's biting talk +from Charles Weyland. Of course he did not recognize his denied youth +when it rose and fell upon him, but he did recognize that his assailant +was doughty. He locked arms with it and together they fell into +undreamed depths. + +Buck Klinker, returning from some stag devilry at the hour of two A.M., +and attracted to the Scriptorium by the light under the door, found the +little Doctor pacing the floor in his stocking feet, with the gas +blazing and the shade up as high as it would go. He halted in his +marchings to stare at Buck with wild unrecognition, and his face looked +so white and fierce that honest Buck, like the good friend he was, only +said, "Well--good-night, Doc," and unobtrusively withdrew. + + + + +XVI + + _Triumphal Return of Charles Gardiner West from the Old World; and + of how the Other World had wagged in his Absence._ + + +Many pictured post-cards and an occasional brief note reminded Miss +Weyland during the summer that Charles Gardiner West was pursuing his +studies in the Old World with peregrinative zest. By the trail of +colored photographs she followed his triumphal march. Rome knew the +president-elect in early June; Naples, Florence, Milan, Venice in the +same period. He investigated, presumably, the public school systems of +Geneva and Berlin; the higher education drew him through the château +country of France; for three weeks the head-waiters of Paris (in the +pedagogical district) were familiar with the clink of his coin; and +August's first youth was gone before he was in London with the lake +region a tramped road behind him. + +From the latter neighborhood (picture: Rydal Mount) he wrote Sharlee as +follows: + + Sailing on the 21st, after the most glorious trip in history. Never + so full of energy and enthusiasm. Running over with the most + beautiful plans. + +The exact nature of these plans the writer did not indicate, but +Sharlee's mother, who always got down to breakfast first and read all +the postals as they came, explained that the reference was evidently to +Blaines College. West, however, did not sail on the 21st, even though +that date was some days behind his original intentions. The itinerary +with which he had set out had him home again, in fact, on August 15. For +in the stress and hurry of making ready for the journey, together with +a little preliminary rest which he felt his health required, he had to +let his advertising campaign and other schemes for the good of the +college go over until the fall. But collegiate methods obtaining in +London were too fascinating, apparently, to be dismissed with any +cursory glance. He sailed on the 25th, arrived home on the 3rd of +September, and on the 4th surprised Sharlee by dropping in upon her in +her office. + +He was browned from his passage, appeared a little stouter, was very +well dressed and good to look at, and fairly exuded vitality and +pleasant humor. Sharlee was delighted and quite excited over seeing him +again, though it may be noted, as shedding a side-light upon her +character, that she did not greet him with "Hello, Stranger!" However, +her manner of salutation appeared perfectly satisfactory to West. + +They had the little office to themselves and plenty to talk about. + +"Doubtless you got my postals?" he asked. + +"Oh, stacks of them. I spent all one Saturday afternoon pasting them in +an album as big as this table. They made a perfect fireside grand tour +for me. What did you like best in all your trip?" + +"I think," said West, turning his handsome blue eyes full upon her, +"that I like getting back." + +Sharlee laughed. "It's done you a world of good; that's plain, anyway. +You look ready to remove mountains." + +"Why, I can eat them--bite their heads off! I feel like a fighting-cock +who's been starved a shade too long for the good of the bystanders." + +He laughed and waved his arms about to signify enormous vitality. +Sharlee asked if he had been able to make a start yet with his new work. + +"You might say," he replied, "that I dived head-first into it from the +steamer." + +He launched out into eager talk about his hopes for Blaines College. In +all his wide circle of friends, he knew no one who made so sympathetic +and intelligent a listener as she. He talked freely, lengthily, even +egotistically it might have seemed, had they not been such good friends +and he so sure of her interest. Difficulties, it seemed, had already +cropped out. He was not sure of the temper of his trustees, whom he had +called together for an informal meeting that morning. Starting to +advertise the great improvements that had taken place in the college, he +had collided with the simple fact that no improvements had taken place. +Even if he privately regarded his own accession in that light, he +humorously pointed out, he could hardly advertise it, with old Dr. +Gilfillan, the retired president, living around the corner and reading +the papers. Again, taking his pencil to make a list of the special +advantages Blaines had to offer, he was rather forcibly struck with the +fact that it had no special advantages. But upon these and other +difficulties, he touched optimistically, as though confident that under +the right treatment, namely his treatment, all would soon yield. + +Sharlee, fired by his gay confidence, mused enthusiastically. "It's +inspiring to think what can be done! Really, it is no empty dream that +the number of students might be doubled--quadrupled--in five years." + +"Do you know," said he, turning his glowing face upon her, "I'm not so +eager for mere numbers now. That is one point on which my views have +shifted during my studies this summer. My ideal is no longer a very +large college--at least not necessarily large--but a college of the very +highest standards. A distinguished faculty of recognized authorities in +their several lines; an earnest student body, large if you can get them, +but always made of picked men admitted on the strictest terms; degrees +recognized all over the country as an unvarying badge of the highest +scholarship--these are what I shall strive for. My ultimate ambition," +said Charles Gardiner West, dreamily, "is to make of Blaines College an +institution like the University of Paris." + +He sprang up presently with great contrition, part real, part mock, over +having absorbed so much of the honest tax-payer's property, the +Departmental time. No, he could not be induced to appropriate a moment +more; he was going to run on up the street and call on Colonel Cowles. + +"How is the old gentleman, anyway?" + +"His spirits," said Sharlee, "were never better, and he is working like +a horse. But I'm afraid the dear is beginning to feel his years a +little." + +"He's nearly seventy, you know. By the bye, what ever became of that +young helper you and I unloaded on him last year--the queer little man +with the queer little name?" + +Sharlee saw that President West had entirely forgotten their +conversation six months before, when he had promised to protect this +same young helper from Colonel Cowles and the _Post_ directors. She +smiled indulgently at this evidence of the absent-mindedness of the +great. + +"Became of him! Why, you're going to make him regular assistant editor +at your directors' meeting next month." + +"Are we, though! I had it in the back of my head that he was fired early +in the summer." + +"Well, you see, when he saw the axe descending, he pulled off a little +revolution all by himself and all of a sudden learned to write. Make the +Colonel tell you about it." + +"I'm not surprised," said West. "I told you last winter, you know, that +I believed in that boy. Great heavens! It's glorious to be back in this +old town again!" + +He went down the broad steps of the Capitol, and out the winding white +walkway through the park. Nearly everybody he met stopped him with a +friendly greeting and a welcome home. He walked the shady path with his +light stick swinging, his eyes seeing, not an arch of tangible trees, +but the shining vista which dreamers call the Future.... He stood upon a +platform, fronting a vast white meadow of upturned faces. He was +speaking to this meadow, his theme being "Education and the Rise of the +Masses," and the people, displaying an enthusiasm rare at lectures upon +such topics, roared their approval as he shot at them great terse +truths, the essence of wide reading and profound wisdom put up in +pellets of pungent epigram. He rose at a long dinner-table, so placed +that as he stood his eye swept down rows upon rows of other long tables, +where the diners had all pushed back their chairs to turn and look at +him. His words were honeyed, of a magic compelling power, so that as he +reached his peroration, aged magnates could not be restrained from +producing fountain-pen and check-book; he saw them pushing aside +coffee-cups to indite rows of o's of staggering length. Blaines College +now tenanted a new home on a grassy knoll outside the city. The single +ramshackle barn which had housed the institution prior to the coming of +President West was replaced by a cluster of noble edifices of classic +marble. The president sat in his handsome office, giving an audience to +a delegation of world-famous professors from the University of Paris. +They had been dispatched by the French nation to study his methods on +the ground. + +"Why, _hello_, Colonel! Bless your heart, I _am_ glad to see you, +sir...." + +Colonel Cowles, looking up from his ancient seat, gave an exclamation of +surprise and pleasure. He welcomed the young man affectionately. West +sat down, and once more pen-sketched his travels and his plans for +Blaines College. He was making a second, or miniature, grand tour that +afternoon, regreeting all his friends, and was thus compelled to tell +his story many times; but his own interest in it appeared ever fresh. +For Blames he asked and was promised the kindly offices of the Post. + +The Colonel, in his turn, gave a brief account of his vacationless +summer, of his daily work, of the progress of the _Post's_ Policies. + +"I hear," said West, "that that little scientist I made you a present of +last year has made a ten-strike." + +"Queed? An extraordinary thing," said the Colonel, relighting his cigar. +"I was on the point of discharging him, you remember, with the hearty +approval of the directors. His stuff was dismal, abysmal, and hopeless. +One day he turned around and began handing in stuff of a totally +different kind. First-rate, some of it. I thought at first that he must +be hiring somebody to do it for him. Did you see the paper while you +were away?" + +"Very irregularly, I'm sorry to say." + +"Quite on his own hook, the boy turned up one day with an article on the +Centre Street 'mashers' that was a screamer. You know what that +situation was--" + +"Yes, yes." + +"I had for some time had it in mind to tackle it myself. The fact was +that we were developing a class of boy Don Juans that were a black +disgrace to the city. It was a rather unpleasant subject, but this young +man handled it with much tact, as well as with surprising vigor and +ability. His improvement seemed to date from right there. I encouraged +him to follow up his first effort, and he wrote a strong series which +attracted attention all through the State, and has already brought about +decided improvement." + +"Splendid! You know," said West, "the first time I ever looked at that +boy, I was sure he had the stuff in him." + +"Then you are a far keener observer than I. However, the nature of the +man seems to be undergoing some subtle change, a curious kind of +expansion--I don't remember anything like it in my experience. A more +indefatigable worker I never saw, and if he goes on this way.... Well, +God moves in a mysterious way. It's a delight to see you again, +Gardiner. Take supper with me at the club, won't you? I feel lonely and +grown old, as the poet says." + +West accepted, and presently departed on his happy round. The Colonel +glanced at his watch; it was 3.30 o'clock, and he fell industriously to +work again. On the stroke of four, as usual, the door of the adjoining +office opened, and he heard his assistant enter and seat himself at the +new desk recently provided for him. Another half-hour passed, and the +Colonel, putting a double cross-mark at the bottom of his paper--that +being how you write "Finis" on the press--raised his head. + +"Mr. Queed." + +"Yes." + +The connecting door opened, and the young man walked in. His chief eyed +him thoughtfully. + +"Young man, you have picked up a complexion like a professional +beauty's. What is your secret?" + +"I daresay it is exercise. I have just walked out to Kern's Castle and +back." + +"H'm. Five miles if it's a step." + +"And a half. I do it--twice a week--in an hour and seven minutes." + +The Colonel thought of his own over-rubicund cheek and sighed. "Well, +whom or what do you wish to crucify to-morrow?" + +"I am at your orders there." + +"Have you examined Deputy Clerk Folsom's reply to Councilman Hannigan's +charge? What do you think of it?" + +"I think it puts Hannigan in a very awkward position." + +"I agree with you. Suppose you seek to show that to the city in half a +column." + +Queed bowed. "I may, perhaps, remind you, Colonel, of the meeting in New +York to-morrow to prepare for the celebration of the Darwin centennial. +If you desired I should be glad to prepare, apropos of this, a brief +monograph telling in a light, popular way what Darwin did for the +world." + +"And what did Darwin do for the world?" + +The grave young man made a large grave gesture which indicated the +immensity of Darwin's doings for the world. + +"Which topic do you prefer to handle--Folsom on Hannigan, or what Darwin +did for the world?" + +"I think," said Queed, "that I should prefer to handle both." + +"Ten people will read Hannigan to one who reads Darwin." + +"Don't you think that it is the _Post's_ business to reduce that +proportion?" + +"Take them both," said the Colonel presently. "But always remember this: +the great People are more interested in a cat-fight at the corner of +Seventh and Centre Streets than they are in the greatest exploit of the +greatest scientific theorist that ever lived." + +"I will remember what you say, Colonel." + +"I want you," resumed Colonel Cowles, "to take supper with me at the +club. Not to-night--I'm engaged. Shall we say to-morrow night, at +seven?" + +Queed accepted without perceptible hesitation. Some time had passed +since he became aware that the Colonel had somehow insinuated himself +into that list of friends which had halted so long at Tim and Murphy +Queed. Besides, he had a genuine, unscientific desire to see what a real +club looked like inside. So far, his knowledge of clubs was absolutely +confined to the Mercury Athletic Association, B. Klinker, President. + +The months of May, June, July, and August had risen and died since +Queed, threshing out great questions through the still watches of the +night, had resolved to give a modified scheme of life a tentative and +experimental trial. He had kept this resolution, according to his wont. +Probably his first liking for Colonel Cowles dated back to the very +beginning of this period. It might be traced to the day when the +precariously-placed assistant had submitted his initial article on the +thesis his friend Buck had given him--the first article in all his life +that the little Doctor had ever dipped warm out of human life. This +momentous composition he had brought and laid upon the Colonel's desk, +as usual; but he did not follow his ancient custom by instantly +vanishing toward the Scriptorium. Instead he stuck fast in the sanctum, +not pretending to look at an encyclopedia or out of the window as +another man might have done, but standing rigid on the other side of the +table, gaze glued upon the perusing Colonel. Presently the old editor +looked up. + +"Did you write this?" + +"Yes. Why not?" + +"It's about as much like your usual style as my style is like Henry +James's." + +"You don't consider it a good editorial, then?" + +"You have not necessarily drawn the correct inference from my remark. I +consider it an excellent editorial. In fact--I shall make it my leader +to-morrow morning. But that has nothing to do with how you happen to be +using a style exactly the reverse of your own." + +Queed had heaved a great sigh. The article occupied three pages of +copy-paper in a close handwriting, and represented sixteen hours' work. +Its author had rewritten it eleven times, incessantly referring to his +text-book, the files of the _Post_, and subjecting each phrase to the +most gruelling examination before finally admitting it to the perfect +structure. However, it seemed no use to bore one's employer with details +such as these. + +"I have been doing a little studying of late--" + +"Under excellent masters, it seems. Now this phrase, 'the ultimate +reproach and the final infamy"--the Colonel unconsciously smacked his +lips over it--"why, sir, it sounds like one of my own." + +Queed started. + +"If you must know, it is one of your own. You used it on October 26, +1900, during, as you will recall, the closing days of the presidential +campaign." + +The Colonel stared at him, bewildered. + +"I decided to learn editorial-writing--as the term is understood," Queed +reluctantly explained. "Therefore, I have been sitting up till two +o'clock in the mornings, studying the files of the _Post_, to see +exactly how you did it." + +The Colonel's gaze gradually softened. "You might have been worse +employed; I compliment and congratulate you," said he; and then added: +"Whether you have really caught the idea and mastered the technique or +not, it is too soon to say. But I'll say frankly that this article is +worth more to me than everything else that you've written for the +_Post_ put together." + +"I am--ahem--gratified that you are pleased with it." + +The Colonel, whose glance had gone out of the window, swung around in +his chair and smote the table a testy blow. + +"For the Lord's sake," he exploded, "get some heat in you! Squirt some +color into your way of looking at things! Be kind and good-natured in +your heart--just as I am at this moment--but for heaven's sake learn to +write as if you were mad, and only kept from yelling by phenomenal +will-power." + +This was in early May. Many other talks upon the art of editorial +writing did the two have, as the days went. The Colonel, mystified but +pleased by revelations of actuality and life in his heretofore +too-embalmed assistant, found an increasing interest in developing him. +Here was a youth, with the qualities of potential great valuableness, +and the wise editor, as soon as this appeared, gave him his chance by +calling him off the fields of taxation and currency and assigning him to +topics plucked alive from the day's news. + +On the fatal 15th of May, the Colonel told Queed merely that the _Post_ +desired his work as long as it showed such promise as it now showed. +That was all the talk about the dismissal that ever took place between +them. The Colonel was no believer in fulsome praise for the young. But +to others he talked more freely, and this was how it happened that the +daughter of his old friend John Randolph Weyland knew that Mr. Queed was +slated for an early march upstairs. + +For Queed the summer had been a swift and immensely busy one. To write +editorials that have a relation with everyday life, it gradually became +clear to him that the writer must himself have some such relation. In +June the Mercury Athletic Association had been thoroughly reorganized +and rejuvenated, and regular meets were held every Saturday night. At +Trainer Klinker's command, Queed had resolutely permitted himself to be +inducted into the Mercury; moreover, he made it a point of honor to +attend the Saturday night functions, where he had the ideal chance to +match his physical competence against that of other men. Early in the +sessions at the gymnasium, Buck had introduced his pupil to boxing-glove +and punching-bag, his own special passions, and now his orders ran that +the Doc should put on the gloves with any of the Mercuries that were +willing. Most of the Mercuries were willing, and on these early Saturday +nights, Stark's rocked with the falls of Dr. Queed. But under Klinker's +stern discipline, he was already acquiring something like a form. By +midsummer he had gained a small reputation for scientific precision +buttressed by invincible inability to learn when he was licked, and +autumn found many of the Mercuries decidedly less Barkis-like than of +old. + +Queed lived now in the glow of perfect physical health, a very different +thing, as Fifi had once pointed out, from merely not feeling sick. In +the remarkable development that his body was undergoing, he had found an +unexpected pride. But the Mercury, though he hardly realized it at the +time, was useful to him in a bigger way than bodily improvement. + +Here he met young men who were most emphatically in touch with life. +They treated him as an equal with reference to his waxing muscular +efficiency, and with some respect as regards his journalistic +connection. "Want you to shake hands with the editor of the _Post_," so +kindly Buck would introduce him. After the bouts or the "exhibition" of +a Saturday, there was always a smoker, and in the highly instructed and +expert talk of his club-mates the Doctor learned many things that were +to be of value to him later on. Some of the Mercuries, besides their +picturesque general knowledge, knew much more about city politics than +ever got into the papers. There was Jimmy Wattrous, for example, already +rising into fame as Plonny Neal's most promising lieutenant. Jimmy bared +his heart with the Mercuries, and was particularly friendly with the +representative of the great power which moulds public opinion. Now and +then, Neal himself looked in, Plonny, the great boss, who was said to +hold the city in the hollow of his hand. Many an editorial that +surprised and pleased Colonel Cowles was born in that square room back +of Stark's. + +And all these things took time ... took time.... And there were nights +when Queed woke wide-eyed with cold sweat on his brow and the cold fear +in his heart that he and posterity were being cheated, that he was +making an irretrievable and ghastly blunder. + +Desperate months were May, June, and July for the little Doctor. In all +this time he never once put his own pencil to his own paper. Manuscript +and Schedule lay locked together in a drawer, toward which he could +never bear to glance. Thirteen hours a day he gave to the science of +editorial writing; two hours a day to the science of physical culture; +one hour a day (computed average) to the science of Human Intercourse; +but to the Science of Sciences never an hour on never a day. The rest +was food and sleep. Such was his life for three months; a life that +would have been too horrible to contemplate, had it not been that in all +of his new sciences he uncovered a growing personal interest which kept +him constantly astonished at himself. + +By the end of June he found it safe to give less and less time to the +study of editorial paradigms, for he had the technique at his fingers' +ends; and so he gave more and more time to the amassment of material. +For he had made a magnificent boast, and he never had much idea of +permitting it to turn out empty, for all his nights of torturing +misgivings. He read enormously with expert facility and a beautifully +trained memory; read history, biography, memoirs, war records, old +newspapers, old speeches, councilmanic proceedings, departmental +reports--everything he could lay his hands on that promised capital for +an editorial writer in that city and that State. By the end of July he +felt that he could slacken up here, too, having pretty well exhausted +the field, and the first day of August--red-letter day in the annals of +science--saw him unlock the sacred drawer with a close-set face. And now +the Schedule, so long lapsed, was reinstated, with Four Hours a Day +segregated to Magnum Opus. A pitiful little step at reconstruction, +perhaps, but still a step. And henceforth every evening, between 9.30 +and 1.30, Dr. Queed sat alone in his Scriptorium and embraced his love. + +Insensibly summer faded into autumn, and still the science of Human +Intercourse was faithfully practiced. The Paynter parlor knew Queed not +infrequently in these days, where he could sometimes be discovered not +merely suffering, but encouraging, Major Brooke to talk to him of his +victories over the Republicans in 1870-75. Nor was he a stranger to +Nicolovius's sitting-room, having made it an iron-clad rule with himself +to accept one out of every two invitations to that charming cloister. +After all, there might be something to learn from both the Major's fiery +reminiscences and the old professor's cultured talk. He himself, he +found, tended naturally toward silence. Listeners appeared to be needed +in a world where the supply of talkers exceeded the demand. The telling +of humorous anecdote he had definitely excided from his creed. It did +not appear needed of him; and he was sure that the author of his creed +would h&self have authorized him to drop it. He never missed Fifi now, +according to the way of this world, but he thought of her sometimes, +which is all that anybody has a right to expect. Miss Weyland he had not +seen since the day Fifi died. Mrs. Paynter had been away all summer, a +firm spinster cousin coming in from the country to run the boarders, and +the landlady's agent came to the house no more. Buck Klinket he saw +incessantly; he was the first person in the world, probably, that the +little Doctor had ever really liked. It was Buck who suggested to his +pupil, in October, a particularly novel experience for his soul's +unfolding, which Queed, though failing to adopt it, sometimes dandled +before his mind's eye with a kind of horrified fascination, viz: the +taking of Miss Miller to the picture shows. + +But the bulk of his time this autumn was still going to his work on the +_Post_. With ever fresh wonderment, he faced the fact that this work, +first taken up solely to finance the Scriptorium, and next enlarged to +satisfy a most irrational instinct, was growing slowly but surely upon +his personal interest. Certainly the application of a new science to a +new set of practical conditions was stimulating to his intellect; the +panorama of problems whipped out daily by the telegraph had a warmth and +immediateness wanting to the abstractions of closet philosophy. Queed's +articles lacked the Colonel's expert fluency, his loose but telling +vividness, his faculty for broad satire which occasionally set the whole +city laughing. On the other hand, they displayed an exact knowledge of +fact, a breadth of study and outlook, and a habit of plumbing bottom on +any and all subjects which critical minds found wanting in the Colonel's +delightful discourses. And nowadays the young man's articles were +constantly reaching a higher and higher level of readability. Not +infrequently they attracted public comment, not only, indeed not +oftenest, inside the State. Queed knew what it was to be quoted in that +identical New York newspaper from whose pages, so popular for wrapping +around pork chops, he had first picked out his letters. + +Of these things the honorable _Post_ directors were not unmindful. They +met on October 10, and upon Colonel Cowles's cordial recommendation, +named Mr. Queed assistant editor of the _Post_ at a salary of fifteen +hundred dollars per annum. And Mr. Queed accepted the appointment +without a moment's hesitation. + +So far, then, the magnificent boast had been made good. The event fell +on a Saturday. The Sunday was sunny, windy, and crisp. Free for the day +and regardful of the advantages of open-air pedestrianism, the new +assistant editor put on his hat from the dinner-table and struck for the +open country. He rambled far, over trails strange to him, and came up +short, about 4.30 in the afternoon, in a grove of immemorial pines which +he instantly remembered to have seen before. + + + + +XVII + + _A Remeeting in a Cemetery: the Unglassed Queed who loafed on + Rustic Bridges; of the Consequences of failing to tell a Lady that + you hope to see her again soon._ + + +Fifi's grave had long since lost its first terrible look of bare +newness. Grass grew upon it in familiar ways. Rose-bushes that might +have stood a lifetime nodded over it by night and by day. Already "the +minute grey lichens, plate o'er plate," were "softening down the +crisp-cut name and date"; and the winds of winter and of summer blew +over a little mound that had made itself at home in the still city of +the dead. + +Green was the turf above Fifi, sweet the peacefulness of her little +churchyard. Her cousin Sharlee, who had loved her well, disposed her +flowers tenderly, and stood awhile in reverie of the sort which the +surroundings so irresistibly invited. But the schedules of even electric +car-lines are inexorable; and presently she saw from a glance at her +watch that she must turn her face back to the city of the living. + +On the little rustic bridge a hundred yards away, a man was standing, +with rather the look of having stopped at just that minute. From a +distance Sharlee's glance swept him lightly; she saw that she did not +know him; and not fancying his frank stare, she drew near and stepped +upon the bridge with a splendid unconsciousness of his presence. But +just when she was safely by, her ears were astonished by his voice +speaking her name. + +"How do you do, Miss Weyland?" + +She turned, surprised by a familiar note in the deep tones, looked, +and--yes, there could be no doubt of it--it was-- + +"Mr. Queed! Why, _how_ do you do!" + +They shook hands. He removed his hat for the process, doing it with a +certain painstaking precision which betrayed want of familiarity with +the engaging rite. + +"I haven't seen you for a long time," said Sharlee brightly. + +The dear, old remark--the moss-covered remark that hung in the well! How +on earth could we live without it? In behalf of Sharlee, however, some +excuses can be urged; for, remembering the way she had talked to Mr. +Queed once on the general subject of failures, she found herself +struggling against a most absurd sense of embarrassment. + +"No," replied Queed, replacing his hat as though following from memory +the diagram in a book of etiquette. He added, borrowing one of the +Colonel's favorite expressions, "I hope you are very well." + +"Yes, indeed.... I'm so glad you spoke to me, for to tell you the truth, +I never, never should have known you if you hadn't." + +"You think that I've changed? Well," said he, gravely, "I ought to have. +You might say that I've given five months to it." + +"You've changed enormously." + +She examined with interest this new Mr. Queed who loafed on rustic +bridges, five miles from a Sociology, and hailed passing ladies on his +own motion. He appeared, indeed, decidedly altered. + +In the first place, he looked decidedly bigger, and, to come at once to +the fact, he was. For Klinker's marvelous exercises for all parts of the +body had done more than add nineteen pounds to his weight, and deepen +his chest, and broaden his shoulders. They had pulled and tugged at the +undeveloped tissues until they had actually added a hard-won +three-quarters of an inch to his height. The stoop was gone, and instead +of appearing rather a small man, Mr. Queed now looked full middle-height +or above. He wore a well-made suit of dark blue, topped by a correct +derby. His hair was cut trim, his color was excellent, and, last miracle +of all, he wore no spectacles. It was astonishing but true. The +beautiful absence of these round disfigurements brought into new +prominence a pair of grayish eyes which did not look so very +professorial, after all. + +But what Sharlee liked best about this unglassed and unscienced Mr. +Queed was his entire absence of any self-consciousness in regard to her. +When he told her that Easter Monday night that he cheerfully took his +turn on the psychological operating-table, anæsthetics barred, and no +mercy asked or given, it appeared that he, alone among men, really meant +it. + +Under the tiny bridge, a correspondingly tiny brook purled without +surcease, its heart set upon somewhere finding the sea. Over their heads +a glorious maple was taking off its coat of many colors in the wind. +Sharlee put back a small hand into a large muff and said:-- + +"At church this morning I saw Colonel Cowles. He told me about you. I +don't know how you look at it, but I think you're a subject for the +heartiest congratulations. So here are mine." + +"The men at the Mercury were pleased, too," mused Mr. Queed, looking out +over the landscape. "Do you ever read my articles now?" + +"For many years," said Sharlee, evasively, "I have always read the +_Post_ from cover to cover. It's been to me like those books you see in +the advertisements and nowhere else. Grips the reader from the start, +and she cannot lay it down till the last page is turned." + +A brief smile appeared in the undisguised eyes. "Do you notice any +distinctions now between me and the Encyclopedia Britannica?" + +"Unless you happen to refer to Lombroso or Buckle or Aristotle or +Plato," said Sharlee, not noticing the smile, "I never know whether it's +your article or Colonel Cowles's. Do you mind walking on? It's nearly +time for my car." + +"A year ago," said he, "I certainly should not have liked that. I do +now, since it means that I have succeeded in what I set out to do. I've +thought a good deal about that tired bricklayer this summer," he went +on, quite unembarrassed. "By the way, I know one personally now: Timrod +Burns, of the Mercury. Only I can't say that I ever saw Timmy tired." + +Down the woodland path they passed side by side, headed for the little +station known as Stop 11. Sharlee was pleased that he had remembered +about the bricklayer; she could have been persuaded that his remark was +vaguely intended to convey some sort of thanks to her. But saying no +more of this, she made it possible to introduce casually a reference to +his vanished glasses. + +"Yes," said he, "I knocked them off the bureau and broke them one day. +So I just let them go. They were rather striking-looking glasses, I +always thought. I don't believe I ever saw another pair quite like +them." + +"But," said Sharlee, puzzled, "do you find that you can see perfectly +well without them?" + +"Oh, yes; if anything, better." He paused, and added with entire +seriousness: "You see those spectacles, striking-looking as they were, +were only window-glass. I bought them at a ten-cent store on Sixth +Avenue when I was twelve years old." + +"Oh! What made you do that?" + +"All the regulars at the Astor Library wore them. At the time it seemed +to be the thing to do, and of course they soon became second nature to +me. But I daresay no one ever had a sounder pair of eyes than I." + +To Sharlee this seemed one of the most pathetic of all his confidences; +she offered no comment. + +"You were in the churchyard," stated Mr. Queed. "I was there just ahead +of you. I was struck with that motto or text on the headstone, and shall +look it up when I get home. I have been making a more careful study of +your Bible this autumn and have found it exceptionally interesting. You, +I suppose, subscribe to all the tenets of the Christian faith?" + +Sharlee hesitated. "I'm not sure that I can answer that with a direct +yes, and I _will_ not answer it with any sort of no. So I'll say that I +believe in them all, modified a little in places to satisfy my reason." + +"Ah, they are subject to modification, then?" + +"Certainly. Aren't you? Am not I? Whatever is alive is subject to +modification. These doctrines," said she, "are evolving because they +have the principle of life in them." + +"So you are an evolutionist?" + +"The expert in evolutionary sociology will hardly quarrel with me for +that." + +"The expert in evolutionary sociology deals with social organisms, +nations, the human race. Your Bible deals with Smith, Brown, and Jones." + +"Well, what are your organisms and nations but collections of my Smiths, +Browns, and Joneses? My Bible deals with individuals because there is +nothing else to deal with. The individual conscience is the beginning of +everything." + +"Ah! So you would found your evolution of humanity upon the increasing +operation of what you call conscience?" + +"Probably I would not give _all_ the credit to what I call conscience. +Probably I'd give some of it to what I call intellect." + +"In that case you would almost certainly fall into a fatal error." + +"Why, don't you consider that the higher the intellectual development +the higher the type?" + +"Suppose we go more slowly," said Mr. Queed, intently plucking a dead +bough from an overhanging young oak. + +"How do you go about measuring a type? When you speak of a high type, +exactly what do you mean?" + +"When I speak of a high type," said Sharlee, who really did not know +exactly what she meant, "I will merely say that I mean a type that is +high--lofty, you know--towering over other types." + +She flaunted a gloved hand to suggest infinite altitude. + +"You ought to mean," he said patiently, "a type which most successfully +sketches the civilization of the future, a type best fitted to dominate +and survive. Now you have only to glance at history to see that +intellectual supremacy is no guarantee whatever of such a type." + +"Oh, Mr. Queed, I don't know about that." + +"Then I will convince you," said he. "Look at the French--the most +brilliant nation intellectually among all the European peoples. Where +are they in the race to-day? The evolutionist sees in them familiar +symptoms of a retrogression which rarely ends but in one way. Look at +the Greeks. Every schoolboy knows that the Greeks were vastly the +intellectual superiors of any dominant people of to-day. An +anthropologist of standing assures us that the intellectual interval +separating the Greek of the Periclean age from the modern Anglo-Saxon is +as great as the interval between the Anglo-Saxon and the African savage. +Point to a man alive to-day who is the intellectual peer of Aristotle, +Plato, or Socrates. Yet where are the Greeks? What did their exalted +intellectual equipment do to save them in the desperate struggle for the +survival of the fittest? The Greeks of to-day are selling fruit at +corner stands; Plato's descendants shine the world's shoes. They live to +warn away the most casual evolutionist from the theory that intellectual +supremacy necessarily means supremacy of type. Where, then, you may ask, +does lie the principle of triumphant evolution? Here we stand at the +innermost heart of every social scheme. Let us glance a moment," said +Mr. Queed, "at Man, as we see him first emerging from the dark +hinterlands of history." + +So, walking through the sweet autumn woods with the one girl he knew in +all the world--barring only Miss Miller--Queed spoke heartily of the +rise and fall of peoples and the destiny of man. Thus conversing, they +came out of the woods and stood upon the platform of the rudimentary +station. + +The line ran here on an elevation, disappearing in the curve of a heavy +cut two hundred yards further north. In front the ground fell sharply +and rolled out in a vast green meadow, almost treeless and level as a +mill-pond. Far off on the horizon rose the blue haze of a range of +foothills, upon which the falling sun momentarily stood, like a +gold-piece edge-up on a table. Nearer, to their right, was a strip of +uncleared woods, a rainbow of reds and pinks. Through the meadow ran a +little stream, such as a boy of ten could leap; for the instant it stood +fire-red under the sun. + +Sharlee, obtaining the floor for a moment, asked Queed how his own work +had been going. He told her that in one sense it had not been going at +all: not a chapter written from May to September. + +"However," he said, with an unclouded face, "I am now giving six hours a +day to it. And it is just as well to go slow. The smallest error of +angle at the centre means a tremendous going astray at the +circumference. I--ahem--do not feel that my summer has been wasted, by +any means. You follow me? It is worth some delay to be doubly sure that +I put down no plus signs as minuses." + +"Yes, of course. How beautiful that is out there, isn't it?" + +His eyes followed hers over the sunset spaces. "No, it is too quiet, too +monotonous. If there must be scenery, let it have some originality and +character. You yourself are very beautiful, I think." + +Sharlee started, almost violently, and colored perceptibly. If a +text-book in differential calculus, upon the turning of a page, had +thrown problems to the winds and begun gibbering purple poems of +passion, she could not have been more completely taken aback. However, +there was no mistaking the utter and veracious impersonality of his +tone. + +"Oh, do you think so? I'm very glad, because I'm afraid not many people +do...." + +Mr. Queed remained silent. So far, so good; the conversation stood in a +position eminently and scientifically correct; but Sharlee could not for +the life of her forbear to add: "But I had no idea you ever noticed +people's looks." + +"So far as I remember, I never did before. I think it was the appearance +of your eyes as you looked out over the plain that attracted my +attention. Then, looking closer, I noticed that you are beautiful." + +The compliment was so unique and perfect that another touch could only +spoil it. Sharlee immediately changed the subject. + +"Oh, Mr. Queed, has the Department you or Colonel Cowles to thank for +the editorial about the reformatory this morning?" + +"Both of us. He suggested it and I wrote it. So you really cannot tell +us apart?" + +She shook her head. "All this winter we shall work preparing the State's +mind for this institution, convincing it so thoroughly that when the +legislature meets again, it simply will not dare to refuse us. When I +mention we and us, understand that I am speaking to you Departmentally. +After that there are ten thousand other things that we want to do. But +everything is so immortally slow! We are not allowed to raise our +fingers without a hundred years' war first. Don't you ever wish for +money--oceans and oceans of lovely money?" + +"Good heavens, no!" + +"I do. I'd pepper this State with institutions. Did you know," she said +sweetly, "that I once had quite a little pot of money? When I was one +month old." + +"Yes," said Queed, "I knew. In fact, I had not been here a week before I +heard of Henry G. Surface. Major Brooke speaks of him constantly, +Colonel Cowles occasionally. Do you," he asked, "care much about that?" + +"Well," said Sharlee, gently, "I'm glad my father never knew." + +From half a mile away, behind the bellying woodland, a faint hoot served +notice that the city-bound car was sweeping rapidly toward them. It was +on the tip of Queed's tongue to remind Miss Weyland that, in the case of +Fifi, she had taken the ground that the dead did know what was going on +upon earth. But he did not do so. The proud way in which she spoke of +_my father_ threw another thought uppermost in his mind. + +"Miss Weyland," he said abruptly, "I made a--confidence to you, of a +personal nature, the first time I ever talked with you. I did not, it is +true, ask you to regard it as a confidence, but--" + +"I know," interrupted Sharlee, hurriedly. "But of course I _have_ +regarded it in that way, and have never spoken of it to anybody." + +"Thank you. That was what I wished to say." + +If Sharlee had wanted to measure now the difference that she saw in Mr. +Queed, she could have done it by the shyness that they both felt in +approaching a topic they had once handled with the easiest simplicity. +She was glad of his sensitiveness; it became him better than his early +callousness. Sharlee wore a suit of black-and-gray pin-checks, and it +was very excellently tailored; for if she purchased but two suits a +year, she invariably paid money to have them made by one who knew how. +Her hat was of the kind that other girls study with cool diligence, +while feigning engrossment in the conversation; and, repairing to their +milliners, give orders for accurate copies of it. From it floated a +silky-looking veil of gray-white, which gave her face that airy, +cloud-like setting that photographers of the baser sort so passionately +admire. The place was as windy as Troy; from far on the ringing plains +the breeze raced and fell upon this veil, ceaselessly kicking it here +and there, in a way that would have driven a strong man lunatic in seven +minutes. Sharlee, though a slim girl and no stronger than another, +remained entirely unconscious of the behavior of the veil; long +familiarity had bred contempt for its boisterous play; and, with her +eyes a thousand miles away, she was wishing with her whole heart that +she dared ask Mr. Queed a question. + +Whereupon, like her marionette that she worked by a string, he opened +his mouth and gravely answered her. + +"I have three theories about my father. One is that he is an eccentric +psychologist with peculiar, not to say extraordinary, ideas about the +bringing up of children. Another is that because of his own convenience +or circumstances, he does not care to own me as I am now. The third is +that because of my convenience or circumstances, he thinks that I may +not care to own him as he is now. I have never heard of or from him +since the letter I showed you, nearly nine months ago. I rather incline +to the opinion," he said, "that my father is dead." + +"If he isn't," said Sharlee, gently, as the great car whizzed up and +stopped with a jerk, "I am very sure that you are to find him some day. +If he hadn't meant that, he would never have asked you to come all the +way from New York to settle here--do you think so?" + +"Do you know," said Mr. Queed--so absorbedly as to leave her to clamber +up the car steps without assistance--"if I subscribed to the tenets of +your religion, I might believe that my father was merely a mythical +instrument of Providence--a tradition created out of air _just to bring +me down here_." + +"Why," said Sharlee, looking down from the tall platform, as the car +whizzed and buzzed and slowly started, "aren't you _coming_?" + +"No, I'm walking," said Mr. Queed, and remembered at the last moment to +pluck off his glistening new derby. + +Thus they parted, almost precipitately, and, for all of him, might never +have met again in this world. Half a mile up the road, it came to the +young man that their farewell had lacked that final word of ceremony to +which he now aspired. To those who called at his office, to the men he +met at the sign of the Mercury, even to Nicolovius when he betook +himself from the lamp-lit sitting-room, it was his carefully attained +habit to say: "I hope to see you again soon." He meant the hope, with +these, only in the most general and perfunctory sense. Why, then, had he +omitted this civil tag and postscript in his parting with Miss Weyland, +to whom he could have said it--yes, certainly--with more than usual +sincerity? Certainly; he really did hope to see her again soon. For she +was an intelligent, sensible girl, and knew more about him than anybody +in the world except Tim Queed. + +Gradually it was borne in upon him that the reason he had failed to tell +Miss Weyland that he hoped to see her again soon was exactly the fact +that he did hope to see her again soon. Off his guard for this reason, +he had fallen into a serious lapse. Looking with untrained eyes into the +future, he saw no way in which a man who had failed to tell a lady that +he hoped to see her again soon was ever to retrieve his error. It was +good-by, Charles Weyland, for sure. + +However, Miss Weyland herself resolved all these perplexities by +appearing at Mrs. Paynter's supper-table before the month was out; and +this exploit she repeated at least once, and maybe twice, during the +swift winter that followed. + + * * * * * + +On January 14, or February 23, or it might have been March 2, Queed +unexpectedly reentered the dining-room, toward eight o'clock, with the +grave announcement that he had a piece of news. Sharlee was alone in the +room, concluding the post-prandial chores with the laying of the +Turkey-red cloth. She was in fickle vein this evening, as it chanced; +and instead of respectfully inquiring the nature of his tidings, as was +naturally and properly expected of her, she received the young man with +a fire of breezy inconsequentialities which puzzled and annoyed him +greatly. + +She admitted, without pressure, that she had been hoping for his return; +had in fact been dawdling over the duties of the dining-room on that +very expectation. From there her fancy grew. Audaciously she urged his +reluctant attention to the number of her comings to Mrs. Paynter's in +recent months. With an exceedingly stagey counterfeit of a downcast eye, +she hinted at gossip lately arising from public observation of these +visits: gossip, namely, to the effect that Miss Weyland's ostensible +suppings with her aunt were neither better nor worse than so many bold +calls upon Mr. Queed. Her lip quivered alarmingly over such a +confession; undoubtedly she looked enormously abashed. + +Mr. Queed, for his part, looked highly displeased and more than a shade +uncomfortable. He annihilated all such foolishness by a look and a +phrase; observed, in a stately opening, that she would hardly trouble to +deny empty rumor of this sort, since-- + +"I can't deny it, you see! Because," she interrupted, raising her eyes +and turning upon him a sudden dazzling yet outrageous smile--"_it's +true_." + +She skipped away, smiling to herself, happily putting things away and +humming an air. Queed watched her in annoyed silence. His adamantine +gravity inspired her with an irresistible impulse to levity; so the law +of averages claimed its innings. + +"While you are thinking up what to say," she rattled on, "might I ask +your advice on a sociological problem that was just laid before me by +Laura?" + +"Well," he said impatiently, "who is Laura?" + +"Laura is the loyal negress who cooks the food for Mrs. Paynter's bright +young men. Her husband first deserted her, next had the misfortune to +get caught while burgling, and is at present doing time, as the saying +is. Now a young bright-skin negro desires to marry Laura, and speaks in +urgent tones of the divorce court. Her attitude is more than willing, +but she learns that a divorce, at the lowest conceivable price, will +cost fifteen dollars, and she had rather put the money in a suit and +bonnet. But a thought no larger than a man's hand has crossed her mind, +and she said to me just now: 'I 'clare, Miss Sharly, it do look like, +when you got a beau and he want to marry you, and all the time axin' and +coaxin' an' beggin' you to get a div-o'ce, it do look like _he_ ought to +pay for the div-o'ce.' Now what answer has your old science to give to a +real heart problem such as that?" + +"May I ask that you will put the napkins away, or at the least remain +stationary? It is impossible for me to talk with you while you flutter +about in this way." + +At last she came and sat down meekly at the table, her hands clasped +before her in rather a devotional attitude, while he, standing, fixed +her with his unwavering gaze. + +"I speak to you," he began, uncompromisingly, "as to Mrs. Paynter's +agent. Professor Nicolovius is going to move in the spring and take an +apartment or small house. He has invited me to share such apartment or +house with him." + +"What! But you declined?" + +"On the contrary, I accepted at once." + +Mrs. Paynter's agent was much surprised and interested by this news, and +said so. "But how in the world," she went on, puzzled, "did you make him +like you so? I always supposed that he hated everybody--he does me, I +know." + +"I believe he does hate everybody but me." + +"Strange--extraordinary!" said Sharlee, picturing the two scholars alone +together in their flat, endeavoring to soft-boil eggs on one of those +little fixtures over the gas. + +"I can see nothing in the least extraordinary in the refusal of a +cultured gentleman to hate me." + +"I don't mean it that way at all--not at all! But Professor Nicolovius +must know cultured gentlemen, congenial roomers, who are nearer his own +age--" + +"Oh, not necessarily," said Queed, and sat down in the chair by her, +Major Brooke's chair. "He is a most unsocial sort of man,"--this from +the little Doctor!--"and I doubt if he knows anybody better than he +knows me. That he knows me so well is due solely to the fact that we +have been forced on each other three times a day for over a year. For +the first month or so after I came here, we remained entire strangers, I +remember, and passed each other on the stairs without speaking. +Gradually, however, he has come to take a great fancy to me." + +"And is that why you are going off to a honeymoon cottage with him?" + +"Hardly. I am going because it will be the best sort of arrangement for +me." + +"Oh!" + +"I will pay, you see," said Queed, "no more than I am paying here; for +that matter, I have no doubt that I could beat him down to five dollars +a week, if I cared to do so. In return I shall have decidedly greater +comforts and conveniences, far greater quiet and independence, and +complete freedom from interruptions and intrusions. The arrangement will +be a big gain in several ways for me." + +"And have you taken a great fancy to Professor Nicolovius, too?" + +"Oh, no!--not at all. But that has very little to do with it. At least +he has the great gift of silence." + +Sharlee looked at his absorbed face closely. She thought that his head +in profile was very fine, though certainly his nose was too prominent +for beauty. But what she was wondering was whether the little Doctor had +really changed so much after all. + +"Well," said she, slowly, "I'm sorry you're going." + +"Sorry--why? It would appear to me that under the tenets of your +religion you ought to be glad. You ought to compliment me for going." + +"I don't find anything in the tenets of my religion that requires you to +go off and room-keep with Professor Nicolovius." + +"You do not? It is a tremendous kindness to him, I assure you. To have a +place of his own has long been his dream, he tells me; but he cannot +afford it without the financial assistance I would give. Again, even if +he could finance it, he would not venture to try it alone, because of +his health. It appears that he is subject to some kind of +attacks--heart, I suppose--and does not want to be alone. I have heard +him walking his floor at 3 o'clock in the morning. Do you know anything +about his life?" + +"No. Nothing." + +"I know everything." + +He paused for her to ask him questions, that he might have the pleasure +of refusing her. But instead of prying, Sharlee said: "Still I'm sorry +that you are going." + +"Well? Why?" + +"Because," said Sharlee. + +"Proceed." + +"Because I don't like his eyes." + +"The question, from your point of view," said Mr. Queed, "is a +moral--not an optic one. These acts which confer benefits on others," he +continued, "so peculiarly commended by your religion, are conceived by +it to work moral good to the doer. The _eyes_ (which you use +synecdochically to represent the _character_) of the person to whom they +are done, have nothing--" + +"Mr. Queed," said Sharlee, briskly interrupting his exegetical words, "I +believe you are going off with Professor Nicolovius chiefly because--you +think he needs you!" + +He looked up sharply, much surprised and irritated. "That is absolutely +foolish and absurd. I have nothing in the world to do with what +Professor Nicolovius needs. You must always remember that I am not a +subscriber to the tenets of your religion." + +"It is not too late. I always remember that too." + +"But I must say frankly that I am much surprised at the way you +interpret those tenets. For if--" + +"Oh, you should never have tested me on such a question! Don't you see +that I'm the judge sitting in his or her own case? Two boarders gone at +one swoop! How shall I break the news to Aunt Jennie?" + +He thought this over in silence and then said impatiently; "I'm sorry, +but I do not feel that I can consider that phase of the matter." + +"Certainly not." + +"The arrangement between us is a strictly business one, based on mutual +advantage, and to be terminated at will as the interests of either party +dictates." + +"Exactly." + +He turned a sharp glance on her, and rose. Having risen he stood a +moment, irresolute, frowning, troubled by a thought. Then he said, in an +annoyed, nervous voice:-- + +"Look here, will it be a serious thing for your aunt to lose me?" + +The agent burst out laughing. He was surprised by her merriment; he +could not guess that it covered her instantaneous discovery that she +liked him more than she would ever have thought possible. + +"While I'm on the other side--remember that," said she, "I'm obliged to +tell you that we can let the rooms any day at an hour's notice. Not that +the places of our two scholars can ever be filled, but the +boarding-house business is booming these days. We are turning them away. +Do you remember the night that you walked in here an hour late for +supper, and I arose and collected twenty dollars from you?" + +"Oh, yes.... By the way--I have never asked--whatever became of that +extraordinary pleasure-dog of yours?" + +"Thank you. He is bigger and more pleasurable than ever. I take him out +every afternoon, and each day, just as the clock strikes five, he knocks +over a strange young man for me. It is delightful sport. But he has +never found any young man that he enjoyed as heartily as he did you." + +Gravely he moved toward the door. "I must return to my work. You will +tell your aunt I have given notice? Well--good-evening." + +"_Good_-evening, Mr. Queed." + +The door half shut upon him, but opened again to admit his head and +shoulders. + +"By the way, there was a curious happening yesterday which might be of +interest to you. Did you see it in the _Post_--a small item headed 'The +Two Queeds'?" + +"Oh--no! About you and Tim?" + +"About Tim, but not about me. His beat was changed the other day, it +seems, and early yesterday morning a bank in his new district was broken +into. Tim went in and arrested the burglar after a desperate fight in +the dark. When other policemen came and turned on the lights, Tim +discovered to his horror that he had captured his brother Murphy." + + + + +XVIII + + _Of President West of Old Blaines College, his Trustees and his + Troubles; his Firmness in the Brown-Jones Hazing Incident so + misconstrued by Malicious Asses; his Article for the Post, and why + it was never printed: all ending in West's Profound Dissatisfaction + with the Rewards of Patriotism._ + + +The way of Blaines College was not wholly smooth that winter, and +annoyances rose to fret the fine edge of President West's virgin +enthusiasms. The opening had been somewhat disappointing. True, there +were more students than last year, the exact increment being nine. But +West had hoped for an increase of fifty, and had communicated his +expectations to the trustees, who were correspondingly let down when the +actual figures--total enrolment, 167--were produced at the October +meeting. The young president explained about the exasperating delays in +getting out his advertising literature, but the trustees rather hemmed +over the bills and said that that was a lot of money. And one of them +bluntly called attention to the fact that the President had not assumed +his duties till well along in September. + +West, with charming humility and good humor, asked indulgence for his +inexperience. His mistake, he said, in giving an excess of time to the +study of the great collegiate systems of the old world, if it was a +mistake, was one that could hardly be repeated. Next year ... + +"Meantime," said the blunt trustee, "you've got a ten per cent increase +in expenditures and but nine more stoodents." + +"Let us not wholly forget," said West, with his disarming smile, "my +hope to add substantially to the endowment." + +But he marked this trustee as one likely to give trouble in the future, +and hence to be handled with care. He was a forthright, upstanding, +lantern-jawed man of the people, by the name of James E. Winter. A +contractor by profession and a former member of the city council, he +represented the city on the board of trustees. For the city appropriated +seventy-five hundred dollars a year, for the use of the college, and in +return for this munificence, reserved the right to name three members of +the board. + +Nor was Mr. Winter the only man of his kidney on that directorate. From +his great friend among the trustees, Mr. Fyne, donator of the fifty +thousand dollar endowment on which Blaines College partly subsisted, +West learned that his election to the presidency had failed of being +unanimous. In fact, the vote had stood seven to five, and the meeting at +which he was chosen had at times approached violence. Of the five, two +had voted against West because they thought that old Dr. Gilfillan's +resignation did not have that purely spontaneous character so desirable +under the circumstances; two because they did not think that West had +the qualifications, or would have the right point of view, for a +people's college; and one for all these reasons, or for any other +reason, which is to say for personal reasons. This one, said Mr. Fyne, +was James E. Winter. + +"I know," said West. "He's never got over the poundings we used to give +him in the _Post_ when he trained with those grafters on the Council. +He'd put poison in my tea on half a chance." + +Unhappily, the sharp cleft made in the board at the time of the election +survived and deepened. The trustees developed a way of dividing seven to +five on almost all of West's recommendations which was anything but +encouraging. An obstinate, but human, pride of opinion tended to keep +the two factions facing each other intact, and matters very tiny in +themselves served, as the weeks went by, to aggravate this feeling. +Once, at least, before Christmas, it required all of West's tact and +good-humor to restore the appearance of harmony to a meeting which was +fast growing excited. + +But the young president would not allow himself to become discouraged. +He earnestly intended to show James E. Winter which of the two knew most +about running a modern institution of the higher learning. Only the +perfectest bloom of his ardor faded under the constant handling of rough +fingers. The interval separating Blaines College and the University of +Paris began to loom larger than it had seemed in the halcyon +summer-time, and the classic group of noble piles receded further and +further into the prophetic haze. But West's fine energy and optimism +remained. And he continued to see in the college, unpromising though the +outlook was in some respects, a real instrument for the uplift. + +The president sat up late on those evenings when social diversions did +not claim his time, going over and over his faculty list with a critical +eye, and always with profound disapproval. There were only three Ph.D.'s +among them, and as a whole the average of attainment was below, rather +than above, the middle grade. They were, he was obliged to admit, a lot +of cheap men for a cheap college. With such a staff, a distinguished +standard was clearly not to be hoped for. But what to do about it? His +general idea during the summer had been mercilessly to weed out the weak +brothers in the faculty, a few at a time, and fill their places with men +of the first standing. But now a great obstacle presented itself. Men of +the first standing demanded salaries of the first standing. Blaines +College was not at present in position to pay such salaries. Obviously +one of two courses remained. Either the elevation of the faculty must +proceed in a very modest form, or else Blaines College must get in +position to pay larger salaries. West decided to move in both +directions. + +There was one man on the staff that West objected to from the first +faculty meeting. This was a man named Harkly Young, a youngish, +tobacco-chewing fellow of lowly origin and unlessoned manners, who was +"assistant professor" of mathematics at a salary of one thousand dollars +a year. Professor Young's bearing and address did anything but meet the +president's idea of scholarliness; and West had no difficulty in +convincing himself of the man's incompetence. Details came to his +attention from time to time during the autumn which served to strengthen +his snap-shot judgment, but he made the mistake, doubtless, of failing +to communicate his dissatisfaction to Professor Young, and so giving him +an inkling of impending disaster. West knew of just the man for this +position, a brilliant young assistant superintendent of schools in +another part of the state, who could be secured for the same salary. +Eager to begin his house-cleaning and mark some definite progress, West +hurled his bolt from the blue. About the middle of December he +dispatched a letter to the doomed man notifying him that his services +would not be required after the Christmas recess. + +Instead of accepting his dismissal in a quiet and gentlemanly way, and +making of himself a glad thank-offering on the altar of scholarship, +Professor Young had the poor taste to create an uproar. After satisfying +himself in a stirring personal interview that the president's letter was +final, he departed in a fury, and brought suit against the college and +Charles Gardiner West personally for his year's salary. He insisted that +he had been engaged for the full college year. To the court he +represented that he was a married man with six children, and absolutely +dependent upon his position for his livelihood. + +Professor Young happened to be very unpopular with both his colleagues +and the students, and probably all felt that it was a case of good +riddance, particularly as West's new man rode rapidly into general +popularity. These facts hampered the Winterites on the board, but +nevertheless they made the most of the incident, affecting to believe +that Young had been harshly treated. The issue, they intimated, was one +of the classes against the masses. The _Chronicle_, the penny evening +paper which found it profitable business to stand for the under-dog and +"the masses," scareheaded a jaundiced account of the affair, built up +around an impassioned statement from Professor Young. The same issue +carried an editorial entitled, "The Kid Glove College." West laughed at +the editorial, but he was a sensitive man to criticism and the sarcastic +gibes wounded him. When the attorneys for the college advised a +settlement out of court by paying the obstreperous Young three hundred +dollars in cash, James Winter was outspoken in his remarks. A resolution +restraining the president from making any changes in the faculty, +without the previous consent and approval of the board, was defeated, +after warm discussion, by the margin of seven votes to five. + +"By the Lord, gentlemen," said Mr. Fyne, indignantly, "if you cannot put +any confidence in the discretion of your president, you'd better get one +whose discretion you can put confidence in." + +"That's just what I say," rejoined James E. Winter, with instant +significance. + +Other changes in his faculty West decided to defer till the beginning of +a new year. All his surplus energy should be concentrated, he decided, +on raising an endowment fund which should put the college on a sound +financial basis before that time came. But here again he collided with +the thick wall of trustee bigotry. + +In the city, despite his youth, he was already well known as a speaker, +and was a favorite orator on agreeable occasions of a semi-public +nature. This was a sort of prestige that was well worth cultivating. In +the State, and even outside of it, he had many connections through +various activities, and by deft correspondence he easily put himself in +line for such honors as they had to offer. Invitations to speak came +rolling in in the most gratifying way. His plan was to mount upon these +to invitations of an even higher class. In December he made a much +admired address before the Associated Progress Boards. The next month, +through much subtle wire-pulling, he got himself put on the toast list +at the annual banquet of the distinguished American Society for the +Promotion of the Higher Education. There his name met on equal terms +with names as yet far better known. He spoke for ten minutes and sat +down with the thrill of having surpassed himself. A famous financier who +sat with him at the speaker's table told him that his speech was the +best of the evening, because the shortest, and asked several questions +about Blaines College. The young President returned home in a fine glow, +which the hostile trustees promptly subjected to a cold douche. + +"I'd like to inquire," said James E. Winter, sombrely, at the January +board meeting, "what is the point, if any, of the President of Blaines +College trapesing all over the country to attend these here banquets." + +They used unacademic as well as plain language in the Blaines board +meeting by this time. West smiled at Trustee Winter's question. To him +the man habitually seemed as malapropos as a spiteful old lady. + +"The point is, Mr. Winter, to get in touch with the sources of endowment +funds. Blaines College on its present foundation cannot hope to compete +with enlightened modern colleges of from five to one hundred times its +resources. If we mean to advance, we must do it by bringing Blaines +favorably to the attention of philanthropists who--" + +"No, _sir!_" roared Winter, bringing his contractor's fist down +thuddingly upon the long table. "Such noo-fangled ideas are against the +traditions of old Blaines College, I say! Old Blaines College is not +asking for alms. Old Blaines College is not a whining beggar, whatever +those Yankee colleges may be. I say, gentlemen, it's beneath the dignity +of old Blaines College for its president to go about Noo York bowing and +scraping and passing the hat to Rockyfeller, and such-like boocaneers." + +To West's unfeigned surprise, this view of the matter met with solid +backing. Reminiscences of the "tainted money" controversy appeared in +the trustees' talk. "Subsidized education" was heard more than once. One +spoke bitterly of Oil Colleges. No resolution was introduced, James E. +Winter having inadvertently come unprepared, but the majority opinion +was clearly that old Blaines College (founded 1894) should draw in her +traditional skirts from the yellow flood then pouring over the country, +and remain, small it may be, but superbly incorruptible. + +For once, West left his trustees thoroughly disgusted and out of humor. + +"Why, _why_ are we doomed to this invincible hostility to a new idea?" +he cried, in the bitterness of his soul. "Here is the spirit of progress +not merely beckoning to us, but fairly springing into our laps, and +because it speaks in accents that were unfamiliar to the slave +patriarchy of a hundred years ago, we drag it outside the city and +crucify it. I tell you these old Bourbons whom we call leaders are +millstones around our necks, and we can never move an inch until we've +laid the last one of them under the sod." + +Sharlee Weyland, to whom he repeated this thought, though she was all +sympathy with his difficulties, did not nevertheless think that this was +quite fair. "Look," she said, "at the tremendous progress we've made in +the last ten years." + +"Yes," he flashed back at her, "and who can say that a state like +Massachusetts, with the same incomparable opportunities, wouldn't have +made ten times as much!" + +But he was the best-natured man alive, and his vexation soon faded. In a +week, he was once more busy planning out ways and means. He sought funds +in the metropolis no more, and the famous financier spared him the +mortification of having to refuse a donation by considerately not +offering one. But he continued to make addresses in the State, and in +the city he was in frequent demand. However, the endowment fund remained +obstinately immovable. By February there had been no additions, unless +we can count five hundred dollars promised by dashing young Beverley +Byrd on the somewhat whimsical condition that his brother Stewart would +give an equal amount. + +"Moreover," said young Mr. Byrd, "I'll increase it to seven hundred and +fifty dollars if your friend Winter will publicly denounce me as a +boocaneer. It'll help me in my business to be lined up with Rockefeller +and all those Ikes." + +But this gift never materialized at all, for the reason that Stewart +Byrd kindly but firmly refused to give anything. A rich vein of +horse-sense underlay Byrd's philanthropic enthusiasms; and even the +necessity for the continued existence of old Blaines College appeared to +be by no means clear in his mind. + +"If you had a free hand, Gardiner," said he, "that would be one thing, +but you haven't. I've had my eye on Blaines for a long time, and frankly +I don't think it is entitled to any assistance. You have an inferior +plant and a lot of inferior men; a small college governed by small ideas +and ridden by a close corporation of small trustees--" + +"But heavens, man!" protested West, "your argument makes a perfect +circle. You won't help Blaines because it's poorly equipped, and Blaines +is poorly equipped because the yellow-rich--that's you--won't help it." + +Stewart Byrd wiped his gold-rimmed glasses, laughing pleasantly. He was +the oldest of the four brothers, a man of authority at forty; and West +watched him with a secret admiration, not untouched by a flicker of +envy. + +"What's the answer? Blessed if I know! The fact is, old fellow, I think +you've got an utterly hopeless job there, and if I were you, I believe +I'd get ready to throw it over at the first opportunity." + +West replied that it was only the hard things that were worth doing in +this life. None the less, as winter drew to a close, he insensibly +relaxed his efforts toward the immediate exaltation of old Blaines. As +he looked more closely into the situation, he realized that his too +impetuous desire for results had driven him to waste energy in hopeless +directions. How could he ever do anything, with a lot of moss-backed +trustees tying his hands and feet every time he tried to toddle a step +forward--he and Blaines? Clearly the first step of all was to oust the +fossils who stood like rocks in the path of progress, and fill their +places with men who could at least recognize a progressive idea when +they were beaten across the nose with it. He studied his trustee list +now more purposefully than he had ever pored over his faculty line up. +By the early spring, he was ready to set subtle influences going looking +to the defeat of the insurgent five, including James E. Winter, whose +term happily expired on the first of January following. + +But the president's lines did not all fall in gloomy and prickly places +in these days. His perennial faculty for enjoyment never deserted him +even in his darkest hours. His big red automobile, acquired on the crest +of Semple and West's prosperity, was constantly to be seen bowling down +the street of an early-vernal afternoon, or dancing down far country +lanes light with a load of two. The Thursday German had known him as of +old, and many were the delightful dinners where he proved, by merit +alone, the life of the party. Nor were his pleasures by any means all +dissociated from Blaines College. The local prestige that the president +acquired from his position was decidedly agreeable to him. Never an +educational point arose in the life of the city or the nation but the +_Post_ carried a long interview giving Mr. West's views upon it. +Corner-stone laying afforded him a sincere joy. Even discussions with +parents about their young hopefuls was anything but irksome to his +buoyant nature. + +Best and pleasantest of all was his relation with the students. His +notable gift for popularity, however futile it might be with embittered +asses like James E. Winter, served him in good stead here. West could +not conceal from himself that the boys idolized him. With secret delight +he saw them copying his walk, his taste in waistcoats, the way he +brushed back his hair. He had them in relays to his home to supper, +skipping only those of too hopeless an uncouthness, and sent them home +enchanted. He had introduced into the collegiate programme a five-minute +prayer, held every morning at nine, at which he made brief addresses on +some phase of college ideals every Tuesday and Friday. Attendance at +these gatherings was optional, but it kept up in the most gratifying +way, and sometimes on a Friday the little assembly-room would be quite +filled with the frankly admiring lads. "Why should I mind the little +annoyances," would flash into his mind as he rose to speak, "when I can +look down into a lot of fine, loyal young faces like this. _Here_ is +what counts." His appearance at student gatherings was always attended +by an ovation. He loved to hear the old Blaines cheer, with three +ringing "Prexy's" tacked on the end. One Saturday in early April, Prexy +took Miss Avery to a baseball game, somewhat against her will, solely +that she might see how his students worshiped him. On the following +Saturday, all with even-handed liberality, he took Miss Weyland to +another baseball game, with the same delightful purpose. + +The spring found West stronger and more contented with his lot as +president of a jerkwater college, decidedly happier for the burning out +of the fires of hot ambition which had consumed his soul six months +earlier. He told himself that he was reconciled to a slow advance with +fighting every inch of the way. But he saw the uselessness of fighting +trustees who were doomed soon to fall, and resigned himself to a quiet, +in fact a temporarily suspended, programme of progress. And then, just +when everything seemed most comfortably serene, a new straw suddenly +appeared in the wind, which quickly multiplied into a bundle and then a +bale, and all at once the camel's back had more than it could bear. +April was hardly dead before the college world was in a turmoil, by the +side of which the Young affair was the mere buzzing of a gnat. + +History is full of incidents of the kind: incidents which are trifling +beyond mention in the beginning, but which malign circumstance distorts +and magnifies till they set nations daggers-drawn at each other's +throats. Two students lured a "freshman" to their room and there invited +him to drink a marvelous compound the beginnings of which were fat pork +and olive oil; this while standing on his head. The freshman did not +feel in a position to deny their request. But his was a delicate +stomach, and the result of his accommodating spirit was that he became +violently, though not seriously, ill. Thus the matter came to the +attention of his parents, and so to the college authorities. The sick +lad stoutly declined to tell who were his persecutors, but West managed +to track one of them down and summoned him to his office. We may call +this student Brown; a pleasant-mannered youth of excellent family, whose +sister West sometimes danced with at the Thursday German. Brown said +that he had, indeed, been present during the sad affair, that he had, in +fact, to his eternal humiliation and regret, aided and abetted it; but +he delicately hinted that the prime responsibility rested on the +shoulders of the other student. Rather unwisely, perhaps, West pressed +him to disclose the name of his collaborator. (Brown afterwards, to +square himself with the students, alleged "intimidation.") A youth whom +we may describe as Jones was mentioned, and later, in the august private +office, was invited to tell what he knew of the disorder. Henceforward +accounts vary. Jones declared to the end that the president promised a +light punishment for all concerned if he would make a clean breast. West +asserted--and who would doubt his statement?--that he had made no +promise, or even a suggestion of a promise, of any kind. Be that as it +may, Jones proceeded, though declining to mention any other name than +his own. He declared positively that the idea of hazing the freshman had +not originated with him, but that he had taken a culpable part in it, +for which he was heartily sorry. Asked whether he considered himself or +his colleague principally responsible for the injury to the freshman's +health, he said that he preferred not to answer. To West this seemed a +damaging admission, though perhaps not everybody would have so viewed +it. He sent Jones away with no intimation of what he proposed to do. + +There was the situation, plain as a barn at noonday. All that was needed +was tact, judgment, and a firm hand. The young president hesitated. +Ordinarily he would have taken a quiet hour in the evening to think it +all over carefully, but as it happened--like Lord George Germaine and +the dispatch to Burgoyne--social engagements rushed forward to occupy +his time. Next morning his mail brought several letters, urging him to +set his foot ruthlessly on the serpent-head of hazing. His telephone +rang with the same firm counsel. The _Post_, he saw, had a long leading +article insisting that discipline must be maintained at all hazards. It +was observed that this article thundered in the old Colonel's best +style, and this was the more noteworthy in that the article in question +happened to be written by a young man of the name of Queed. + +West would have preferred to let the matter stand for a day or so, but +he saw that prompt and decisive action was expected of him. Denying +himself to callers, he shut himself in his office, to determine what was +just and fair and right. The advice of his correspondents, and of the +_Post_, tallied exactly with what the trustees had told him in the +beginning about the traditions of old Blaines. Hazing was not to be +tolerated under any circumstances. Therefore, somebody's head would now +have to fall. There could hardly be any occasion for expelling nice +young Brown. For a minor consideration, it would be decidedly awkward +henceforward, to have to offer salt to Mrs. Brown at dinner, as he had +done only last week, with the hand that had ruined her son's career. +Much more important, it seemed clear enough to West that the boy had +only been weak, and had been tempted into misbehavior by his older and +more wilful comrade. West had never liked young Jones. He was a +rawboned, unkempt sprig of the masses, who had not been included in any +of the student suppers at the president's house. Jones's refusal to +speak out fully on all the details of the affair pointed strongly, so +West argued, to consciousness of damning guilt. The path of +administrative duty appeared plain. West, to say truth, had not at +first expected to apply the drastic penalty of expulsion at all, but it +was clear that this was what the city expected of him. The universal cry +was for unshrinking firmness. Well, he would show them that he was firm, +and shrank from no unpleasantness where his duty was concerned. Brown he +ordered before him for a severe reprimand, and Jones he summarily +dismissed from old Blaines College. + +These decrees went into effect at noon. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon +the war-dogs broke their leashes. Four was the hour when the "night" +edition of the _Evening Chronicle_ came smoking hot from the presses. It +appeared that young Jones was the son, not merely of a plumber, but of a +plumber who was decidedly prominent in lodge circles and the smaller +areas of politics. His case was therefore precisely the kind that the +young men of the Chronicle loved to espouse. The three-column scare-head +over their bitterly partisan "story" ran thus: + + POOR BOY KICKED OUT + BY PRESIDENT WEST + +Close beside this, lest the reader should fail to grasp the full meaning +of the boldface, was a three-column cartoon, crudely drawn but adroit +enough. It represented West, unpleasantly caricatured, garbed in a +swallow-tail coat and enormous white gloves, with a gardenia in his +buttonhole, engaged in booting a lad of singular nobility of countenance +out of an open door. A tag around the lad's neck described him as "The +Workingman's Son." Under the devilish drawing ran a line which said, +succinctly, "His Policies." On page four was a double column, +double-leaded editorial, liberal with capitals and entitled: "Justice in +Silk Stockings." + +But this was only a beginning. Next morning's _Post_, which West had +counted on to come to his assistance with a ringing leader, so earnestly +discussed rotation of crops and the approaching gubernatorial campaign, +that it had not a line for the little disturbance at the college. If +this was a disappointment to West, a greater blow awaited him. Not to +try to gloss over the mortifying circumstance, he was hissed when he +entered the morning assembly--he, the prince, idol, and darling of his +students. Though the room was full, the hissing was of small +proportions, but rather too big to be ignored. West, after debating with +himself whether or not he should notice it, made a graceful and manly +two-minute talk which, he flattered himself, effectually abashed the +lads who had so far forgotten themselves. None the less the +demonstration cut him to the quick. When four o'clock came he found +himself waiting for the appearance of the _Chronicle_ with an anxiety +which he had never conceived possible with regard to that paper. A +glance at its lurid front showed that the blatherskites had pounded him +harder than ever. A black headline glared with the untruth that +President West had been "Hissed by Entire Student Body." Editorially, +the _Chronicle_ passionately inquired whether the taxpayers enjoyed +having the college which they so liberally supported (exact amount +seventy-five hundred dollars a year) mismanaged in so gross a way. + +West put a laughing face upon these calumnies, but to himself he owned +that he was deeply hurt. Dropping in at the club that night, he found a +group of men, all his friends, eagerly discussing the shindig, as they +called it. Joining in with that perfect good-humor and lack of false +pride which was characteristic of him, he gathered that all of them +thought he had made a mistake. It seemed to be considered that Brown had +put himself in a bad light by trying to throw the blame on Jones. Jones, +they said, should not have been bounced without Brown, and probably the +best thing would have been not to bounce either. The irritating thing +about this latter view was that it was exactly what West had thought in +the first place, before pressure was applied to him. + +In the still watches of the night the young man was harried by +uncertainties and tortured by stirring suspicions. Had he been fair to +Jones, after all? Was his summary action in regard to that youth +prompted in the faintest degree by personal dislike? Was he conceivably +the kind of man who is capable of thinking one thing and doing another? +The most afflicting of all doubts, doubt of himself, kept the young man +tossing on his pillow for at least an hour. + +But he woke with a clear-cut decision singing in his mind and gladdening +his morning. He would take Jones back. He would generously reinstate the +youth, on the ground that the public mortification already put upon him +was a sufficient punishment for his sins and abundant warning for others +like-minded. This would settle all difficulties at one stroke and +definitely lay the ghost of a disagreeable occurrence. The solution was +so simple that he marvelled that he had not thought of it before. + +His morning's mail, containing one or two very unpleasant letters, only +strengthened his determination. He lost no time in carrying it out. By +special messenger he dispatched a carefully written and kindly letter to +Jones, Senior. Jones, Senior, tore it across the middle and returned it +by the same messenger. He then informed the _Chronicle_ what he had +done. The _Chronicle_ that afternoon shrieked it under a five-column +head, together with a ferocious statement from Jones, Senior, saying +that he would rather see his son breaking rocks in the road than a +student in such a college as Blaines was, under the present régime. The +editor, instead of seeing in West's letter a spontaneous act of +magnanimity in the interest of the academic uplift, maliciously twisted +it into a grudging confession of error, "unrelieved by the grace of +manly retraction and apology." So ran the editorial, which was +offensively headed "West's Fatal Flop." Some of the State papers, it +seemed from excerpts printed in another column, were foolishly following +the _Chronicle's_ lead; Republican cracker-box orators were trying +somehow to make capital of the thing; and altogether there was a very +unpleasant little mess, which showed signs of developing rapidly into +what is known as an "issue." + +That afternoon, when the tempest in the collegiate teapot was storming +at its merriest, West, being downtown on private business, chanced to +drop in at the Post office, according to his frequent habit. He found +the sanctum under the guard of the young assistant editor. The Colonel, +in fact, had been sick in bed for four days, and in his absence, Queed +was acting-editor and sole contributor of the leaded minion. The two +young men greeted each other pleasantly. + +"I'm reading you every day," said West, presently, "and, flattery and +all that aside, I've been both surprised and delighted at the character +of the work you're doing. It's fully up to the best traditions of the +_Post_, and that strikes me as quite a feat for a man of your years." + +Because he was pleased at this tribute, Queed answered briefly, and at +once changed the subject. But he did it maladroitly by expressing the +hope that things were going well with Mr. West. + +"Well, not hardly," said West, and gave his pleasant laugh. "You may +possibly have noticed from our esteemed afternoon contemporary that I'm +in a very pretty little pickle. But by the way," he added, with entire +good humor, "the _Post_ doesn't appear to have noticed it after all." + +"No," said Queed, slowly, not pretending to misunderstand. He hesitated, +a rare thing with him. "The fact is I could not write what you would +naturally wish to have written, and therefore I haven't written anything +at all." + +West threw up his hands in mock horror. "Here's another one! Come on, +fellers! Kick him!--he's got no friends! You know," he laughed, "I +remind myself of the man who stuck his head in at the teller's window, +wanting to have a check cashed. The teller didn't know him from Adam. +'Have you any friends here in the city?' asked he. 'Lord, no!' said the +stranger; 'I'm the weather man.'" + +Queed smiled. + +"And I was only trying in my poor way," said West, mournfully, "to +follow the advice that you, young man, roared at me for a column on the +fatal morning." + +"I've regretted that," said Queed. "Though, of course, I never looked +for any such developments as this. I was merely trying to act on Colonel +Cowles's advice about always playing up local topics. You are doubtless +familiar with his dictum that the people are far more interested in a +cat-fight at Seventh and Centre Streets than in the greatest exploits of +science." + +West laughed and rose to go. Then a good-natured thought struck him. +"Look here," said he, "this must be a great load, with the Colonel +away--doing all of three columns a day by yourself. How on earth do you +manage it?" + +"Well, I start work at eight o'clock in the morning." + +"And what time does that get you through?" + +"Usually in time to get to press with it." + +"Oh, I say! That won't do at all. You'll break yourself down, playing +both ends against the middle like that. Let me help you out, won't you? +Let me do something for you right now?" + +"If you really feel like it," said Queed, remembering how the Colonel +welcomed Mr. West's occasional contributions to his columns, "of course +I shall be glad to have something from you." + +"Why, my dear fellow, certainly! Hand me some copy-paper there, and go +right on with your work while I unbosom my pent-up Uticas." + +He meditated a moment, wrote rapidly for half an hour, and rose with a +hurried glance at his watch. + +"Here's a little squib about the college that may serve as a +space-filler. I must fly for an engagement. I'll try to come down +to-morrow afternoon anyway, and if you need anything to-night, 'phone +me. Delighted to help you out." + +Queed picked up the scattered sheets and read them over carefully. He +found that Director West had written a very able defense, and +whole-hearted endorsement, of President West's position in the Blaines +College hazing affair. + +The acting editor sat for some time in deep thought. Eighteen months' +increasing contact with Buck Klinker and other men of action had +somewhat tamed his soaring self-sufficiency. He was not nearly so sure +as he once was that he knew everything there was to know, and a little +more besides. West, personally, whom he saw often, he had gradually come +to admire with warmth. By slow degrees it came to him that the popular +young president had many qualities of a very desirable sort which he +himself lacked. West's opinion on a question of college discipline was +likely to be at least as sound as his own. Moreover, West was one of the +owners and managers of the _Post_. + +Nevertheless, he, Queed, did not see how he could accept and print this +article. + +It was the old-school Colonel's fundamental axiom, drilled into and +fully adopted by his assistant, that the editor must be personally +responsible for every word that appeared in his columns. Those columns, +to be kept pure, must represent nothing but the editor's personal views. +Therefore, on more than one occasion, the Colonel had refused +point-blank to prepare articles which his directors wished printed. He +always accompanied these refusals with his resignation, which the +directors invariably returned to him, thereby abandoning their point. +Queed was for the moment editor in the Colonel's stead. Over the +telephone, Colonel Cowles had instructed him, four days before, to +assume full responsibility, communicating with him or with the directors +if he was in doubt, but standing firmly on his own legs. As to where +those legs now twitched to lead him, the young man could have no doubt. +If he had a passion in his scientist's bosom, it was for exact and +unflinching veracity. Even to keep the _Post_ silent had been something +of a strain upon his instinct for truth, for a voice within him had +whispered that an honest journal _ought_ to have some opinion to express +on a matter so locally interesting as this. To publish this editorial +would strain the instinct to the breaking point and beyond. For it would +be equivalent to saying, whether anybody else but him knew it or not, +that he, the present editor of the _Post_ approved and endorsed West's +position, when the truth was that he did nothing of the sort. + +At eight o'clock that night, he succeeded, after prolonged search of the +town on the part of the switchboard boy, in getting West to the +telephone. + +"Mr. West," said Queed, "I am very sorry, but I don't see how I can +print your article." + +"Oh, Lord!" came West's untroubled voice back over the wire. "And a +man's enemies shall be those of his own household. What's wrong with it, +Mr. Editor?" + +Queed explained his reluctances. "If that is not satisfactory to you," +he added, at the end, "as it hardly can be, I give you my resignation +now, and you yourself can take charge immediately." + +"Bless your heart, no! Put it in the waste-basket. It doesn't make a +kopeck's worth of difference. Here's a thought, though. Do you approve +of the tactics of those _Chronicle_ fellows in the matter?" + +"No, I do not." + +"Well, why not show them up to-morrow?" + +"I'll be glad to do it." + +So Queed wrote a stinging little article of a couple of sticks' length, +holding up to public scorn journalistic redshirts who curry-combed the +masses, and preached class hatred for the money there was in it. It is +doubtful if this article helped matters much. For the shameless +_Chronicle_ seized on it as showing that the _Post_ had tried to defend +the president, and utterly failed. "Even the West organ," so ran its +brazen capitals, "does not dare endorse its darling. And no wonder, +after the storm of indignation aroused by the _Chronicle's_ fearless +exposures." + +West kept his good humor and self-control intact, but it was hardly to +be expected that he enjoyed venomous misrepresentation of this sort. The +solidest comfort he got in these days came from Sharlee Weyland, who did +not read the _Chronicle_, and was most beautifully confident that +whatever he had done was right. But after all, the counselings of Miss +Avery, of whom he also saw much that spring, better suited his +disgruntled humor. + +"They are incapable of appreciating you," said she, a siren in the red +motor. "You owe it to yourself to enter a larger field. And"--so ran the +languorous voice--"to your friends." + +The trustees met on Saturday, with the _Chronicle_ still pounding away +with deadly regularity. Its editorial of the afternoon before was +entitled, "We Want A College President--Not A Class President," and had +frankly urged the trustees of old Blaines to consider whether a change +of administration was not advisable. This was advice which some of the +trustees were only too ready to follow. James E. Winter, coming armed +cap-à-pie to the meeting, suggested that Mr. West withdraw for a time, +which Mr. West properly declined to do. The implacable insurgent +thereupon launched into a bitter face-to-face denunciation of the +president's conduct in the hazing affair, outpacing the _Chronicle_ by +intimating, too plainly for courtesy, that the president's conduct +toward Jones was characterized by duplicity, if not wanting in +consistent adherence to veracity. "I had a hard time to keep from +hitting him," said West afterwards, "but I knew that would be the worst +thing I could possibly do." "Maybe so," sighed Mr. Fyne, apparently not +with full conviction. Winter went too far in moving that the president's +continuance in office was prejudicial to the welfare of Blaines College, +and was defeated 9 to 3. Nevertheless, West always looked back at this +meeting as one of the most unpleasant incidents in his life. He flung +out of it humiliated, angry, and thoroughly sick at heart. + +West saw himself as a persecuted patriot, who had laid a costly oblation +on the altar of public spirit only to see the base crowd jostle forward +and spit upon it. He was poor in this world's goods. It had cost him +five thousand a year to accept the presidency of Blaines College. And +this was how they rewarded him. To him, as he sat long in his office +brooding upon the darkness of life, there came a visitor, a tall, +angular, twinkling-eyed, slow-speaking individual who perpetually chewed +an unlighted cigar. He was Plonny Neal, no other, the reputed great +chieftain of city politics. Once the _Post_, in an article inspired by +West, had referred to Plonny as "this notorious grafter." Plonny could +hardly have considered this courteous; but he was a man who never +remembered a grudge, until ready to pay it back with compound interest. +West's adolescent passion for the immediate reform of politics had long +since softened, and nowadays when the whirligig of affairs threw the two +men together, as it did not infrequently, they met on the easiest and +friendliest terms. West liked Plonny, as everybody did, and of Plonny's +sincere liking for him he never had the slightest doubt. + +In fact, Mr. Neal's present call was to report that the manner in which +a lady brushes a midge from her summering brow was no simpler than the +wiping of James E. Winter off the board of Blaines College. + +That topic being disposed of, West introduced another. + +"Noticed the way the _Chronicle_ is jumping on me with all four feet, +Plonny?" he asked, with rather a forced laugh. "Why can't those fellows +forget it and leave me alone?" + +By a slow facial manoeuvre, Mr. Neal contrived to make his cigar look +out upon the world with contemptuousness unbearable. + +"Why, nobody pays no attention to them fellers' wind, Mr. West. You +could buy them off for a hundred dollars, ten dollars down, and have +them praising you three times a week for two hundred dollars, +twenty-five dollars down. I only take the paper," said Mr. Neal, +"because their Sunday is mighty convenient f'r packin' furniture f'r +shipment." + +The _Chronicle_ was the only paper Mr. Neal ever thought of reading, and +this was how he stabbed it in the back. + +"I don't want to butt in, Mr. West," said he, rising, "and you can stop +me if I am, but as a friend of yours--why are you botherin' yourself at +all with this here kid's-size proposition?" + +"What kid's-size proposition?" + +"This little two-by-twice grammar school that tries to pass itself off +for a college. And you ain't even boss of it at that! You got a gang of +mossbacks sitting on your head who don't get a live idea among 'em wunst +a year. Why, the archangel Gabriel wouldn't have a show with a lot of +corpses like them! Of course it ain't my business to give advice to a +man like you, and I'm probably offendin' you sayin' this, but someway +you don't seem to see what's so plain to everybody else. It's your +modesty keeps you blind, I guess. But here's what I don't see: why don't +you come out of this little hole in the ground and get in line?" + +"In line?" + +"You're dead and buried here. Now you mention the _Evening Windbag_ that +nobody pays no more attention to than kids yelling in the street. How +about having a paper of your own some day, to express your own ideas and +get things done, big things, the way you want 'em?" + +"You mean the _Post?_" + +"Well, the editor of the _Post_ certainly would be in line, whereas the +president of Blaines Grammar School certainly ain't." + +"What do you mean by in line, Plonny?" + +Mr. Neal invested his cigar with an enigmatic significance. "I might +mean one thing and I might mean another. I s'pose you never give a +thought to poltix, did you?" + +"Well, in a general way I have thought of it sometimes." + +"Think of it some more," said Mr. Neal, from the door. "I see a kind of +shake-up comin'. People say I've got infloonce in poltix, and sort of +help to run things. Of course it ain't so. I've got no more infloonce +than what my ballot gives me, and my takin' an intelligent public +interest in what's goin' on. But it looks to an amatoor like the people +are gettin' tired of this ring-rule they been givin' us, and 're goin' +to rise in their majesty pretty soon, and fill the offices with young +progressive men who never heeled f'r the organization." + +He went away, leaving the young president of Blaines vastly cheered. +Certainly no language could have made Neal's meaning any plainer. He +had come to tell West that, if he would only consent to get in line, he, +great Neal, desired to put him in high office--doubtless the Mayoralty, +which in all human probability meant the Governorship four years later. + +West sat long in rapt meditation. He marveled at himself for having ever +accepted his present position. Its limitations were so narrow and so +palpable, its possibilities were so restricted, its complacent +provincialism so glaring, that the imaginative glories with which he had +once enwrapped it seemed now simply grotesque. As long as he remained, +he was an entombed nonentity. Beyond the college walls, out of the reach +of the contemptible bigotry of the trustees of this world, the people +were calling for him. He could be the new type of public servant, the +clean, strong, fearless, idolized young Moses, predestined to lead a +tired people into the promised land of political purity. Once more a +white meadow of eager faces rolled out before the eye of his mind; and +this time, from the buntinged hustings, he did not extol learning with +classic periods, but excoriated political dishonesty in red-hot phrases +which jerked the throngs to their feet, frenzied with ardor.... + +And it was while he was still in this vein of thought, as it happened, +that Colonel Cowles, at eleven o'clock on the first night of June, +dropped dead in his bathroom, and left the _Post_ without an editor. + + + + +XIX + + _The Little House on Duke of Gloucester Street; and the Beginning + of Various Feelings, Sensibilities, and Attitudes between two + Lonely Men._ + + +One instant thought the news of the Colonel's death struck from nearly +everybody's mind: _He'll miss the Reunion_. For within a few days the +city was to witness that yearly gathering of broken armies which, of all +assemblages among men, the Colonel had loved most dearly. In thirty +years, he had not missed one, till now. They buried the old warrior with +pomp and circumstance, not to speak of many tears, and his young +assistant in the sanctum came home from the graveside with a sense of +having lost a valued counselor and friend. Only the home to which the +assistant returned with this feeling was not the Third Hall Back of Mrs. +Paynter's, sometimes known as the Scriptorium, but a whole suite of +pleasant rooms, upstairs and down, in a nice little house on Duke of +Gloucester Street. For Nicolovius had made his contemplated move on the +first of May, and Queed had gone with him. + +It was half-past six o'clock on a pretty summer's evening. Queed opened +the house-door with a latch-key and went upstairs to the comfortable +living-room, which faithfully reproduced the old professor's +sitting-room at Mrs. Paynter's. Nicolovius, in his black silk cap, was +sitting near the open window, reading and smoking a strong cigarette. + +"Ah, here you are! I was just thinking that you were rather later than +usual this evening." + +"Yes, I went to Colonel Cowles's funeral. It was decidedly impressive." + +"Ah!" + +Queed dropped down into one of Nicolovius's agreeable chairs and let +his eyes roam over the room. He was extremely comfortable in this house; +a little too comfortable, he was beginning to think now, considering +that he paid but seven dollars and fifty cents a week towards its +support. He had a desk and lamp all his own in the living-room, a table +and lamp in his bedroom, ease and independence over two floors. An old +negro man looked after the two gentlemen and gave them excellent things +to eat. The house was an old one, and small; it was in an unfashionable +part of town, and having stood empty for some time, could be had for +thirty-five dollars a month. However, Nicolovius had wiped out any +economy here by spending his money freely to repair and beautify. He had +had workmen in the house for a month, papering, painting, plumbing, and +altering. + +"Dozens of people could not get in the church," said Queed. "They stood +outside in the street till the service was over." + +Nicolovius was looking out of the window, and answered casually. "I +daresay he was an excellent man according to his lights." + +"Coming to know him very well in the past year, I found that his lights +stood high." + +"As high, I am sure, as the environment in which he was born and raised +made possible." + +"You have a low opinion, then, of ante-bellum civilization in the +South?" + +"Who that knows his history could have otherwise?" + +"You know history, I admit," said Queed, lightly falling upon the side +issue, "surprisingly, indeed, considering that you have not read it for +so many years." + +"A man is not likely to forget truths burned into him when he is young." + +"Everything depends," said Queed, returning to his muttons, "upon how +you are going to appraise a civilization. If the only true measure is +economic efficiency, no one can question that the old Southern system +was one of the worst ever conceived." + +"Can you, expert upon organized society as you are, admit any doubts +upon that point?" + +"I am admitting doubts upon a good many points these days." + +Nicolovius resumed his cigarette. Talk languished. Both men enjoyed a +good silence. Many a supper they ate through without a word. The old +man's attitude toward the young one was charming. He had sloughed off +some of the too polished blandness of his manner, and now offered a +simpler meeting ground of naturalness and kindliness. They had shared +the Duke of Gloucester Street roof-tree for a month, but Queed did not +yet accept it as a matter of course. He was decidedly more prone to be +analytical than he had been a year ago. Yet whatever could be urged +against it, the little house was in one way making a subtle tug upon his +regard: it was the nearest thing to a home that he had ever had in his +life, or was ever likely to have. + +"And when will the _Post_ directors meet to choose his successor?" + +"I haven't heard. Very soon, I should think." + +"It is certain, I suppose," said Nicolovius, "that they will name you?" + +"Oh, not at all--by no means! I am merely receptive, that is all." + +Queed glanced at his watch and rose. "There is half an hour before +supper, I see. I think I must turn it to account." + +Nicolovius looked regretful. "Why not allow yourself this minute's rest, +and me the pleasure of your society?" + +Queed hesitated. "No--I think my duty is to my work." + +He passed into the adjoining room, which was his bedroom, and shut the +door. Here at his table, he passed all of the hours that he spent in the +house, except after supper, when he did his work in the sitting-room +with Nicolovius. He felt that, in honor, he owed some companionship, of +the body at least, to the old man in exchange for the run of the house, +and his evenings were his conscientious concession to his social duty. +But sometimes he felt the surprising and wholly irrational impulse to +concede more, to give the old man a larger measure of society than he +was, so to say, paying for. He felt it now as he seated himself +methodically and opened his table drawer. + +From a purely selfish point of view, which was the only point of view +from which such a compact need be considered, he could hardly think that +his new domestic arrangement was a success. Greater comforts he had, of +course, but it is not upon comforts that the world's work hangs. The +important facts were that he was paying as much as he had paid at Mrs. +Paynter's, and was enjoying rather less privacy. He and Nicolovius were +friends of convenience only. Yet somehow the old professor managed to +obtrude himself perpetually upon his consciousness. The young man began +to feel an annoying sense of personal responsibility toward him, an +impulse which his reason rejected utterly. + +He was aware that, personally, he wished himself back at Mrs. Paynter's +and the Scriptorium. A free man, in possession of this knowledge, would +immediately pack up and return. But that was just the trouble. He who +had always, hitherto, been the freest man in the world, appeared no +longer to be free. He was aware that he would find it very difficult to +walk into the sitting-room at this moment, and tell Nicolovius that he +was going to leave. The old man would probably make a scene. The +irritating thing about it was that Nicolovius, being as solitary in the +great world as he himself, actually _minded_ his isolation, and was +apparently coming to depend upon _him_. + +But after all, he was contented here, and his work was prospering +largely. The days of his preparation for his _Post_ labors were +definitely over. He no longer had to read or study; he stood upon his +feet, and carried his editorial qualifications under his hat. His duties +as assistant editor occupied him but four or five hours a day; some +three hours a day--the allotment was inexact, for the Schedule had lost +its first rigid precision--to the Sciences of Physical Culture and +Human Intercourse; all the rest to the Science of Sciences. Glorious +mornings, and hardly less glorious nights, he gave, day after day, week +after week, to the great book; and because of his astonishingly enhanced +vitality, he made one hour tell now as an hour and a half had told in +the period of the establishment of the Scriptorium. + +And now, without warning and prematurely, the jade Fortune had pitched a +bomb at this new Revised Schedule of his, leaving him to decide whether +he would patch up the pieces or not. And he had decided that he would +not patch them up. Colonel Cowles was dead. The directors of the _Post_ +might choose him to succeed the Colonel, or they might not. But if they +did choose him, he had finally made up his mind that he would accept the +election. + +In his attitude toward the newspaper, Queed was something like those +eminent fellow-scientists of his who have set out to "expose" +spiritualism and "the occult," and have ended as the most gullible +customers of the most dubious of "mediums." The idea of being editor for +its own sake, which he had once jeered and flouted, he had gradually +come to consider with large respect. The work drew him amazingly; it was +applied science of a peculiarly fascinating sort. And in the six days of +the Colonel's illness in May, when he had full charge of the editorial +page--and again now--he had an exhilarating consciousness of personal +power which lured him, oddly, more than any sensation he had ever had in +his life. + +No inducements of this sort, alone, could ever have drawn him from his +love. However, his love was safe, in any case. If they made him editor, +they would give him an assistant. He would keep his mornings for +himself--four hours a day. In the long vigil last night, he had threshed +the whole thing out. On a four-hour schedule he could finish his book in +four years and a half more:--an unprecedentedly early age to have +completed so monumental a work. And who could say that in thus making +haste slowly, he would not have acquired a breadth of outlook, and +closer knowledge of the practical conditions of life, which would be +advantageously reflected in the Magnum Opus itself? + +The young man sat at his table, the sheaf of yellow sheets which made up +the chapter he was now working on ready under his hand. Around him were +his reference books, his note-books, his pencils and erasers, all the +neat paraphernalia of his trade. Everything was in order; yet he touched +none of them. Presently his eyes fell upon his open watch, and his mind +went off into new channels, or rather into old channels which he thought +he had abandoned for this half-hour at any rate. In five minutes more, +he put away his manuscript, picked up his watch, and strolled back into +the sitting-room. + +Nicolovius was sitting where he had left him, except that now he was not +reading but merely staring out of the window. He glanced around with a +look of pleased surprise and welcome. + +"Ah-h! Did genius fail to burn?" he asked, employing a bromidic phrase +which Queed particularly detested. + +"That is one way of putting it, I suppose." + +"Or did you take pity on my solitariness? You must not let me become a +drag upon you." + +Queed, dropping into a chair, rather out of humor, made no reply. +Nicolovius continued to look out of the window. + +"I see in the _Post_," he presently began again, "that Colonel Cowles, +after getting quite well, broke himself down again in preparing for the +so-called Reunion. It seems rather hard to have to give one's life for +such a rabble of beggars." + +"That is how you regard the veterans, is it?" + +"Have you ever seen the outfit?" + +"Never." + +"I have lived here long enough to learn something of them. Look at them +for yourself next week. Mix with them. Talk with them. You will find +them worth a study--and worth nothing else under the sun." + +"I have been looking forward to doing something of that sort," said +Queed, introspectively. + +Had not Miss Weyland, the last time he had seen her--namely, one evening +about two months before,--expressly invited him to come and witness the +Reunion parade from her piazza? + +"You will see," said Nicolovius, in his purring voice, "a lot of shabby +old men, outside and in, who never did an honest day's work in their +lives." + +He paused, finished his cigarette and suavely resumed: + +"They went to war as young men, because it promised to be more exciting +than pushing a plow over a worn-out hillside. Or because there was +nothing else to do. Or because they were conscripted and kicked into it. +They came out of the war the most invincible grafters in history. The +shiftless boor of a stable-boy found himself transformed into a shining +hero, and he meant to lie back and live on it for the rest of his days. +Be assured that he understood very well the cash value of his old +uniform. If he had a peg-leg or an empty sleeve, so much the more +impudently could he pass around his property cap. For forty years, he +and his mendicant band have been a cursed albatross hung around the +necks of their honest fellows. Able-bodied men, they have lolled back +and eaten up millions of dollars, belonging to a State which they +pretend to love and which, as they well know, has needed every penny for +the desperate struggle of existence. Since the political party which +dominates this State is too cowardly to tell them to go to work or go to +the devil, it will be a God's mercy when the last one of them is in his +grave. You may take my word for that." + +But Queed, being a scientist by passion, never took anybody's word for +anything. He always went to the original sources of information, and +found out for himself. It was a year now since he had begun saturating +himself in the annals of the State and the South, and he had scoured the +field so effectually that Colonel Cowles himself had been known to +appeal to him on a point of history, though the Colonel had forty years' +start on him, and had himself helped to make that history. + +Therefore Queed knew that Nicolovius, by taking the case of one soldier +in ten, perhaps, or twenty or fifty, and offering it as typical of the +whole, was bitterly caricaturing history; and he wondered why in the +world the old man cared to do it. + +"My own reading of the recent history of the South," said Queed, "can +hardly sustain such a view." + +"You have only to read further to be convinced." + +"But I thought you yourself never read recent history." + +Nicolovius flung him a sharp look, which the young man, staring +thoughtfully at the floor, missed. The old professor laughed. + +"My dear boy! I read it on the lips of Major Brooke, I read it daily in +the newspapers, I read it in such articles as your Colonel Cowles wrote +about this very Reunion. I cannot get away from history in the making, +if I would. Ah, there is the supper bell--I'm quite ready for it, too. +Let us go down." + +They went down arm in arm. On the stairs Nicolovius said: "These +Southern manifestations interest me because, though extreme, they are +after all so absurdly typical of human nature. I have even seen the same +sort of thing in my own land." + +Queed, though he knew the history of Ireland very well, could not recall +any parallel to the United Confederate Veterans in the annals of that +country. Still, a man capable of distorting history as Nicolovius +distorted it could always find a parallel to anything anywhere. + +When the meal was about half over, Queed said:-- + +"You slept badly last night, didn't you?" + +"Yes--my old enemy. The attack soon passed. However, you may be sure +that it is a comfort at such times to know that I am not alone." + +"If you should need any--ahem--assistance, I assume that you will call +me," said Queed, after a pause. + +"Thank you. You can hardly realize what your presence here, your +companionship and, I hope I may say, your friendship, mean to me." + +Queed glanced at him over the table, and hastily turned his glance away. +He had surprised Nicolovius looking at him with a curiously tender look +in his black diamond eyes. + +The young man went to the office that night, worried by two highly +irritating ideas. One was that Nicolovius was most unjustifiably +permitting himself to become dependent upon him. The other was that it +was very peculiar that a Fenian refugee should care to express +slanderous views of the soldiers of a Lost Cause. Both thoughts, once +introduced into the young man's mind, obstinately stuck there. + + + + +XX + + _Meeting of the Post Directors to elect a Successor to Colonel + Cowles; Charles Gardiner West's Sensible Remarks on Mr. Queed; Mr. + West's Resignation from Old Blaines College, and New Consecration + to the Uplift._ + + +The _Post_ directors gathered in special meeting on Monday. Their first +act was to adopt some beautiful resolutions, prepared by Charles +Gardiner West, in memory of the editor who had served the paper so long +and so well. Next they changed the organization of the staff, splitting +the late Colonel's heavy duties in two, by creating the separate +position of managing editor; this official to have complete authority +over the news department of the paper, as the editor had over its +editorial page. The directors named Evan Montague, the able city editor +of the Post, to fill the new position, while promoting the strongest of +the reporters to fill the city desk. + +The chairman, Stewart Byrd, then announced that he was ready to receive +nominations for, or hear discussion about, the editorship. + +One of the directors, Mr. Hopkins, observed that, as he viewed it, the +directors should not feel restricted to local timber in the choice of a +successor to the Colonel. He said that the growing importance of the +_Post_ entitled it to an editor of the first ability, and that the +directors should find such a one, whether in New York, or Boston, or San +Francisco. + +Another director, Mr. Boggs, remarked that it did not necessarily follow +that a thoroughly suitable man must be a New York, Boston, or San +Francisco man. Unless he was greatly deceived, there was an eminently +suitable man, not merely in the city, but in the office of the _Post_, +where, since Colonel Cowles's death, he was doing fourteen hours of +excellent work per day for the sum of fifteen hundred dollars per annum. + +"Mr. Boggs's point," said Mr. Hickok, a third director, who looked +something like James E. Winter, "is exceedingly well taken. A United +States Senator from a Northern State is a guest in my house for Reunion +week. The Senator reads the editorials in the _Post_ with marked +attention, has asked me the name of the writer, and has commended some +of his utterances most highly. The Senator tells me that he never reads +the editorials in his own paper--a Boston paper, Mr. Hopkins, by the +bye--his reason being that they are never worth reading." + +Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter, fourth and fifth directors, were much struck +with Mr. Hickok's statement. They averred that they had made a point of +reading the _Post_ editorials during the Colonel's absence, with a view +to sizing up the assistant, and had been highly pleased with the +character of his work. + +Mr. Wilmerding, a sixth director, declared that the Colonel had, in +recent months, more than once remarked to him that the young man was +entirely qualified to be his successor. In fact, the Colonel had once +said that he meant to retire before a great while, and, of course with +the directors' approval, turn over the editorial helm to the assistant. +Therefore, he, Mr. Wilmerding, had pleasure in nominating Mr. Queed for +the position of editor of the _Post_. + +Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter said that they had pleasure in seconding this +nomination. + +Mr. Charles Gardiner West, a seventh director, was recognized for a few +remarks. Mr. West expressed his intense gratification over what had been +said in eulogy of Mr. Queed. This gratification, some might argue, was +not wholly disinterested, since it was Mr. West who had discovered Mr. +Queed and sent him to the _Post_. To praise the able editor was +therefore to praise the alert, watchful, and discriminating director. +(Smiles.) Seriously, Mr. Queed's work, especially during the last few +months, had been of the highest order, and Mr. West, having worked +beside him more than once, ventured to say that he appreciated his +valuable qualities better than any other director. If the Colonel had +but lived a year or two longer, there could not, in his opinion, be the +smallest question as to what step the honorable directors should now +take. But as it was, Mr. West, as Mr. Queed's original sponsor on the +_Post_, felt it his duty to call attention to two things. The first was +the young man's extreme youth. The second was the fact that he was a +stranger to the State, having lived there less than two years. At his +present rate of progress, it was of course patent to any observer that +he was a potential editor of the _Post_, and a great one. But might it +not be, on the whole, desirable--Mr. West merely suggested the idea in +the most tentative way, and wholly out of his sense of sponsorship for +Mr. Queed--to give him a little longer chance to grow and broaden and +learn, before throwing the highest responsibility and the final honors +upon him? + +Mr. West's graceful and sensible remarks made a distinct impression upon +the directors, and Mr. Hopkins took occasion to say that it was +precisely such thoughts as these that had led him to suggest looking +abroad for a man. Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter asserted that they would +deprecate doing anything that Mr. West, with his closer knowledge of +actual conditions, thought premature. Mr. Boggs admitted that the +ability to write editorials of the first order was not all that should +be required of the editor of the _Post_. It might be doubtful, thought +he, whether so young a man could represent the _Post_ properly on +occasions of a semi-public nature, or in emergency situations such as +occasionally arose in an editorial office. + +Mr. Wilmerding inquired the young man's age, and upon being told that he +was under twenty-six, remarked that only very exceptional abilities +could counteract such youth as that. + +"That," said Mr. Hickok, glancing cursorily at Charles Gardiner West, +"is exactly the sort of abilities Mr. Queed possesses." + +Discussion flagged. The chairman asked if they were ready for a vote +upon Mr. Queed. + +"No, no--let's take our time," said Mr. Wilmerding. + +"Perhaps somebody has other nominations to offer." + +No one seemed to have other nominations to offer. Some minutes were +consumed by random suggestions and unprogressive recommendations. Busy +directors began to look at their watches. + +"Look here, Gard--I mean Mr. West," suddenly said young Theodore Fyne, +the baby of the board. "Why couldn't we persuade _you_ to take the +editorship?... Resign from the college, you know?" + +"Now you _have_ said something!" cried Mr. Hopkins, enthusiastically. + +Mr. West, by a word and a gesture, indicated that the suggestion was +preposterous and the conversation highly unwelcome. + +But it was obvious that young Mr. Fyne's suggestion had caught the +directors at sight. Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter affirmed that they had +not ventured to hope, etc., etc., but that if Mr. West could be induced +to consider the position, no choice would appear to them so +eminently--etc., etc. So said Mr. Boggs. So said Messrs. Hopkins, Fyne, +and Wilmerding. + +Mr. Hickok, the director who resembled James E. Winter, looked out of +the window. + +Mr. West, obviously restive under these tributes, was constrained to +state his position more fully. For more than one reason which should be +evident, he said, the mention of his name in this connection was most +embarrassing and distasteful to him. While thanking the directors +heartily for their evidences of good-will, he therefore begged them to +desist, and proceed with the discussion of other candidates. + +"In that case," said Mr. Hickok, "it appears to be the reluctant duty of +the nominator to withdraw Mr. West's name." + +But the brilliant young man's name, once thrown into the arena, could no +more be withdrawn than the fisherman of legend could restore the genie +to the bottle, or Pandora get her pretty gifts back into the box again. +There was the idea, fairly out and vastly alluring. The kindly directors +pressed it home. No doubt they, as well as Plonny Neal, appreciated that +Blaines College did not give the young man a fair field for his talents; +and certainly they knew with admiration the articles with which he +sometimes adorned the columns of their paper. Of all the directors, they +now pointed out, he had stood closest to Colonel Cowles, and was most +familiar with the traditions and policies of the _Post_. Their urgings +increased in force and persistence; perhaps they felt encouraged by a +certain want of finality in the young man's tone; and at length West was +compelled to make yet another statement. + +He was, he explained, utterly disconcerted at the turn the discussion +had taken, and found the situation so embarrassing that he must ask his +friends, the directors, to extricate him from it at once. The editorship +of the _Post_ was an office which he, personally, had never aspired to, +but it would be presumption for him to deny that he regarded it as a +post which would reflect honor upon any one. He was willing to admit, in +this confidential circle, moreover, that he had taken up college work +chiefly with the ambition of assisting Blaines over a critical year or +two in its history, and that, to put it only generally, he was not +indefinitely bound to his present position. But under the present +circumstances, as he said, he could not consent to any discussion of his +name; and unless the directors would agree to drop him from further +consideration, which he earnestly preferred, he must reluctantly suggest +adjournment. + +"An interregnum," said Mr. Hickok, looking out of the window, "is an +unsatisfactory, not to say a dangerous thing. Would it not be better, +since we are gathered for that purpose, to take decisive action to-day?" + +"What is your pleasure, gentlemen?" inquired Chairman Byrd. + +Mr. Hickok was easily overruled. The directors seized eagerly on Mr. +West's suggestion. On motion of Mr. Hopkins, seconded by Mr. Shorter and +Mr. Porter, the meeting stood adjourned to the third day following at +noon. + +On the second day following the _Post_ carried the interesting +announcement that Mr. West had resigned from the presidency of Blaines +College, a bit of news which his friends read with sincere pleasure. The +account of the occurrence gave one to understand that all Mr. West's +well-known persuasiveness had been needed to force the trustees to +accept his resignation. And when James E. Winter read this part of it, +at his suburban breakfast, he first laughed, and then swore. The same +issue of the _Post_ carried an editorial, mentioning in rather a sketchy +way the benefits Mr. West had conferred upon Blaines College, and paying +a high and confident tribute to his qualities as a citizen. The young +acting-editor, who never wrote what he did not think, had taken much +pains with this editorial, especially the sketchy part. Of course the +pestiferous _Chronicle_ took an entirely different view of the +situation. "The _Chronicle_ has won its great fight," so it nervily +said, "against classism in Blaines College." And it had the vicious taste +to add: "Nothing in Mr. West's presidential life became him like the +leaving of it." + +On the third day the directors met again. With characteristic delicacy +of feeling, West remained away from the meeting. However, Mr. Hopkins, +who seemed to know what he was talking about, at once expressed his +conviction that they might safely proceed to the business which had +brought them together. + +"Perceiving clearly that I represent a minority view," said Mr. Hickok, +"I request the director who nominated Mr. Queed to withdraw his name. I +think it proper that our action should be unanimous. But I will say, +frankly, that if Mr. Queed's name remains before the board, I shall vote +for him, since I consider him from every point of view the man for the +position." + +Mr. Queed's name having been duly withdrawn, the directors unanimously +elected Charles Gardiner West to the editorship of the _Post_. By a +special resolution introduced by Mr. Hopkins, they thanked Mr. Queed for +his able conduct of the editorial page in the absence of the editor, and +voted him an increased honorarium of eighteen hundred dollars a year. + +The directors adjourned, and Mr. Hickok stalked out, looking more like +James E. Winter than ever. The other directors, however, looked highly +gratified at themselves. They went out heartily congratulating each +other. By clever work they had secured for their paper the services of +one of the ablest, most gifted, most polished and popular young men in +the State. Nevertheless, though they never knew it, their action was +decidedly displeasing to at least one faithful reader of the _Post_, to +wit, Miss Charlotte Lee Weyland, of the Department of Charities. Sharlee +felt strongly that Mr. Queed should have had the editorship, then and +there. It might be said that she had trained him up for exactly that +position. Of course, Mr. West, her very good friend, would make an +editor of the first order. But, with all the flocks that roamed upon his +horizon, ought he to have reached out and plucked the one ewe lamb of +the poor assistant? Besides, she thought that Mr. West ought to have +remained at Blaines College. + +But how could she maintain this attitude of criticism when the new +editor himself, bursting in upon her little parlor in a golden nimbus of +optimism, radiant good humor and success, showed up the shallowness and +the injustice of it? + +"To have that college off my neck--Whew! I'm as happy, my friend, as a +schoolboy on the first day of vacation. I haven't talked much about it +to you," continued Mr. West, "for it's a bore to listen to other +people's troubles--but that college had become a perfect old man of the +sea! The relief is glorious! I'm bursting with energy and enthusiasm and +big plans for the _Post_." + +"And Mr. Queed?" said Sharlee. "Was he much disappointed?" + +West was a little surprised at the question, but he gathered from her +tone that she thought Mr. Queed had some right to be. + +"Why, I think not," he answered, decisively. "Why in the world should he +be? Of course it means only a delay of a year or two for him, at the +most. I betray no confidence when I tell you that I do not expect to +remain editor of the _Post_ forever." + +Sharlee appeared struck by this summary of the situation, which, to tell +the truth, had never occurred to her. Therefore, West went on to sketch +it more in detail to her. + +"The last thing in the world that I would do," said he, "is to stand in +that boy's light. My one wish is to push him to the front just as fast +as he can stride. Why, I discovered Queed--you and I did, that is--and I +think I may claim to have done something toward training him. To speak +quite frankly, the situation was this: In spite of his great abilities, +he is still very young and inexperienced. Give him a couple of years in +which to grow and broaden and get his bearings more fully, and he will +be the very best man in sight for the place. On the other hand, if he +were thrust prematurely into great responsibility, he would be almost +certain to make some serious error, some fatal break, which would impair +his usefulness, and perhaps ruin it forever. Do you see my point? As his +sponsor on the _Post_, it seemed to me unwise and unfair to expose him +to the risks of forcing his pace. That's the whole story. I'm not the +king at all. I'm only the regent during the king's minority." + +Sharlee now saw how unjust she had been, to listen to the small whisper +of doubt of West's entire magnanimity. + +"You are much wiser and farther-sighted than I." + +"Perish the thought!" + +"I'm glad my little Doctor--only he isn't either little or very much of +a doctor any more--has such a good friend at court." + +"Nonsense. It was only what anybody who stopped to think a moment would +have done." + +"Not everybody who stops to think is so generous...." + +This thought, too, Mr. West abolished by a word. + +"But you will like the work, won't you!" continued Sharlee, still +self-reproachful. "I do hope you will." + +"I shall like it immensely," said West, above pretending, as some +regents would have done, that he was martyring himself for his friend, +the king. "Where can you find any bigger or nobler work? At Blames +College of blessed memory, the best I could hope for was to reach and +influence a handful of lumpish boys. How tremendously broader is the +opportunity on the _Post!_ Think of having a following of a hundred +thousand readers a day! (You allow three or four readers to a copy, you +know.) Think of talking every morning to such an audience as that, +preaching progress and high ideals, courage and honesty and kindness and +faith--moulding their opinions and beliefs, their ambitions, their very +habits of thought, as I think they ought to be moulded ..." + +He talked in about this vein till eleven o'clock, and Sharlee listened +with sincere admiration. Nevertheless, he left her still troubled by a +faint doubt as to how Mr. Queed himself felt about what had been done +for his larger good. But when she next saw Queed, only a few days later, +this doubt instantly dissolved and vanished. She had never seen him less +inclined to indict the world and his fortune. + + + + +XXI + + _Queed sits on the Steps with Sharlee, and sees Some Old Soldiers + go marching by._ + + +Far as the eye could see, either way, the street was two parallels of +packed humanity. Both sidewalks, up and down, were loaded to capacity +and spilling off surplus down the side-streets. Navigation was next to +impossible; as for crossing you were a madman to think of such a thing. +At the sidewalks' edge policemen patrolled up and down in the street +with their incessant cry of "Back there!"--pausing now and then to +dislodge small boys from trees, whither they had climbed at enormous +peril to themselves and innocent by-standers. Bunting, flags, streamers +were everywhere; now and then a floral arch bearing words of welcome +spanned the roadway; circus day in a small town was not a dot upon the +atmosphere of thrilled expectancy so all-pervasive here. It was, in +fact, the crowning occasion of the Confederate Reunion, and the fading +remnants of Lee's armies were about to pass in annual parade and review. + +Mrs. Weyland's house stood full on the line of march. It was the house +she had come to as a bride; she owned it; and because it could not +easily be converted over her head into negotiable funds, it had escaped +the predacious clutches of Henry G. Surface. After the crash, it would +doubtless have been sensible to sell it and take something cheaper; but +sentiment made her cling to this house, and her daughter, in time, went +to work to uphold sentiment's hands. It was not a large house, or a fine +one, but it did have a very comfortable little porch. To-day this porch +was beautifully decorated, like the whole town, with the colors of two +countries, one living and one dead; and the decorations for the dead +were three times greater than the decorations for the living. And why +not? Yet, at that, Sharlee was liberal-minded and a thorough-going +nationalist. On some houses, the decorations for the dead were five +times greater, like Benjamin's mess; on others, ten times; on yet +others, no colors at all floated but the beloved Stars and Bars. + +Upon the steps of Mrs. Weyland's porch sat Mr. Queed, come by special +invitation of Mrs. Weyland's daughter to witness the parade. + +The porch, being so convenient for seeing things, was hospitably taxed +to its limits. New people kept turning in at the gate, mostly ladies, +mostly white-haired ladies wearing black, and Sharlee was incessantly +springing up to greet them. However, Queed, feeling that the proceedings +might be instructive to him, had had the foresight to come early, before +the sidewalks solidified with spectators; and at first, and +spasmodically thereafter, he had some talk with Sharlee. + +"So you didn't forget?" she said, in greeting him. + +He eyed her reflectively. "When I was seven years old," he began, "Tim +once asked me to attend to something for him while he went out for a +minute. It was to mind some bacon that he had put on to broil for +supper. I became absorbed in a book I was reading, and Tim came back to +find the bacon a crisp. I believe I have never forgotten anything from +that day to this. You have a holiday at the Department?" + +"Why, do you suppose we'd work to-day!" said Sharlee, and introduced him +to her mother, who, having attentively overheard his story of Tim and +the bacon, proceeded to look him over with some care. + +Sharlee left them for a moment, and came back bearing a flag about the +size of a man's visiting card. + +"You are one of us, aren't you? I have brought you," she said, "your +colors." + +Queed looked and recognized the flag that was everywhere in predominance +that day. "And what will it mean if I wear it?" + +"Only," said Sharlee, "that you love the South." + +Vaguely Queed saw in her blue-spar eyes the same kind of softness that +he noticed in people's voices this afternoon, a softness which somehow +reminded him of a funeral, Fifi's or Colonel Cowles's. + +"Oh, very well, if you like." + +Sharlee put the flag in his buttonhole under her mother's watchful gaze. +Then she got cushions and straw-mats, and explained their uses in +connection with steps. Next, she gave a practical demonstration of the +same by seating the young man, and sitting down beside him. + +"One thing I have noticed about loving the South. Everybody does it, who +takes the trouble to know us. Look at the people!--millions and +millions...." + +"Colonel Cowles would have liked this." + +"Yes--dear old man." Sharlee paused a moment, and then went on. "He was +in the parade last year--on the beautifullest black horse--You never saw +anything so handsome as he looked that day. It was in Savannah, and I +went. I was a maid of honor, but my real duties were to keep him from +marching around in the hot sun all day. And now this year ... You see, +that is what makes it so sad. When these old men go tramping by, +everybody is thinking: 'Hundreds of them won't be here next year, and +hundreds more the next year, and soon will come a year when there won't +be any parade at all." + +She sprang up to welcome a new arrival, whom she greeted as either Aunt +Mary or Cousin Maria, we really cannot undertake to say which. + +Queed glanced over the group on the porch, to most of whom he had been +introduced, superfluously, as it seemed to him. There must have been +twenty or twenty-five of them; some seated, some standing at the rail, +some sitting near him on the steps; but all, regardless of age and sex, +wearing the Confederate colors. He noticed particularly the white-haired +old ladies, and somehow their faces, also, put him in mind of Fifi's or +Colonel Cowles's funeral. + +Sharlee came and sat down by him again. "Mr. Queed," said she, "I don't +know whether you expect sympathy about what the _Post_ directors did, or +congratulations." + +"Oh, congratulations," he answered at once. "Considering that they +wanted to discharge me a year ago, I should say that the testimonial +they gave me represented a rather large change of front." + +"Personally, I think it is splendid. But the important thing is: does it +satisfy _you?_" + +"Oh, quite." He added: "If they had gone outside for a man, I might have +felt slighted. It is very different with a man like West. I am perfectly +willing to wait. You may remember that I did not promise to be editor in +any particular year." + +"I know. And when they do elect you--you see I say when, and not +if--shall you pitch it in their faces, as you said?" + +"No--I have decided to keep it--for a time at any rate." + +Sharlee smiled, but it was an inward smile and he never knew anything +about it. "Have you gotten really interested in the work--personally +interested, I mean?" + +He hesitated. "I hardly like to say how much." + +"The more you become interested in it--and I believe it will be +progressive--the less you will mind saying so." + +"It is a strange interest--utterly unlike me--" + +"How do you know it isn't more like you than anything you ever did in +your life?" + +That struck him to silence; he gave her a quick inquiring glance, and +looked away at once; and Sharlee, for the moment entirely oblivious of +the noise and the throng all about her, went on. + +"I called that a magnificent boast once--about your being editor of the +_Post_. Do you remember? Isn't it time I was confessing that you have +got the better of me?" + +"I think it is too soon," he answered, in his quietest voice, "to say +whether I have got the better of you, or you have got the better of +me." + +Sharlee looked off down the street. "But you certainly will be editor of +the _Post_ some day." + +"As I recall it, we did not speak only of editorial writing that night." + +"Oh, listen ...!" + +From far away floated the strains of "Dixie," crashed out by forty +bands. The crowd on the sidewalks stirred; prolonged shouts went up; and +now all those who were seated on the porch arose at one motion and came +forward. + +Sharlee had to spring up to greet still another relative. She came back +in a moment, sincerely hoping that Mr. Queed would resume the +conversation which her exclamation had interrupted. But he spoke of +quite a different matter, a faint cloud on his intelligent brow. + +"You should hear Professor Nicolovius on these veterans of yours." + +"What does he say about them? Something hateful, I'm sure." + +"Among other things, that they are a lot of professional beggars who +have lived for forty years on their gray uniforms, and can best serve +their country by dying with all possible speed. Do you know," he mused, +"if you could hear him, I believe you would be tempted to guess that he +is a former Union officer--who got into trouble, perhaps, and was +cashiered." + +"But of course you know all about him?" + +"No," said he, honest, but looking rather annoyed at having given her +such an opening, "I know only what he told me." + +"Sharlee," came her mother's voice from the rear, "are you sitting on +the cold stone?" + +"No, mother. Two mats and a cushion." + +"Well, he is not a Union officer," said Sharlee to Queed, "for if he +were, he would not be bitter. All the bitterness nowadays comes from the +non-combatants, the camp-followers, the sutlers, and the cowards. Look, +Mr. Queed! _Look!_" + +The street had become a tumult, the shouting grew into a roar. Two +squares away the head of the parade swept into view, and drew steadily +nearer. Mr. Queed looked, and felt a thrill in despite of himself. + +At the head of the column came the escort, with the three regimental +bands, mounted and bicycle police, city officials, visiting military, +sons of veterans, and the militia, including the resplendent Light +Infantry Blues of Richmond, a crack drill regiment with an honorable +history dating from 1789, and the handsomest uniforms ever seen. Behind +the escort rode the honored commander-in-chief of the veterans, and +staff, the grand marshal and staff, and a detachment of mounted +veterans. The general commanding rode a dashing white horse, which he +sat superbly despite his years, and received an ovation all along the +line. An even greater ovation went to two festooned carriages which +rolled behind the general staff: they contained four black-clad women, +no longer young, who bore names that had been dear to the hearts of the +Confederacy. After these came the veterans afoot, stepping like +youngsters, for that was their pride, in faded equipments which +contrasted sharply with the shining trappings of the militia. They +marched by state divisions, each division marshaled into brigades, each +brigade subdivided again into camps. At the head of each division rode +the major-general and staff, and behind each staff came a carriage +containing the state's sponsor and maids of honor. And everywhere there +were bands, bands playing "Dixie," and the effect would have been even +more glorious, if only any two of them had played the same part of it at +the same time. + +Everybody was standing. It is doubtful if in all the city there was +anybody sitting now, save those restrained by physical disabilities. +Conversation on the Weyland piazza became exceedingly disjointed. +Everybody was excitedly calling everybody else's attention to things +that seemed particularly important in the passing spectacle. To Queed +the amount these people appeared to know about it all was amazing. All +during the afternoon he heard Sharlee identifying fragments of +regiments with a sureness of knowledge that he, an authority on +knowledge, marveled at. + +The escort passed, and the officers and staffs drew on. The fine-figured +old commander-in-chief, when he came abreast, turned and looked full at +the Weyland piazza, seemed to search it for a face, and swept his plumed +hat to his stirrup in a profound bow. The salute was greeted on the +porch with a burst of hand-clapping and a great waving of flags. + +"That was for my grandmother. He was in love with her in 1850," said +Sharlee to Queed, and immediately whisked away to tell something else to +somebody else. + +One of the first groups of veterans in the line, heading the Virginia +Division, was the popular R.E. Lee Camp of Richmond. All afternoon they +trod to the continual accompaniment of cheers. No exclusive "show" +company ever marched in better time than these septuagenarians, and this +was everywhere the subject of comment. A Grand Army man stood in the +press on the sidewalk, and, struck by the gallant step of the old +fellows, yelled out good-naturedly:-- + +"You boys been drillin' to learn to march like that, haven't you?" + +Instantly a white-beard in the ranks called back: "No, sir! _We never +have forgot!_" + +Other camps were not so rhythmic in their tread. Some of the lines were +very dragging and straggly; the old feet shuffled and faltered in a way +which showed that their march was nearly over. Not fifty yards away from +Queed, one veteran pitched out of the ranks; he was lifted up and +received into the house opposite which he fell. Sadder than the men were +the old battle-flags, soiled wisps that the aged hands held aloft with +the most solicitous care. The flag-poles were heavy and the men's arms +weaker than once they were; sometimes two or even three men acted +jointly as standard-bearer. + +These old flags, mere unrecognizable fragments as many of them were, +were popular with the onlookers. Each as it marched by, was hailed with +a new roar. Of course there were many tears. There was hardly anybody in +all that crowd, over fifty years old, in whom the sight of these fast +dwindling ranks did not stir memories of some personal bereavement. The +old ladies on the porch no longer used their handkerchiefs chiefly for +waving. Queed saw one of them wave hers frantically toward a drooping +little knot of passing gray-coats, and then fall back into a chair, the +same handkerchief at her eyes. Sharlee, who was explaining everything +that anybody wanted to know, happened to be standing near him; she +followed his glance and whispered gently:-- + +"Her husband and two of her brothers were killed at Gettysburg. Her +husband was in Pickett's Division. Those were Pickett's men that just +passed--about all there are left now." + +A little while afterwards, she added: "It is not so gay as one of your +Grand Army Days, is it? You see ... it all comes home very close to us. +Those old men that can't be with us much longer are our mothers' +brothers, and sweethearts, and uncles, and fathers. They went out so +young--so brave and full of hope--they poured out by hundreds of +thousands. Down this very street they marched, no more than boys, and +our mothers stood here where we are standing, to bid them godspeed. And +now look at what is left of them, straggling by. There is nobody on this +porch--but you--who did not lose somebody that was dear to them. And +then there was our pride ... for we were proud. So that is why our old +ladies cry to-day." + +"And why your young ladies cry, too?" + +"Oh, ... I am not crying." + +"Don't you suppose I know when people are crying and when they +aren't?--Why do you do it?" + +Sharlee lowered her eyes. "Well ... it's all pretty sad, you know ... +pretty sad." + +She turned away, leaving him to his own devices. From his place on the +top step, Queed turned and let his frank glance run over the ladies on +the porch. The sadness of face that he had noticed earlier had dissolved +and precipitated now: there was hardly a dry eye on that porch but his +own. What were they all crying for? Miss Weyland's explanation did not +seem very convincing. The war had ended a generation ago. The whole +thing had been over and done with many years before she was born. + +He turned again, and looked out with unseeing eyes over the thick +street, with the thin strip of parade moving down the middle of it. He +guessed that these ladies on the porch were not crying for definite +brothers, or fathers, or sweethearts they had lost. People didn't do +that after forty years; here was Fifi only dead a year, and he never saw +anybody crying for her. No, they were weeping over an idea; it was +sentiment, and a vague, misty, unreasonable sentiment at that. And yet +he could not say that Miss Weyland appeared simply foolish with those +tears in her eyes. No, the girl somehow managed to give the effect of +seeing farther into things than he himself.... Her tears evidently were +in the nature of a tribute: she was paying them to an idea. Doubtless +there was a certain largeness about that. But obviously the paying of +such a tribute could do no possible good--unless--to the payer. Was +there anything in that?--in the theory.... + +Unusual bursts of cheering broke their way into his consciousness, and +he recalled himself to see a squad of negro soldiers, all very old men, +hobbling by. These were of the faithful, whom no number of proclamations +could shake from allegiance to Old Marster. One of them declared himself +to be Stonewall Jackson's cook. Very likely Stonewall Jackson's cooks +are as numerous as once were ladies who had been kissed by LaFayette, +but at any rate this old negro was the object of lively interest all +along the line. He was covered with reunion badges, and carried two live +chickens under his arm. + +Queed went down to the bottom step, the better to hear the comments of +the onlookers, for this was what interested him most. He found himself +standing next to an exceptionally clean-cut young fellow of about his +own age. This youth appeared a fine specimen of the sane, wholesome, +successful young American business man. Yet he was behaving like a +madman, yelling like Bedlam, wildly flaunting his hat--a +splendid-looking Panama--now and then savagely brandishing his fists at +an unseen foe. Queed heard him saying fiercely, apparently to the world +at large: "They couldn't lick us now. By the Lord, they couldn't lick us +now!" + +Queed said to him: "You were badly outnumbered when they licked you." + +Flaunting his hat passionately at the thin columns, the young man +shouted into space: "Outnumbered--outarmed--outequipped--outrationed--but +not outgeneraled, sir, not outsoldiered, not outmanned!" + +"You seem a little excited about it. Yet you've had forty years to get +used to it." + +"Ah," brandished the young man at the soldiers, a glad battlenote +breaking into his voice, "I'm being addressed by a Yankee, am I?" + +"No," said Queed, "you are being addressed by an American." + +"That's a fair reply," said the young man; and consented to take his +eyes from the parade a second to glance at the author of it. "Hello! +You're Doc--Mr. Queed, aren't you?" + +Queed, surprised, admitted his identity. + +"Ye-a-a-a!" said the young man, in a mighty voice. This time he shouted +it directly at a tall old gentleman whose horse was just then dancing +by. The gentleman smiled, and waved his hand at the flaunted Panama. + +"A fine-looking man," said Queed. + +"My father," said the young man. "God bless his heart!" + +"Was your father in the war?" + +"Was he in the war? My dear sir, you might say that he was the war. But +you could scrape this town with a fine-tooth comb without finding +anybody of his age that wasn't in the war." + +The necessity for a new demonstration checked his speech for a moment. + +Queed said: "Who are these veterans? What sort of people are they?" + +"The finest fellows in the world," said the young man. "An occasional +dead-beat among them, of course, but it's amazing how high an average of +character they strike, considering that they came out of four years of +war--war's demoralizing, you know!--with only their shirts to their +backs, and often those were only borrowed. You'll find some mighty solid +business men in the ranks out there, and then on down to the humblest +occupations. Look! See that little one-legged man with the beard that +everybody's cheering! That's Corporal Henkel of Petersburg, commended I +don't know how many times for bravery, and they would have given him the +town for a keepsake when it was all over, if he had wanted it. Well, +Henkel's a cobbler--been one since '65--and let me tell you he's a +blamed good one, and if you're ever in Petersburg and want any +half-soling done, let me tell you--Yea-a-a! See that trim-looking one +with the little mustache--saluting now? He tried to save Stonewall +Jackson's life on the 2d of May, 1863,--threw himself in front of him +and got badly potted. He's a D.D. now. Yea-a-a-a!" + +A victoria containing two lovely young girls, sponsor and maid of honor +for South Carolina, dressed just alike, with parasols and enormous hats, +rolled by. The girls smiled kindly at the young man, and he went through +a very proper salute. + +"Watch the people!" he dashed on eagerly. "Wonderful how they love these +old soldiers, isn't it?--they'd give 'em anything! And what a fine thing +that is for them!--for the people, not the soldiers, I mean. I tell you +we all give too much time to practical things--business--making +money--taking things away from each other. It's a fine thing to have a +day now and then which appeals to just the other side of us--a regular +sentimental spree. Do you see what I mean? Maybe I'm talking like an +ass.... But when you talk about Americans, Mr. Queed--let me tell you +that there isn't a State in the country that is raising better +Americans than we are raising right here in this city. We're as solid +for the Union as Boston. But that isn't saying that we have forgotten +all about the biggest happening in our history--the thing that threw +over our civilization, wiped out our property, and turned our State into +a graveyard. If we forgot that, we wouldn't be Americans, because we +wouldn't be men." + +He went on fragmentarily, ever and anon interrupting himself to give +individual ovations to his heroes and his gods:-- + +"Through the North and West you may have one old soldier to a village; +here we have one to a house. For you it was a foreign war, which meant +only dispatches in the newspapers. For us it was a war on our own front +lawns, and the way we followed it was by the hearses backing up to the +door. You can hardly walk a mile in any direction out of this city +without stumbling upon an old breastworks. And in the city--well, you +know all the great old landmarks, all around us as we stand here now. On +this porch behind us sits a lady who knew Lee well. Many's the talk she +had with him after the war. My mother, a bride then, sat in the pew +behind Davis that Sunday he got the message which meant that the war was +over. History! Why this old town drips with it. Do you think we should +forget our heroes, Mr. Queed? Up there in Massachusetts, if you have a +place where John Samuel Quincy Adams once stopped for a cup of tea, you +fence it off, put a brass plate on the front door, and charge a nickel +to go in. Which will history say is the greater man, Sam Adams or Robert +F. Lee? If these were Washington's armies going by, you would probably +feel a little excited, though you have had a hundred and twenty years to +get used to Yorktown and the Philadelphia Congress. Well, Washington is +no more to the nation than Lee is to the South. + +"But don't let anybody get concerned about our patriotism. We're better +Americans, not worse, because of days like these, the reason being, as I +say, that we are better men. And if your old Uncle Sammy gets into +trouble some day, never fear but we'll be on hand to pull him out, with +the best troops that ever stepped, and another Lee to lead them." + +Somewhere during the afternoon there had returned to Queed the words in +which Sharlee Weyland had pointed out to him--quite unnecessarily--that +he was standing here between two civilizations. On the porch now sat +Miss Weyland's grandmother, representative of the dead aristocracy. By +his side stood, clearly, a representative of the rising democracy--one +of those "splendid young men" who, the girl thought, would soon be +beating the young men of the North at every turn. It was valuable +professionally to catch the point of view of these new democrats; and +now he had grasped the fact that whatever the changes in outward form, +it had an unbroken sentimental continuity with the type which it was +replacing. + +"Did you ever hear Ben Hill's tribute to Lee?" inquired the young man +presently. + +Queed happened to know it very well. However, the other could not be +restrained from reciting it for his own satisfaction. + +"It is good--a good piece of writing and a fine tribute," said Queed. +"However, I read a shorter and in some ways an even better one in +_Harper's Weekly_ the other day." + +"_Harper's Weekly!_ Good Heavens! They'll find out that William Lloyd +Garrison was for us next. What'd it say?" + +"It was in answer to some correspondents who called Lee a traitor. The +editor wrote five lines to say that, while it would be exceedingly +difficult ever to make 'traitor' a word of honorable distinction, it +would be done if people kept on applying it to Lee. In that case, he +said, we should have to find a new word to mean what traitor means now." + +The young man thought this over until its full meaning sank into him. "I +don't know how you could say anything finer of a man," he remarked +presently, "than that applying a disgraceful epithet to him left him +entirely untouched, but changed the whole meaning of the epithet. By +George, that's pretty fine!" + +"My only criticism on the character, or rather on the greatness, of +Lee," said Queed, introspectively, "is that, so far as I have ever read, +he never got angry. One feels that a hero should be a man of terrible +passions, so strong that once or twice in his life they get away from +him. Washington always seems a bigger man because of his blast at +Charles Lee." + +The young man seemed interested by this point of view. He said that he +would ask Mrs. Beauregard about it. + +Not much later he said with a sigh: "Well!--It's about over. And now I +must pay for my fun--duck back to the office for a special night +session." + +Queed had taken a vague fancy to this youth, whose enviably pleasant +manners reminded him somehow of Charles Gardiner West. "I supposed that +it was only in newspaper offices that work went on without regard to +holidays." + +The young man laughed, and held out his hand. "I'm very industrious, if +you please. I'm delighted to have met you, Mr. Queed--I've known of you +for a long time. My name's Byrd--Beverley Byrd--and I wish you'd come +and see me some time. Good-by. I hope I haven't bored you with all my +war-talk. I lost a grandfather and three uncles in it, and I can't help +being interested." + +The last of the parade went by; the dense crowd broke and overran the +street; and Queed stood upon the bottom step taking his leave of Miss +Weyland. Much interested, he had lingered till the other guests were +gone; and now there was nobody upon the porch but Miss Weyland's mother +and grandmother, who sat at the further end of it, the eyes of both, did +Mr. Queed but know it, upon him. + +"Why don't you come to see me sometimes?" the daughter and granddaughter +was saying sweetly. "I think you will have to come now, for this was a +party, and a party calls for a party-call. Oh, can you make as clever a +pun as that?" + +"Thank you--but I never pay calls." + +"Oh, but you are beginning to do a good many things that you never did +before." + +"Yes," he answered with curious depression. "I am." + +"Well, don't look so glum about it. You mustn't think that any change in +your ways of doing is necessarily for the worse!" + +He refused to take up the cudgels; an uncanny thing from him. "Well! I +am obliged to you for inviting me here to-day. It has been interesting +and--instructive." + +"And now you have got us all neatly docketed on your sociological +operating table, I suppose?" + +"I am inclined to think," he said slowly, "that it is you who have got +me on the operating table again." + +He gave her a quick glance, at once the unhappiest and the most human +look that she had ever seen upon his face. + +"No," said she, gently,--"if you are on the table, you have put yourself +there this time." + +"Well, good-by--" + +"And are you coming to see me--to pay your party-call?" + +"Why should I? What is the point of these conventions--these little +rules--?" + +"Don't you _like_ being with me? Don't you get a _great deal_ of +pleasure from my society?" + +"I have never asked myself such a question." + +He was gazing at her for a third time; and a startled look sprang +suddenly into his eyes. It was plain that he was asking himself such a +question now. A curious change passed over his face; a kind of dawning +consciousness which, it was obvious, embarrassed him to the point of +torture, while he resolutely declined to flinch at it. + +"Yes--I get pleasure from your society." + +The admission turned him rather white, but he saved himself by instantly +flinging at her: "However, _I am no hedonist_." + +Sharlee retired to look up hedonist in the dictionary. + + * * * * * + +Later that evening, Mrs. Weyland and her daughter being together +upstairs, the former said:-- + +"Sharlee, who is this Mr. Queed that you paid so much attention to on +the porch this evening?" + +"Why, don't you know, mother? He is the assistant editor of the _Post_, +and is going to be editor just the minute Mr. West retires. For you see, +mother, everybody says that he writes the most wonderful articles, +although I assure you, a year ago--" + +"Yes, but who is he? Where does he come from? Who are his people?" + +"Oh, I see. That is what you mean. Well, he comes from New York, where +he led the most interesting literary sort of life, studying all the +time, except when he was doing articles for the great reviews, or +helping a lady up there to write a thesaurus. You see, he was fitting +himself to compose a great work--" + +"Who are his people?" + +"Oh, that!" said Sharlee. "Well, that question is not so easy to answer +as you might think. It opens up a peculiar situation: to begin with, he +is a sort of an orphan, and--" + +"How do you mean, a sort of an orphan?" + +"You see, that is just where the peculiar part comes in. There is the +heart of the whole mystery, and yet right there is the place where I +must be reticent with you, mother, for though I know all about it, it +was told to me confidentially--professionally, as my aunt's agent--and +therefore--" + +"Do you mean that you know nothing about his people?" + +"I suppose it might be stated, crudely, in that way, but--" + +"And knowing nothing about who or what he was, you simply picked him up +at the boarding-house, and admitted him to your friendship?" + +"Picking-up is not the word that the most careful mothers employ, in +reference to their daughters' attitude toward young men. Mother, don't +you understand? I'm a democrat." + +"It is not a thing," said Mrs. Weyland, with some asperity, "for a lady +to be." + +Sharlee, fixing her hair in the back before the mirror, laughed long and +merrily. "Do you dare--do you _dare_ look your own daughter in the eye +and say she is no lady?" + +"Do you like this young man?" Mrs. Weyland continued. + +"He interests me, heaps and heaps." + +Mrs. Weyland sighed. "I can only say," she observed, sinking into a +chair and picking up her book, "that such goings on were never heard of +in my day." + + + + +XXII + + _In which Professor Nicolovius drops a Letter on the Floor, and + Queed conjectures that Happiness sometimes comes to Men wearing a + Strange Face._ + + +Queed sat alone in the sitting-room of the Duke of Gloucester Street +house. His afternoon's experiences had interested him largely. By subtle +and occult processes which defied his analysis, what he had seen and +heard had proved mysteriously disturbing--all this outpouring of +irrational sentiment in which he had no share. So had his conversation +with the girl disturbed him. He was in a condition of mental unrest, +undefined but acute; odds and ends of curious thought kicked about +within him, challenging him to follow them down to unexplored depths. +But he was paying no attention to them now. + +He sat in the sitting-room, wondering how Nicolovius had ever happened +to think of that story about the Fenian refugee. + +For Queed had been gradually driven to that unpleasant point. While +living in the old man's house, he was, despite his conscientious +efforts, virtually spying upon him. + +The Fenian story had always had its questionable points; but so long as +the two men were merely chance fellow-boarders, it did as well as any +other. Now that they lived together, however, the multiplying +suggestions that the old professor was something far other than he +pretended became rather important. The young man could not help being +aware that Nicolovius neither looked nor talked in the slightest degree +like an Irishman. He could not help being certain that an Irishman who +had fled to escape punishment for a political crime, in 1882, could have +safely returned to his country long ago; and would undoubtedly have kept +up relations with his friends overseas in the meantime. Nor could he +help being struck with such facts as that Nicolovius, while apparently +little interested in the occasional cables about Irish affairs, had +become seemingly absorbed in the three days' doings of the United +Confederate Veterans. + +Now it was entirely all right for the old man to have a secret, and keep +it. There was not the smallest quarrel on that score. But it was not in +the least all right for one man to live with another, pretending to +believe in him, when in reality he was doubting and questioning him at +every move. The want of candor involved in his present relations with +Nicolovius continually fretted Queed's conscience. Ought he not in +common honesty to tell the old man that he could not believe the Irish +biography, leaving it to him to decide what he wanted to do about it? + +Nicolovius, tramping in only a few minutes behind Queed, greeted his +young friend as blandly as ever. Physically, he seemed tired; much dust +of city streets clung to his commonly spotless boots; but his eyes were +so extraordinarily brilliant that Queed at first wondered if he could +have been drinking. However, this thought died almost as soon as it was +born. + +The professor walked over to the window and stood looking out, hat on +head. Presently he said: "You saw the grand parade, I suppose? For +indeed there was no escaping it." + +Queed said that he had seen it. + +"You had a good place to see it from, I hope?" + +Excellent; Miss Weyland's porch. + +"Ah!" said Nicolovius, with rather an emphasis, and permitted a pause to +fall. "A most charming young lady--charming," he went on, with his note +of velvet irony which the young man peculiarly disliked. "I hear she is +to marry your Mr. West. An eminently suitable match in every way. Yet I +shall not soon forget how that delightful young man defrauded you of the +editorship." + +Silence from Mr. Queed, the question of the editorship having already +been thoroughly threshed out between them. + +"I, too, saw the gallant proceedings," resumed Nicolovius, retracing his +thought. "What an outfit! What an outfit!" + +He dropped down into his easy chair by the table, removed his straw hat +with traces of a rare irritation in his manner, put on his black skull +cap, and presently purred his thoughts aloud:-- + +"No writer has yet done anything like justice to the old soldier cult in +the post-bellum South. Doubtless it may lie out of the province of you +historians, but what a theme for a new Thackeray! With such a fetish +your priestcraft of the Middle Ages is not to be compared for a moment. +There is no parallel among civilized nations; to find one you must go to +the Voodooism of the savage black. For more than a generation all the +intelligence of the South has been asked, nay compelled, to come and bow +down before these alms-begging loblollies. To refuse to make obeisance +was treason. The entire public thought of a vast section of the country +has revolved around the figure of a worthless old grafter in a tattered +gray shirt. Every question is settled when some moth-eaten ne'er-do-well +lets out what is known as a 'rebel yell.' The most polished and profound +speech conceivable is answered when a jackass mounts the platform and +brays out something about the gallant boys in gray. The cry for +progress, for material advancement, for moral and social betterment, is +stifled, that everybody may have breath to shout for a flapping +trouser's leg worn by a degraded old sot. All that your Southern +statesmen have had to give a people who were stripped to the bone is +fulsome rhetoric about the Wounded Warrior of Wahoo, or some other +inflated nonentity, whereupon the mesmerized population have loyally +fallen on their faces and shouted, 'Praise the Lord.' And all the while +they were going through this wretched mummery, they were hungry and +thirsty and naked--destitute in a smiling land of plenty. Do you wonder +that I think old-soldierism is the meanest profession the Lord ever +suffered to thrive? I tell you Baal and Moloch never took such toll of +their idolaters as these shabby old gods of the gray shirt." + +"Professor Nicolovius," said Queed, with a slow smile, "where on earth +do you exhume your ideas of Southern history?" + +"Observation, my dear boy! God bless us, haven't I had three years of +this city to use my eyes and ears in? And I had a peculiar training in +my youth," he added, retrospectively, "to fit me to see straight and +generalize accurately." + +... Couldn't the man see that no persecuted Irishman ever talked in such +a way since the world began? If he had a part to play, why in the name +of common sense couldn't he play it respectably? + +Queed got up, and began strolling about the floor. In his mind was what +Sharlee Weyland had said to him two hours before: "All the bitterness +nowadays comes from the non-combatants, the camp-followers, the sutlers, +and the cowards." Under which of these heads did his friend, the old +professor, fall?... Why had he ever thought of Nicolovius as, perhaps, a +broken Union officer? A broken Union officer would feel bitter, if at +all, against the Union. A man who felt so bitter against the South-- + +A resolution was rapidly hardening in the young man's mind. He felt this +attitude of doubt and suspicion, these thoughts that he was now thinking +about the man whose roof he shared, as an unclean spot upon his chaste +passion for truth. He could not feel honest again until he had wiped it +off.... And, after all, what did he owe to Nicolovius? + +"But I must not leave you under the impression," said Nicolovius, almost +testily for him, "that my ideas are unique and extraordinary. They are +shared, in fact, by Southern historians of repute and--" + +Queed turned on him. "But you never read Southern historians." + +Nicolovius had a smile for that, though his expression seemed subtly to +shift. "I must make confession to you. Three days ago, I broke the +habits of quarter of a century. At the second-hand shop on Centre Street +I bought, actually, a little volume of history. It is surprising how +these Southern manifestations have interested me." + +Queed was an undesirable person for any man to live with who had a +secret to keep. His mind was relentlessly constructive; it would build +you up the whole dinosaur from the single left great digitus. For +apparently no reason at all, there had popped into his head a chance +remark of Major Brooke's a year ago, which he had never thought of from +that day to this: "I can't get over thinking that I've seen that man +before a long time ago, when he looked entirely different, and yet +somehow the same too." + +"I will show you my purchase," added Nicolovius, after a moment of +seeming irresolution. + +He disappeared down the hail to his bedroom, a retreat in which Queed +had never set foot, and returned promptly carrying a dingy duodecimo in +worn brown leather. As he entered the room, he absently raised the +volume to his lips and blew along the edges. + +Queed's mental processes were beyond his own control. "Three days old," +flashed into his mind, "and he blows dust from it." + +"What is the book?" he asked. + +"A very able little history of the Reconstruction era in this State. I +have a mind to read you a passage and convert you." + +Nicolovius sat down, and began turning the pages. Queed stood a step +away, watching him intently. The old man fluttered the leaves vaguely +for a moment; then his expression shifted and, straightening up, he +suddenly closed the book. + +"I don't appear to find," he said easily, "the little passage that so +impressed me the day before yesterday. And after all, what would be the +use of reading it to you? You impetuous young men will never listen to +the wisdom of your elders." + +Smiling blandly, the subject closed, it might have been forever, +Nicolovius reached out toward the table to flick the ash from his +cigarette. In so doing, as luck had it, he struck the book and knocked +it from his knees. Something shook from its pages as it dropped, and +fell almost at Queed's feet. Mechanically he stooped to pick it up. + +It was a letter, at any rate an envelope, and it had fallen face up, +full in the light of the open window. The envelope bore an address, in +faded ink, but written in a bold legible hand. Not to save his soul +could Queed have avoided seeing it: + + _Henry G. Surface, Esq., + 36 Washington Street._ + +There was a dead silence: a silence that from matter-of-fact suddenly +became unendurable. + +Queed handed the envelope to Nicolovius. Nicolovius glanced at it, while +pretending not to, and his eyelash flickered; his face was about the +color of cigar ashes. Queed walked away, waiting. + +He expected that the old man would immediately demand whether he had +seen that name and address, or at least would immediately say something. +But he did nothing of the sort. When Queed turned at the end of the +room, Nicolovius was fluttering the pages of his book again, apparently +absorbed in it, apparently quite forgetting that he had just laid it +aside. Then Queed understood. Nicolovius did not mean to say or do +anything. He meant to pass over the little incident altogether. + +However, the pretense had now reached a point when Queed could no longer +endure it. + +"Perhaps, after all," said Nicolovius, in his studiously bland voice, "I +am a little sweeping--" + +Queed stood in front of him, interrupting, suddenly not at ease. +"Professor Nicolovius." + +"Yes?" + +"I must say something that will offend you, I'm afraid. For some time I +have found myself unable to believe the--story of your life you were +once good enough to give me." + +"Ah, well," said Nicolovius, engrossed in his book, "it is not required +of you to believe it. We need have no quarrel about that." + +Suddenly Queed found that he hated to give the stab, but he did not +falter. + +"I must be frank with you, professor. I saw whom that envelope was +addressed to just now." + +"Nor need we quarrel about that." + +But Queed's steady gaze upon him presently grew unbearable, and at last +the old man raised his head. + +"Well? Whom was it addressed to?" + +Queed felt disturbingly sorry for him, and, in the same thought, admired +his iron control. The old professor's face was gray; his very lips were +colorless; but his eyes were steady, and his voice was the voice of +every day. + +"I think," said Queed, quietly, "that it is addressed to you." + +There was a lengthening silence while the two men, motionless, looked +into each other's eyes. The level gaze of each held just the same look +of faint horror, horror subdued and controlled, but still there. Their +stare became fascinated; it ran on as though nothing could ever happen +to break it off. To Queed it seemed as if everything in the world had +dropped away but those brilliant eyes, frightened yet unafraid, boring +into his. + +Nicolovius broke the silence. The triumph of his intelligence over his +emotions showed in the fact that he attempted no denial. + +"Well?" he said somewhat thickly. "Well?--Well?" + +Under the look of the younger man, he was beginning to break. Into the +old eyes had sprung a deadly terror, a look as though his immortal soul +might hang on what the young man was going to say next. To answer this +look, a blind impulse in Queed bade him strike out, to say or do +something; and his reason, which was always detached and impersonal, +was amazed to hear his voice saying:-- + +"It's all right, professor. Not a thing is going to happen." + +The old man licked his lips. "You ... will stay on here?" + +And Queed's voice answered: "As long as you want me." + +Nicolovius, who had been born Surface, suffered a moment of collapse. He +fell back in his chair, and covered his face with his hands. + +The dying efforts of the June sun still showed in the pretty +sitting-room, though the town clocks were striking seven. From without +floated in the voices of merry passers; eddies of the day's celebration +broke even into this quiet street. Queed sat down in a big-armed rocker, +and looked out the window into the pink west. + +So, in a minute's time and by a wholly chance happening, the mystery was +out at last. Professor Nicolovius, the bland recluse of Mrs. Paynter's, +and Henry G. Surface, political arch-traitor, ex-convict, and falsest of +false friends, were one and the same man. + +The truth had been instantly plain to Queed when the name had blazed up +at him from the envelope on the floor. It was as though Fate herself had +tossed that envelope under his eyes, as the answer to all his +questionings. Not an instant's doubt had troubled him; and now a score +of memories were marshaling themselves before him to show that his first +flashing certainty had been sound. As for the book, it was clearly from +the library of the old man's youth, kept and hidden away for some +reason, when nearly everything else had been destroyed. Between the +musty pages the accusing letter had lain forgotten for thirty years, +waiting for this moment. + +He turned and glanced once at the silent figure, huddled back in the +chair with covered eyes; the unhappy old man whom nobody had ever +trusted without regretting it. _Henry G. Surface_--whose name was a +synonym for those traits and things which honest men of all peoples and +climes have always hated most, treachery, perfidy, base betrayal of +trust, shameful dishonesty--who had crowded the word _infamy_ from the +popular lexicon of politics with the keener, more biting epithet, +_Surfaceism_. And here--wonder of wonders--sat Surface before him, drawn +back to the scene of his fall like a murderer to the body and the +scarlet stain upon the floor, caught, trapped, the careful mask of many +years plucked from him at a sudden word, leaving him no covering upon +earth but his smooth white hands. And he, Queed, was this man's closest, +his only friend, chosen out of all the world to live with him and +minister to his declining years.... + +"It's true!" now broke through the concealing hands. "I am that man.... +God help me!" + +Queed looked unseeingly out of the window, where the sun was couching in +a bed of copper flame stippled over with brightest azure. Why had he +done it? What crazy prompting had struck from him that promise to yoke +his destiny forever with this terrible old man? If Nicolovius, the +Fenian refugee, had never won his liking, Surface, the Satan apostate, +was detestable to him. What devil of impulse had trapped from him the +mad offer to spend his days in the company of such a creature, and in +the shadow of so odious an ill-fame? + +As on the day when Fifi had asked him her innocent question about +altruism, a sudden tide swept the young man's thoughts inward. And after +them, this time, groped the blundering feet of his spirit. + +Here was he, a mature man, who, in point of work, in all practical and +demonstrable ways, was the millionth man. He was a great editorial +writer, which was a minor but genuine activity. He was a yet greater +writer on social science, which was one of the supreme activities. On +this side, then, certainly the chief side, there could be no question +about the successfulness of his life. His working life was, or would be +before he was through, brilliantly successful. But it had for some time +been plain to him that he stopped short there. He was a great workman, +but that was all. He was a superb rationalist; but after that he did not +exist. + +Through the science of Human Intercourse, he saw much more of people now +than he had ever done before, and thus it had become driven home upon +him that most people had two lives, their outer or practical lives, and +their inner or personal lives. But he himself had but one life. He was a +machine; a machine which turned out matchless work for the enlightenment +of the world, but after all a machine. He was intellect. He was Pure +Reason. Yet he himself had said, and written, that intellectual +supremacy was not the true badge of supremacy of type. There was nothing +sure of races that was not equally sure of the individuals which make up +those races. Yet intellect was all he was. Vast areas of thought, +feeling, and conduct, in which the people around him spent so much of +their time, were entirely closed to him. He had no personal life at all. +That part of him had atrophied from lack of use, like the eyes of the +mole and of those sightless fishes men take from the waters of caverns. + +And now this part of him, which had for some time been stirring +uneasily, had risen suddenly without bidding of his and in defiance of +his reason, and laid hold of something in his environment. In doing so, +it appeared to have thrust upon him an inner, or personal, life from +this time forward. That life lay in being of use to the old man before +him: he who had never been of personal use to anybody so far, and the +miserable old man who had no comfort anywhere but in him. + +He knew the scientific name of this kind of behavior very well. It was +altruism, the irrational force that had put a new face upon the world. +Fifi, he remembered well, had assured him that in altruism he would find +that fiercer happiness which was as much better than content as being +well was better than not being sick. But ... could this be happiness, +this whirling confusion that put him to such straits to keep a calm face +above the tumult of his breast? If this was happiness, then it came to +him for their first meeting wearing a strange face.... + +"You know the story?" + +Queed moved in his chair. "Yes. I--have heard it." + +"Of course," said Nicolovius. "It is as well known as Iscariot's. By +God, how they've hounded me!" + +Evidently he was recovering fast. There was bitterness, rather than +shame, in his voice. He took his hands from his eyes, adjusted his cap, +stiffened up in his chair. The sallow tints were coming back into his +face; his lips took on color; his eye and hand were steady. Not every +man could have passed through such a cataclysm and emerged so little +marked. He picked up his cigarette from the table; it was still going. +This fact was symbolic: the great shock had come and passed within the +smoking of an inch of cigarette. The pretty room was as it was before. +Pale sunshine still flickered on the swelling curtain. The leather +desk-clock gayly ticked the passing seconds. The young man's clean-cut +face looked as quiet as ever. + +Upon Queed the old man fastened his fearless black eyes. + +"I meant to tell you all this some day," he said, in quite a natural +voice. "Now the day has come a little sooner than I had meant--that is +all. I know that my confidence is safe with you--till I die." + +"I think you have nothing to fear by trusting me," said Queed, and added +at once: "But you need tell me nothing unless you prefer." + +A kind of softness shone for a moment in Surface's eyes. "Nobody could +look at your face," he said gently, "and ever be afraid to trust you." + +The telephone rang, and Queed could answer it by merely putting out his +hand. It was West, from the office, asking that he report for work that +night, as he himself was compelled to be away. + +Presently Surface began talking; talking in snatches, more to himself +than to his young friend, rambling backward over his broken life in +passionate reminiscence. He talked a long time thus, while the daylight +faded and dusk crept into the room, and then night; and Queed listened, +giving him all the rein he wanted and saying never a word himself. + +"... Pray your gods," said Surface, "that you never have such reason to +hate your fellow-men as I have had, my boy. For that has been the +keynote of my unhappy life. God, how I hated them all, and how I do +yet!... Not least Weyland, with his ostentatious virtue, his +holier-than-thou kindness, his self-righteous magnanimity tossed even to +me ... the broken-kneed idol whom others passed with averted face, and +there was none so poor to do me reverence...." + +So this, mused Queed, was the meaning of the old professor's invincible +dislike for Miss Weyland, which he had made so obvious in the +boarding-house that even Mr. Bylash commented on it. He had never been +able to forgive her father's generosity, which he had so terribly +betrayed; her name and her blood rankled and festered eternally in the +heart of the faithless friend and the striped trustee. + +Henderson, the ancient African who attended the two men, knocked upon +the shut door with the deprecatory announcement that he had twice rung +the supper-bell. + +"Take the things back to the kitchen, Henderson," said Queed. "I'll ring +when we are ready." + +The breeze was freshening, blowing full upon Surface, who did not appear +to notice it. Queed got up and lowered the window. The old man's +neglected cigarette burned his fingers; he lit another; it, too, burned +itself down to the cork-tip without receiving the attention of a puff. + +Presently he went on talking: + +"I was of a high-spirited line. Thank God, I never learned to fawn on +the hand that lashed me. Insult I would not brook. I struck back, and +when I struck, I struck to kill.--Did I not? So hard that the State +reeled.... So hard that if I had had something better than mean negroes +and worse whites for my tools, fifth-rate scavengers, buzzards of +politics ... this hand would have written the history of the State in +these forty years. + +"That was the way I struck, and how did they answer me?--Ostracism ... +Coventry ... The weapons of mean old women, and dogs.... The dogs! That +is what they were.... + +"Well, other arms were ready to receive me. Others were fairer-minded +than the cowardly bigots who could blow hot or cold as their selfish +interests and prostituted leaders whispered. I was not a man to be +kept down. Oh, my new friends were legion, and I was king again. +But it was never the same. In that way, they beat me. I give +them that.... Not they, though. It was deep calling to deep. My +blood--heritage--tradition--education--all that I was ... this was what +tortured me with what was gone, and kept calling. + +"Wicked injustice and a lost birthright.... Oh, memory was there to +crucify me, by day and by night. And yet.... Why, it was a thing that is +done every day by men these people say their prayers to.... Oh, yes--I +wanted to punish--_him_ for his smug condescension, his patronizing +playing of the good Samaritan. And through him all these others ... show +them that their old idol wore claws on those feet of clay. But not in +that way. No, a much cleverer way than that. Perhaps there would be no +money when they asked for it, but I was to smile blandly and go on about +my business. They were never to reach _me_. But the Surfaces were never +skilled at juggling dirty money.... + +"They took me off my guard. The most technical fault--a trifle.... +Another day or two and everything would have been all right. They had my +word for it--and you know how they replied.... The infamous tyranny of +the majority. The greatest judicial crime in a decade, and they laughed. + +"So now I lie awake in the long nights with nine years of _that_ to look +back on. + +"Let my life be a lesson to you teaching you--if nothing else--that it +is of no use to fight society. They have a hopeless advantage, the +contemptible advantage of numbers, and they are not ashamed to use +it.... But my spirit would not let me lie quiet under injury and +insult. I was ever a fighter, born to die with my spurs on. And when I +die at last, they will find that I go with a Parthian shot ... and after +all have the last word. + +"So I came out into a bright world again, an old man before my time, +ruined forever, marked with a scarlet mark to wear to my grave.... + +"And then in time, as of course it would, the resolve came to me to come +straight back here to die. A man wants to die among his own people. They +were all that ever meant anything to me--they have that to boast of.... +I loved this city once. To die anywhere else ... why, it was +meaningless, a burlesque on death. I looked at my face in the glass; my +own mother would not have known me. And so I came straight to Jennie +Paynter's, such was my whim ... whom I held on my knee fifty years ago. + +"... Oh, it's been funny ... so funny ... to sit at that intolerable +table, and hear poor old Brooke on Reconstruction. + +"And I've wondered what little Jennie Paynter would do, if I had risen +on one of these occasions and spoken my name to the table. How I've +hated her--hated the look and sight of her--and all the while embracing +it for dear life. She has told me much that she never knew I listened +to--many a bit about old friends ... forty years since I'd heard their +names. And Brooke has told me much, the doting old ass. + +"But the life grew unbearable to a man of my temper. I could afford the +decency of privacy in my old age. For I had worked hard and saved +since.... + +"And then you came ... a scholar and a gentleman." + +It was quite dark in the room. Surface's voice had suddenly changed. The +bitterness faded out of it; it became gentler than Queed had ever heard +it. + +"I did not find you out at once. My life had made me unsocial--and out +of the Nazareth of that house I never looked for any good to come. But +when once I took note of you, each day I saw you clearer and truer. I +saw you fighting, and asking no odds--for elbow-room to do your own +work, for your way up on the newspaper, for bodily strength and +health--everywhere I saw you, you were fighting indomitably. I have +always loved a fighter. You were young and a stranger, alone like me; +you stirred no memories of a past that now, in my age, I would forget; +your face was the face of honor and truth. I thought: What a blessing if +I could make a friend of this young man for the little while that is +left me!... And you have been a blessing and a joy--more than you can +dream. And now you will not cast me off, like the others.... I do not +know the words with which to try to thank you...." + +"Oh, don't," came Queed's voice hastily out of the dark. "There is no +question of thanks here." + +He got up, lit the lamps, pulled down the shade. The old man lay back in +his chair, his hands gripping its arms, the lamplight full upon him. +Never had Queed seen him look less inspiring to affection. His black cap +had gotten pushed to one side, which both revealed a considerable area +of hairless head, and imparted to the whole face an odd and rakish air; +the Italian eyes did not wholly match with the softness of his voice; +the thin-lipped mouth under the long auburn mustache looked neither +sorrowful nor kind. It was Queed's lifelong habit never to look back +with vain regrets; and he needed all of his resolution now. + +He stood in front of the man whose terrible secret he had surprised, and +outwardly he was as calm as ever. + +"Professor Nicolovius," he said, with a faint emphasis upon the name, +"all this is as though it had never passed between us. And now let's go +and get some supper." + +Surface rose to his height and took Queed's hand in a grip like iron. +His eyes glistened with sudden moisture. + +"God bless you, boy! You're a _man!_" + + * * * * * + +It had been a memorable conversation in the life of both men, opening up +obvious after-lines of more or less momentous thought. Yet each of them, +as it happened, neglected these lines for a corollary detail of +apparently much less seriousness, and pretty nearly the same detail at +that. For Surface sat long that evening, meditating how he might most +surely break up the friendship between his young friend and Sharlee +Weyland; while Queed, all during his busy hours at the office, found his +thoughts of Nicolovius dominated by speculations as to what Miss Weyland +would say, if she knew that he had formed a lifelong compact with the +man who had betrayed her father's friendship and looted her own fortune. + + + + +XXIII + + _Of the Bill for the Reformatory, and its Critical Situation; of + West's Second Disappointment with the Rewards of Patriotism; of the + Consolation he found in the most Charming Resolve in the World_. + + +In January the legislature met again. All autumn and early winter the +_Post_ had been pounding without surcease upon two great issues: first, +the reform of the tax-laws, and, second, the establishment of a +reformatory institution for women. It was palpably the resolve of the +paper that the legislature should not overlook these two measures +through lack of being shown where its duty lay. + +To the assistant editor had been assigned both campaigns, and he had +developed his argument with a deadly persistence. A legislature could no +more ignore him than you could ignore a man who is pounding you over the +head with a bed-slat. Queed had proved his cases in a dozen ways, +historically and analogically, politically, morally, and scientifically, +socially and sociologically. Then, for luck, he proceeded to run through +the whole list again a time or two; and now faithful readers of the +_Post_ cried aloud for mercy, asking each other what under the sun had +got into the paper that it thus massacred and mutilated the +thrice-slain. + +But the _Post_, aided by the press of the State which had been +captivated by its ringing logic, continued its merciless fire, and, as +it proved, not insanely. For when the legislature came together, it +turned out to be one of those "economy" sessions, periodically thrust +down the throats of even the wiliest politicians. Not "progress" was its +watchword, but "wise retrenchment." Every observer of events, especially +in states where one party has been long in control, is familiar with +these recurrent manifestations. There is a long period of systematic +reduplication of the offices, multiplying generosity to the faithful, +and enormous geometrical progression of the public payroll. Some mishap, +one day, focuses attention upon the princely totalities of the +law-making spenders, and a howl goes up from the "sovereigns," who, as +has been wisely observed, never have any power until they are mad. The +party managers, always respectful to an angry electorate, thereupon +announce that, owing to the wonderful period of progress and expansion +brought about by their management, the State can afford to slow up for a +brief period, hold down expenses and enjoy its (party-made) prosperity. +This strikes the "keynote" for the next legislature, which pulls a long +face, makes a tremendous noise about "economy," and possibly refrains +from increasing expenses, or even shades them down about a dollar and a +half. Flushed with their victory, the innocent sovereigns return, +Cincinnatus-wise, to their plows, and the next session of the +legislature, relieved of that suspicionful scrutiny so galling to men of +spirit, proceeds to cut the purse-strings loose with a whoop. + +Such a brief spasm had now seized the State. Expenses had doubled and +redoubled with a velocity which caused even hardened prodigals to view +with alarm. The number of commissions, boards, assistant inspectors, and +third deputy clerks was enormous, far larger than anybody realized. If +you could have taken a biological cross-section through the seat of +State Government, you would doubtless have discovered a most amazing +number of unobtrusive gentlemen with queer little titles and odd little +duties, sitting silent and sleek under their cover; their hungry little +mouths affixed last year to the public breast, or two years ago, or +twenty, and ready to open in fearful wailing if anybody sought to pluck +them off. In an aggregate way, attention had been called to them during +the gubernatorial campaign of the summer. Attacks from the rival stump +had, of course, been successfully "answered" by the loyal leaders and +party press. But the bare statement of the annual expenditures, as +compared with the annual expenditures of ten years ago, necessarily +stood, and in cold type it looked bad. Therefore the legislature met now +for an "economy session." The public was given to understand that every +penny would have to give a strict account of itself before it would +receive a pass from the treasury, and that public institutions, asking +for increased support, could consider themselves lucky if they did not +find their appropriations scaled down by a fourth or so. + +The _Post's_ tax reform scheme went through with a bang. Out of loose +odds and ends of vague discontent, Queed had succeeded in creating a +body of public sentiment that became invincible. Moreover, this scheme +cost nothing. On the contrary, by a rearrangement of items and a +stricter system of assessment, it promised, as the _Post_ frequently +remarked, to put hundreds of thousands into the treasury. But the +reformatory was a horse of a totally different color. Here was a +proposal, for a mere supposititious moral gain, evanescent as air, to +take a hundred thousand dollars of hard money out of the crib, and +saddle the State with an annual obligation, to boot. An excellent thing +in itself, but a most unreasonable request of an economy session, said +the organization leaders. In fact, this hundred thousand dollars +happened to be precisely the hundred thousand dollars they needed to +lubricate "the organization," and discharge, by some choice new +positions, a few honorable obligations incurred during the campaign. + +Now it was written in the recesses of the assistant editor's being, +those parts of him which he never thought of mentioning to anybody, that +the reformatory bill must pass. Various feelings had gradually stiffened +an early general approval into a rock-ribbed resolve. It was on a +closely allied theme that he had first won his editorial spurs--the +theme of Klinker's "blaggards," who made reformatories necessary. That +was one thing: a kind of professional sentiment which the sternest +scientist need not be ashamed to acknowledge. And then, beyond that, his +many talks with Klinker had invested the campaign for the reformatory +with a warmth of meaning which was without precedent in his experience. +This was, in fact, his first personal contact with the suffering and sin +of the world, his first grapple with a social problem in the raw. Two +years before, when he had offered to write an article on this topic for +the Assistant Secretary of Charities, his interest in a reformatory had +been only the scientific interest which the trained sociologist feels in +all the enginery of social reform. But now this institution had become +indissolubly connected in Queed's mind with the case of Eva Bernheimer, +whom Buck Klinker knew, Eva Bernheimer who was "in trouble" at sixteen, +and had now "dropped out." A reformatory had become in his thought a +living instrument to catch the Eva Bernheimers of this world, and +effectually prevent them from dropping out. + +And apart from all this, here was the first chance he had ever had to do +a service for Sharlee Weyland. + +However, the bill stuck obstinately in committee. Now the session was +more than half over, February was nearly gone, and there it still stuck. +And when it finally came out, it was evidently going to be a toss of a +coin whether it would be passed by half a dozen votes, or beaten by an +equal number. But there was not the slightest doubt that the great +majority of the voters, so far as they were interested in it at all, +wanted it passed, and the tireless _Post_ was prodding the committee +every other day, observing that now was the time, etc., and demanding in +a hundred forceful ways, how about it? + +With cheerfulness and confidence had West intrusted these important +matters to his young assistant. Not only was Queed an acknowledged +authority on both taxation and penological science, but he had enjoyed +the advantage of writing articles on both themes under Colonel Cowles's +personal direction. The Colonel's bones were dust, his pen was rust, his +soul was with the saints, we trust; but his gallant spirit went marching +on. He towered out of memory a demigod, and what he said and did in his +lifetime had become as the law of the Medes and Persians now. + +But there was never any dispute about the division of editorial honors +on the _Post_, anyway. The two young men, in fact, were so different in +every way that their relations were a model of mutual satisfaction. +Never once did Queed's popular chief seek to ride over his valued +helper, or deny him his full share of opportunity in the department. If +anything, indeed, he leaned quite the other way. For West lacked the +plodder's faculty for indefatigable application. Like some rare and +splendid bird, if he was kept too closely in captivity, his spirit +sickened and died. + +It is time to admit frankly that West, upon closer contact with +newspaper work, had been somewhat disillusioned, and who that knows, +will be surprised at that? To begin with, he had been used to much +freedom, and his new duties were extremely confining. They began soon +after breakfast, and no man could say at what hour they would end. The +night work, in especial, he abhorred. It interfered with much more +amusing things that had hitherto beguiled his evenings, and it also +conflicted with sleep, of which he required a good deal. There was, too, +a great amount of necessary but most irksome drudgery connected with his +editorial labors. Because the _Post_ was a leader of public thought in +the State, and as such enjoyed a national standing, West found it +necessary to read a vast number of papers, to keep up with what was +going on. He was also forced to write many perfunctory articles on +subjects which did not interest him in the least, and about which, to +tell the truth, he knew very little. There were also a great many +letters either to be answered, or to be prepared for publication in the +People's Forum column, and these letters were commonly written by dull +asses who had no idea what they were talking about. Prosy people were +always coming in with requests or complaints, usually the latter. First +and last there was a quantity of grinding detail which, like the +embittered old fogeyism of the Blaines College trustees, had not +appeared on his rosy prospect in the Maytime preceding. + +With everything else favorable, West would cheerfully have accepted +these things, as being inextricably embedded in the nature of the work. +But unfortunately, everything else was not favorable. Deeper than the +grind of the routine detail, was the constant opposition and adverse +criticism to which his newspaper, like every other one, was incessantly +subjected. It has long been a trite observation that no reader of any +newspaper is so humble as not to be outspokenly confident that he could +run that paper a great deal better than those who actually are running +it. Every upstanding man who pays a cent for a daily journal considers +that he buys the right to abuse it, nay incurs the manly duty of abusing +it. Every editor knows that the highest praise he can expect is silence. +If his readers are pleased with his remarks, they nobly refrain from +comment. But if they disagree with one jot or tittle of his high-speed +dissertations, he must be prepared to have quarts of ink squirted at him +forthwith. + +Now this was exactly the reverse of Editor West's preferences. He liked +criticism of him to be silent, and praise of him to be shouted in the +market-place. For all his good-humor and poise, the steady fire of +hostile criticism fretted him intensely. He did not like to run through +his exchanges and find his esteemed contemporaries combatting his +positions, sometimes bitterly or contemptuously, and always, so it +seemed to him, unreasonably and unfairly. He did not like to have +friends stop him on the street to ask why in the name of so-and-so he +had said such-and-such; or, more trying still, have them pass him with +an icy nod, simply because he, in some defense of truth and exploitation +of the uplift, had fearlessly trod upon their precious little toes. He +did not like to have his telephone ring with an angry protest, or to get +a curt letter from a railroad president (supposedly a good friend of the +paper's) desiring to know by return mail whether the clipping therewith +inclosed represented the _Post's_ attitude toward the railroads. A +steady procession of things like these wears on the nerves of a +sensitive man, and West, for all his confident exterior, was a sensitive +man. A heavy offset in the form of large and constant public eulogies +was needed to balance these annoyances, and such an offset was not +forthcoming. + +West was older now, a little less ready in his enthusiasms, a shade less +pleased with the world, a thought less sure of the eternal merits of the +life of uplift. In fact he was thirty-three years old, and he had +moments, now and then, when he wondered if he were going forward as +rapidly and surely as he had a right to expect. This was the third +position he had had since he left college, and it was his general +expectation to graduate into a fourth before a great while. Semple +frequently urged him to return to the brokerage business; he had made an +unquestioned success there at any rate. As to Blaines College, he could +not be so confident. The college had opened this year with an increased +enrollment of twenty-five; and though West privately felt certain that +his successor was only reaping where he himself had sown, you could not +be certain that the low world would so see it. As for the _Post_, it was +a mere stop-gap, a momentary halting-place where he preened for a far +higher flight. There were many times that winter when West wondered if +Plonny Neal, whom he rarely or never saw, could possibly have failed to +notice how prominently he was in line. + +But these doubts and dissatisfactions left little mark upon the handsome +face and buoyant manner. Changes in West, if there were any, were of the +slightest. Certainly his best friends, like those two charming young +women, Miss Weyland and Miss Avery, found him as delightful as ever. + +In these days, West's mother desired him to marry. After the cunning +habit of women, she put the thought before him daily, under many an +alluring guise, by a thousand engaging approaches. West himself warmed +to the idea. He had drunk freely of the pleasures of single blessedness, +under the most favorable conditions; was now becoming somewhat jaded +with them; and looked with approval upon the prospect of a little nest, +or indeed one not so little, duly equipped with the usual faithful +helpmeet who should share his sorrows, joys, etc. The nest he could +feather decently enough himself; the sole problem, a critical one in its +way, was to decide upon the helpmeet. West was neither college boy nor +sailor. His heart was no harem of beautiful faces. Long since, he had +faced the knowledge that there were but two girls in the world for him. +Since, however, the church and the law allowed him but one, he must more +drastically monogamize his heart and this he found enormously difficult. +It was the poet's triangle with the two dear charmers over again. + +One blowy night in late February, West passed by the brown stone palace +which Miss Avery's open-handed papa, from Mauch Chunk, occupied on a +three years' lease with privilege of buying; and repaired to the more +modest establishment where dwelt Miss Weyland and her mother. The +reformatory issue was then at the touch. The bill had come out of +committee with a six-and-six vote; rumor had it that it would be called +up in the House within the week; and it now appeared as though a push of +a feather's weight might settle its fate either way. Sharlee and West +spoke first of this. She was eagerly interested, and praised him warmly +for the interest and valuable help of the _Post_. Her confidence was +unshaken that the bill would go through, though by a narrow margin. + +"The opposition is of the deadliest sort," she admitted, "because it is +silent. It is silent because it knows that its only argument--all this +economy talk--is utterly insincere. But Mr. Dayne knows where the +opposition is--and the way he goes after it! Never believe any more that +ministers can't lobby!" + +"Probably the root of the whole matter," offered West, easing himself +back into his chair, "is that the machine fellows want this particular +hundred thousand dollars in their business." + +"Isn't it horrid that men can be so utterly selfish? You don't think +they will really venture to do that?" + +"I honestly don't know. You see I have turned it all over to Queed, and +I confess I haven't studied it with anything like the care he has." + +Sharlee, who was never too engrossed in mere subjects to notice people's +tones, said at once: "Oh, I am sure they won't dare do it," and +immediately changed the subject. "You are going to the German, of +course?" + +"Oh, surely, unless the office pinches me." + +"You mustn't let it pinch you--the last of the year, heigho! Did you +hear about Robert Byrd and Miss--no, I won't give you her name--and the +visiting girl?" + +"Never a word." + +"She's a thoroughly nice girl, but--well, not pretty, I should say, and +I don't think she has had much fun here. Beverley and Robert Byrd were +here the other night. Why _will_ they hunt in pairs, do you know? I told +Beverley that he positively must take this girl to the German. He +quarreled and complained a good deal at first, but finally yielded like +a dear boy. Then he seemed to enter in the nicest way into the spirit of +our altruistic design. He said that after he had asked the girl, it +would be very nice if Robert should ask her too. He would be refused, of +course, but the girl would have the pleasant feeling of getting a rush, +and Robert would boost his standing as a philanthropist, all without +cost to anybody. Robert was good-natured, and fell in with the plan. +Three days later he telephoned me, simply furious. He had asked the +girl--you know he hasn't been to a German for five years--and she +accepted at once with tears of gratitude." + +"But how--?" + +"Of course Beverley never asked her. He simply trapped Robert, which he +would rather do than anything else in the world." + +West shouted. "Speaking of Germans," he said presently, "I am making up +my list for next year--the early bird, you know. How many will you give +me?" + +"Six." + +"Will you kindly sign up the papers to-night?" + +"No--my mother won't let me. I might sign up for one if you want me +to." + +"What possible use has your mother for the other five that is better +than giving them all to me?" + +"Perhaps she doesn't want to spoil other men for me." + +West leaned forward, interest fully awakened on his charming face, and +Sharlee watched him, pleased with herself. + +It had occurred to her, in fact, that Mr. West was tired; and this was +the solemn truth. He was a man of large responsibilities, with a day's +work behind him and a night's work ahead of him. His personal conception +of the way to occupy the precious interval did not include the +conscientious talking of shop. Jaded and brain-fagged, what he desired +was to be amused, beguiled, soothed, fascinated, even flattered a bit, +mayhap. Sharlee's theory of hospitality was that a guest was entitled to +any type of conversation he had a mind to. Having dismissed her own +troubles, she now proceeded to make herself as agreeable as she knew +how; and he has read these pages to little purpose who does not know +that that was very agreeable indeed. + +West, at least, appeared to think so. He lingered, charmed, until +quarter past eleven o'clock, at which hour Mrs. Weyland, in the room +above, began to let the tongs and poker fall about with unmistakable +significance; and went out into the starlit night radiant with the +certainty that his heart, after long wandering, had found its true mate +at last. + + + + +XXIV + + _Sharlee's Parlor on Another Evening; how One Caller outsat Two, + and why; also, how Sharlee looked in her Mirror for a Long Time, + and why._ + + +On the very night after West made his happy discovery, namely on the +evening of February 24, at about twenty minutes of nine, Sharlee +Weyland's door-bell rang, and Mr. Queed was shown into her parlor. + +His advent was a complete surprise to Sharlee. For these nine months, +her suggestion that he should call upon her had lain utterly neglected. +Since the Reunion she had seen him but four times, twice on the street, +and once at each of their offices, when the business of the reformatory +had happened to draw them together. The last of these meetings, which +had been the briefest, was already six weeks old. In all of her +acquaintance with him, extending now over two years and a half, this was +the first time that he had ever sought her out with intentions that +were, presumably, deliberately social. + +The event, Sharlee felt in greeting him, could not have happened, more +unfortunately. Queed found the parlor occupied, and the lady's attention +engaged, by two young men before him. One of them was Beverley Byrd, who +saluted him somewhat moodily. The other was a Mr. Miller--no relation to +Miss Miller of Mrs. Paynter's, though a faint something in his +_ensemble_ lent plausibility to that conjecture--a newcomer to the city +who, having been introduced to Miss Weyland somewhere, had taken the +liberty of calling without invitation or permission. It was impossible +for Sharlee to be rude to anybody under her own roof, but it is equally +impossible to describe her manner to Mr. Miller as exactly cordial. He +himself was a cordial man, mustached and anecdotal, who assumed rather +more confidence than he actually felt. Beverley Byrd, who did not always +hunt in pairs, had taken an unwonted dislike to him at sight. He did not +consider him a suitable person to be calling on Sharlee, and he had been +doing his best, with considerable deftness and success, to deter him +from feeling too much at home. + +Byrd wore a beautiful dinner jacket. So did Mr. Miller, with a gray tie, +and a gray, brass-buttoned vest, to boot. Queed wore his day clothes of +blue, which were not so new as they were the day Sharlee first saw them, +on the rustic bridge near the little cemetery. He had, of course, taken +it for granted that he would find Miss Weyland alone. Nevertheless, he +did not appear disconcerted by the sudden discovery of his mistake, or +even by Mr. Miller's glorious waistcoat; he was as grave as ever, but +showed no signs of embarrassment. Sharlee caught herself observing him +closely, as he shook hands with the two men and selected a chair for +himself; she concluded that constant contact with the graces of Charles +Gardiner West had not been without its effect upon him. He appeared +decidedly more at his ease than Mr. Miller, for instance, and he had +another valuable possession which that personage lacked, namely, the +face of a gentleman. + +But it was too evident that he felt little sense of responsibility for +the maintenance of the conversation. He sat back in a chair of +exceptionable comfortableness, and allowed Beverley Byrd to discourse +with him; a privilege which Byrd exercised fitfully, for his heart was +in the talk that Sharlee was dutifully supporting with Mr. Miller. Into +this talk he resolutely declined to be drawn, but his ear was alert for +opportunities--which came not infrequently--to thrust in a polished oar +to the discomfiture of the intruder. + +Not that he would necessarily care to do it, but the runner could read +Mr. Miller, without a glass, at one hundred paces' distance. He was of +the climber type, a self-made man in the earlier and less inspiring +stages of the making. Culture had a dangerous fascination for him. He +adored to talk of books; a rash worship, it seemed, since his but bowing +acquaintance with them trapped him frequently into mistaken identities +over which Sharlee with difficulty kept a straight face, while Byrd +palpably rejoiced. + +"You know _Thanatopsis_, of course," he would ask, with a rapt and +glowing eye--"Lord Byron's beautiful poem on the philosophy of life? Now +that is my idea of what poetry ought to be, Miss Weyland...." + +And Beverley Byrd, breaking his remark to Queed off short in the middle, +would turn to Sharlee with a face of studious calm and say:-- + +"Will you ever forget, Sharlee, the first time you read the other +_Thanatopsis_--the one by William Cullen Bryant? Don't you remember how +it looked--with the picture of Bryant--in the old Fifth Reader?" + +Mr. Miller proved that he could turn brick-red, but he learned nothing +from experience. + +In time, the talk between the two young men, which had begun so +desultorily, warmed up. Byrd had read something besides the Fifth +Reader, and Queed had discovered before to-night that he had ideas to +express. Their conversation progressed with waxing interest, from the +President's message to the causes of the fall of Rome, and thence by +wholly logical transitions to the French Revolution and Woman's +Suffrage. Byrd gradually became so absorbed that he almost, but not +quite, neglected to keep Mr. Miller in his place. As for Queed, he spoke +in defense of the "revolt of woman" for five minutes without +interruption, and his masterly sentences finally drew the silence and +attention of Mr. Miller himself. + +"Who is that fellow?" he asked in an undertone. "I didn't catch his +name." + +Sharlee told him. + +"He's got a fine face," observed Mr. Miller. "I've made quite a study of +faces, and I never saw one just like his--so absolutely on one note, if +you know what I mean." + +"What note is that?" asked Sharlee, interested by him for the only time +so long as they both did live. + +"Well, it's not always easy to put a name to it, but I'd call it ... +_honesty_.--_If_ you know what I mean." + +Mr. Miller stayed until half-past ten. The door had hardly shut upon him +when Byrd, too, rose. + +"Oh, don't go, Beverley!" protested Sharlee. "I've hardly spoken to +you." + +"Duty calls," said Byrd. "I'm going to walk home with Mr. Miller." + +"Beverley--don't! You were quite horrid enough while he was here." + +"But you spoiled it all by being so unnecessarily agreeable! It is my +business, as your friend and well-wisher, to see that he doesn't carry +away too jolly a memory of his visit. Take lunch downtown with me +to-morrow, won't you, Mr. Queed--at the Business Men's Club? I want to +finish our talk about the Catholic nations, and why they're decadent." + +Queed said that he would, and Byrd hurried away to overtake Mr. Miller. +Or, perhaps that gentleman was only a pretext, and the young man's +experienced eye had read that any attempt to outsit the learned +assistant editor was foredoomed to failure. + +"I'm so glad you stayed," said Sharlee, as Queed reseated himself. "I +shouldn't have liked not to exchange a word with you on your first visit +here." + +"Oh! This is not my first visit, you may remember." + +"Your first voluntary visit, perhaps I should have said." + +He let his eyes run over the room, and she could see that he was +thinking, half-unconsciously, of the last time when he and she had sat +here. + +"I had no idea of going," he said absently, "till I had the opportunity +of speaking to you." + +A brief silence followed, which clearly did not embarrass him, at any +rate. Sharlee, feeling the necessity of breaking it, still puzzling +herself with speculations as to what had put it into his head to come, +said at random:-- + +"Oh, do tell me--how is old Père Goriot?" + +"Père Goriot? I never heard of him." + +"Oh, forgive me! It is a name we used to have, long ago, for Professor +Nicolovius." + +A shadow crossed his brow. "He is extremely well, I believe." + +"You are still glad that you ran off with him to live _tête-à-tête_ in a +bridal cottage?" + +"Oh, I suppose so. Yes, certainly!" + +His frank face betrayed that the topic was unwelcome to him. For he +hated all secrets, and this secret, from this girl, was particularly +obnoxious to him. And beyond all that part of it, how could he analyze +for anybody his periods of strong revolt against his association with +Henry G. Surface, followed by longer and stranger periods when, quite +apart from the fact that his word was given and regrets were vain, his +consciousness embraced it as having a certain positive value? + +He rose restlessly, and in rising his eye fell upon the little clock on +the mantel. + +"Good heavens!" broke from him. "I had no idea it was so late! I must go +directly. Directly." + +"Oh, no, you mustn't think of it. Your visit to me has just begun--all +this time you have been calling on Beverley Byrd." + +"Why do you think I came here to-night?" he asked abruptly. + +Sharlee, from her large chair, smiled. "_I_ think to see me." + +"Oh!--Yes, naturally, but--" + +"Well, I think this is the call plainly due me from my Reunion party +last year." + +"No! Not at all! At the same time, it has been since that day that I +have had you on my mind so much." + +He said this in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice, but a certain +nervousness had broken through into his manner. He took a turn up and +down the room, and returned suddenly to his seat. + +"Oh, have you had me on your mind?" + +"Do you remember my saying that day," he began, resolutely, "that I was +not sure whether I had got the better of you or you had got the better +of me?" + +"I remember very well." + +"Well, I have come to tell you that--you have won." + +He had plucked a pencil from the arsenal of them in his breast-pocket, +and with it was beating a noiseless tattoo on his open left palm. With +an effort he met her eyes. + +"I say you were right," came from him nervously. "Don't you hear?" + +"Was I? Won't you tell me just what you mean?" + +"Don't you know?" + +"Really I don't think I do. You see, when I used that expression that +day, I was speaking only of the editorship--" + +"But I was speaking of a theory of life. After all, the two things seem +to have been bound together rather closely--just as you said." + +He restored his pencil to his pocket, palpably pulled himself together, +and proceeded: + +"Oh, my theory was wholly rational--far more rational than yours; +rationally it was perfect. It was a wholly logical recoil from the +idleness, the lack of purpose, the slipshod self-indulgence under many +names that I saw, and see, everywhere about me. I have work to +do--serious work of large importance--and it seemed to me my duty to +carry it through at all hazards. I need not add that it still seems so. +Yet it was a life's work, already well along, and there was no need for +me to pay an excessive price for mere speed. I elected to let everything +go but intellect; I felt that I must do so; and in consequence, by the +simplest sort of natural law, all the rest of me was shriveling up--had +shriveled up, you will say. Yet I knew very well that my intellect was +not the biggest part of me. I have always understood that.... Still, it +seems that I required you to rediscover it for me in terms of everyday +life...." + +"No, no!" she interrupted, "I didn't do that. Most of it you did +yourself. The start, the first push--don't you know?--it came from +Fifi." + +"Well," he said slowly, "what was Fifi but you again in miniature?" + +"A great deal else," said Sharlee. + +Her gaze fell. She sunk her chin upon her hand, and a silence followed, +while before the mind's eye of each rose a vision of Fifi, with her +wasted cheeks and great eyes. + +"As I say, I sacrificed everything to reason," continued Queed, +obviously struggling against embarrassment, "and yet pure reason was +never my ideal. I have impressed you as a thoroughly selfish person--you +have told me that--and so far as my immediate environment is concerned, +I have been, and am. So it may surprise you to be told that a life of +service has been from the beginning my ambition and my star. Of course I +have always interpreted service in the broadest sense, in terms of the +world; that was why I deliberately excluded all purely personal +applications of it. Yet it is from a proper combination of reason +with--the sociologist's 'consciousness of kind'--fellow-feeling, +sympathy, if you prefer, that is derived a life of fullest efficiency. I +have always understood the truth of this formula as applied to peoples. +It seems that I--rather missed its force as to individuals. I--I am +ready to admit that an individual life can draw an added meaning--and +richness from a service, not of the future, but of the present--not of +the race but ... well, of the unfortunate on the doorstep. Do you +understand," he asked abruptly, "what I am trying to tell you?" + +She assured him that she understood perfectly. + +A slow painful color came into his face. + +"Then you appreciate the nature and the size of the debt I owe you." + +"Oh, no, no, no! If I have done anything at all to help you," said +Sharlee, considerably moved, "then I am very glad and proud. But as for +what you speak of ... no, no, people always do these things for +themselves. The help comes from within--" + +"Oh, _don't_ talk like that!" broke from him. "You throw out the idea +somehow that I consider that I have undergone some remarkable conversion +and transformation. I haven't done anything of the sort. I am just the +same as I always was. Just the same.... Only now I am willing to admit, +as a scientific truth, that time given to things not in themselves +directly productive, can be made to pay a good dividend. If what I said +led you to think that I meant more than that, then I have, for once, +expressed myself badly. I tell you this," he went on hurriedly, "simply +because you once interested yourself in trying to convince me of the +truth of these views. Some of the things you said that night managed to +stick. They managed to stick. Oh, I give you that. I suppose you might +say that they gradually became like mottoes or texts--not scientific, of +course ... personal. Therefore, I thought it only fair to tell you that +while my cosmos is still mostly Ego--I suppose everybody's is in one way +or another--I have--made changes, so that I am no longer wholly out of +relation with life." + +"I am glad you wanted to tell me," said Sharlee, "but I have known it +for--oh, the longest time." + +"In a certain sense," he hurried on--"quite a different sense--I should +say that your talk--the only one of the kind I ever had--did for me the +sort of thing ... that most men's mothers do for them when they are +young." + +She made no reply. + +"Perhaps," he said, almost defiantly, "you don't like my saying that?" + +"Oh, yes! I like it very much." + +"And yet," he said, "I don't think of you as I fancy a man would think +of his mother, or even of his sister. It is rather extraordinary. It has +become clear to me that you have obtained a unique place in my +thought--in my regard. Well, good-night." + +She looked up at him, without, however, quite meeting his eyes. + +"Oh! Do you think you must go?" + +"Well--yes. I have said everything that I came to say. Did you want me +to stay particularly?" + +"Not if you feel that you shouldn't. You've been very good to give me a +whole evening, as it is." + +"I'll tell you one more thing before I go." + +He took another turn up and down the room, and halted frowning in front +of her. + +"I am thinking of making an experiment in practical social work next +year. What would be your opinion of a free night-school for working +boys?" + +Sharlee, greatly surprised by the question, said that the field was a +splendid one. + +He went on at once: "Technical training, of course, would be the nominal +basis of it. I could throw in, also, boxing and physical culture. Buck +Klinker would be delighted to help there. By the way, you must know +Klinker: he has some first-rate ideas about what to do for the working +population. Needless to say, both the technical and physical training +would be only baits to draw attendance, though both could be made very +valuable. My main plan is along a new line. I want to teach what no +other school attempts--only one thing, but that to be hammered in so +that it can never be forgotten." + +"What is that?" + +"You might sum it all up as the doctrine of individual responsibility." + +She echoed his term inquiringly, and he made a very large gesture. + +"I want to see if I can teach boys that they are not individuals--not +unrelated atoms in a random universe. Teach them that they live in a +world of law--of evolution by law--that they are links, every one of +them, in a splendid chain that has been running since life began, and +will run on to the end of time. Knock into their heads that no chain is +stronger than its weakest link, and that _this means them_. Don't you +see what a powerful socializing force there is in the sense of personal +responsibility, if cultivated in the right direction? A boy may be +willing to take his chances on going to the bad--economically and +socially, as well as morally--if he thinks that it is only his own +personal concern. But he will hesitate when you once impress upon him +that, in doing so, he is blocking the whole magnificent procession. My +plan would be to develop these boys' social efficiency by stamping upon +them the knowledge that the very humblest of them holds a trusteeship of +cosmic importance." + +"I understand.... How splendid--not to practice sociology on them, but +to teach it to them--" + +"But could we get the boys?" + +She felt that the unconsciousness with which he took her into +partnership was one of the finest compliments that had ever been paid +her. + +"Oh, I think so! The Department has all sorts of connections, as well as +lots of data which would be useful in that way. How Mr. Dayne will +welcome you as an ally! And I, too. I think it is fine of you, Mr. +Queed, so generous and kind, to--" + +"Not at all! Not in the least! I beg you," he interrupted, irritably, +"not to go on misunderstanding me. I propose this simply as an adjunct +to my own work. It is simply in the nature of a laboratory exercise. In +five years the experiment might enable me to check up some of my own +conclusions, and so prove very valuable to me." + +"In the meantime the experiment will have done a great deal for a +certain number of poor boys--unfortunates on your doorstep...." + +"That," he said shortly, "is as it may be. But--" + +"Mr. Queed," said Sharlee, "why are you honest in every way but one? Why +won't you admit that you have thought of this school because you would +like to do something to help in the life of this town?" + +"Because I am not doing anything of the sort! Why will you harp on that +one string? Good heavens! Aren't you yourself the author of the +sentiment that a sociologist ought to have some first-hand knowledge of +the problems of society?" + +Standing, he gazed down at her, frowning insistently, bent upon staring +her out of countenance; and she looked up at him with a Didymus smile +which slowly grew. Presently his eyes fell. + +"I cannot undertake," he said, in his stiffest way, "to analyze all my +motives at all times for your satisfaction. They have nothing whatever +to do with the present matter. The sole point up for discussion is the +practical question of getting such a school started. Keep it in mind, +will you? Give some thought as to ways and means. Your experience with +the Department should be helpful to me in getting the plan launched." + +"Certainly I will. If you don't object, I'll talk with Mr. Dayne about +it, too. He--" + +"All right. I don't object. Well, good-night." + +Sharlee rose and held out her hand. His expression, as he took and shook +it, suddenly changed. + +"I suppose you think I have acquired the habit," he said, with an abrupt +recurrence of his embarrassment, "of coming to you for counsel and +assistance?" + +"Well, why shouldn't you?" she answered seriously. "I have had the +opportunity and the time to learn some things--" + +"You can't dismiss your kindness so easily as that." + +"Oh, I don't think I have been particularly kind." + +"Yes, you have. I admit that. You have." + +He took the conversation with such painful seriousness that she was glad +to lighten it with a smile. + +"If you persist in thinking so, you might feel like rewarding me by +coming to see me soon again." + +"Yes, yes! I shall come to see you soon again. Certainly. Of course," he +added hastily, "it is desirable that I should talk with you more at +length about my school." + +He was staring at her with a conflict of expressions in which, curiously +enough, pained bewilderment seemed uppermost. Sharlee laughed, not quite +at her ease. + +"Do you know, I am still hoping that some day you will come to see me, +not to talk about anything definite--just to talk." + +"As to that," he replied, "I cannot say. Good-night." + +Forgetting that he had already shaken hands, he now went through with it +again. This time the ceremony had unexpected results. For now at the +first touch of her hand, a sensation closely resembling chain-lightning +sprang up his arm, and tingled violently down through all his person. It +was as if his arm had not merely fallen suddenly asleep, but was singing +uproariously in its slumbers. + +"I'm so glad you came," said Sharlee. + +He retired in a confusion which he was too untrained to hide. At the +door he wheeled abruptly, and cleared himself, with a white face, of +evasions that were torturing his conscience. + +"I will not say that a probable benefit to the boys _never_ entered into +my thoughts about the school. Nor do I say that my next visit will be +_wholly_ to talk about definite things, as you put it. For part of the +time, I daresay I should like--just to talk." + +Sharlee went upstairs, and stood for a long time gazing at herself in +the mirror. Vainly she tried to glean from it the answer to a most +interesting conundrum: Did Mr. Queed still think her very beautiful? + + + + +XXV + + _Recording a Discussion about the Reformatory between Editor West + and his Dog-like Admirer, the City Boss; and a Briefer Conversation + between West and Prof. Nicolovius's Boarder._ + + +About one o'clock the telephone rang sharply, and Queed, just arrived +for the afternoon work and alone in the office, answered it. It was the +Rev. Mr. Dayne, Secretary of the Department of Charities; he had learned +that the reformatory bill was to be called up in the house next day. The +double-faced politicians of the machine, said Mr. Dayne, with their +pretended zeal for economy, were desperately afraid of the Post. Would +Mr. Queed be kind enough to hit a final ringing blow for the right in +to-morrow's paper? + +"That our position to-day is as strong as it is," said the kind, firm +voice, "is due largely to your splendid work, Mr. Queed. I say this +gladly, and advisedly. If you will put your shoulder to the wheel just +once more, I am confident that you will push us through. I shall be +eternally grateful, and so will the State. For it is a question of +genuine moral importance to us all." + +Mr. Dayne received assurance that Mr. Queed would do all that he could +for him. He left the telephone rather wishing that the assistant editor +could sometimes be inspired into verbal enthusiasm. But of his abilities +the Secretary did not entertain the smallest doubt, and he felt that day +that his long fight for the reformatory was as good as won. + +Hanging up the receiver, Queed leaned back in his swivel chair and +thoughtfully filled a pipe, which he smoked nowadays with an experienced +and ripened pleasure. At once he relapsed into absorbed thought. Though +he answered Mr. Dayne calmly and briefly according to his wont, the +young man's heart was beating faster with the knowledge that he stood +at the crisis of his longest and dearest editorial fight. He expected to +win it. The whole subject, from every conceivable point of view, was at +his fingers' ends. He knew exactly what to say; his one problem was how +to say it in the most irresistible way possible. + +Yet Queed, tilted back in his chair, and staring out over the wet roofs, +was not thinking of the reformatory. He was thinking, not of public +matters at all, but of the circumstances of his curious life with Henry +G. Surface; and his thoughts were not agreeable in the least. + +Not that he and the "old professor" did not get along well together. It +was really surprising how well they did get along. Their dynamic +interview of last June had at once been buried out of sight, and since +then their days had flowed along with unbroken smoothness. If there had +been times when the young man's thought recoiled from the compact and +the intimacy, his manner never betrayed any sign of it. On the contrary, +he found himself mysteriously answering the growing dependence of the +old man with a growing sense of responsibility toward him, and +discovering in the process a curious and subtle kind of compensation. + +What troubled Queed about Nicolovius--as the world called him--was his +money. He, Queed, was in part living on this money, eating it, drinking +it, sleeping on it. Of late the old man had been spending it with +increasing freedom, constantly enlarging the comforts of the joint +ménage. He had reached, in fact, a scale of living which constantly +thrust itself on Queed's consciousness as quite beyond the savings of a +poor old school teacher. And if this appearance were true, where did the +surplus come from? + +The question had knocked unpleasantly at the young man's mind before +now. This morning he faced it, and pondered deeply. A way occurred to +him by which, possibly, he might turn a little light upon this problem. +He did not care to take it; he shrank from doing anything that might +seem like spying upon the man whose bread he broke thrice daily. Yet it +seemed to him that a point had now been reached where he owed his first +duty to himself. + +"Come in," he said, looking around in response to a brisk knock upon his +shut door; and there entered Plonny Neal, whom Queed, through the +Mercury, knew very well now. + +"Hi there, Doc! Playin' you was Horace Greeley?" + +Mr. Neal opened the connecting door into West's office, glanced through, +found it empty, and shut the door again. Whether he was pleased or the +reverse over this discovery, his immobile countenance gave no hint; but +the fact was that he had called particularly to see West on a matter of +urgent private business. + +"I was on the floor and thought I'd say howdy," he remarked pleasantly. +"Say, Doc, I been readin' them reformatory drools of yours. Me and all +the boys." + +"I'm glad to hear it. They are certain to do you good." + +Queed smiled. He had a genuine liking for Mr. Neal, which was not +affected by the fact that their views differed diametrically on almost +every subject under the sun. + +Mr. Neal smiled, too, more enigmatically, and made a large gesture with +his unlighted cigar. + +"I ain't had such good laughs since Tommy Walker, him that was going to +chase me out of the city f'r the tall timber, up and died. But all the +same, I hate to see a likely young feller sittin' up nights tryin' to +make a laughin' stock of himself." + +"The last laughs are always the best, Mr. Neal. Did you ever try any of +them?" + +"You're beat to a pappyer mash, and whistlin' to keep your courage." + +"Listen to my whistle day after to-morrow--" + +But the door had shut on Mr. Neal, who had doubtless read somewhere that +the proper moment to terminate a call is on some telling speech of one's +own. + +"I wonder what he's up to," mused Queed. + +He brought his chair to horizontal and addressed himself to his +reformatory article. He sharpened his pencil; tangled his great hand +into his hair; and presently put down an opening sentence that fully +satisfied him, his own sternest critic. Then a memory of his visitor +returned to his mind, and he thought pleasurably: + +"Plonny knows he is beaten. That's what's the matter with him." + +Close observers had often noted, however, that that was very seldom the +matter with Plonny, and bets as to his being beaten were always to be +placed with diffidence and at very long odds. Plonny had no idea +whatever of being beaten on the reformatory measure: on the contrary, it +was the reformatory measure which was to be beaten. Possibly Mr. Neal +was a white-souled patriot chafing under threatened extravagance in an +economy year. Possibly he was impelled by more machine-like exigencies, +such as the need of just that hundred thousand dollars to create a few +nice new berths for the "organization." The man's motives are an +immaterial detail. The sole point worth remembering is that Plonny Neal +had got it firmly in his head that there should be no reformatory +legislation that year. + +It was Mr. Neal's business to know men, and he was esteemed a fine +business man. Leaving the assistant editor, he sallied forth to find the +editor. It might have taken Queed an hour to put his hand on West just +then. Plonny did it in less than six minutes. + +West was at Semple's (formerly Semple & West's), where he looked in once +a day just to see what the market was doing. This was necessary, as he +sometimes explained, in order that the _Post_'s financial articles might +have that authoritativeness which the paper's position demanded. West +enjoyed the good man-talk at Semple's; the atmosphere of frank, cheery +commercialism made a pleasant relief from the rarer altitudes of the +uplift. He stood chatting gayly with a group of habitués, including some +of the best known men of the town. All greeted Plonny pleasantly, West +cordially. None of our foreign critics can write that the American man +is a moral prude. On two occasions, Plonny had been vindicated before +the grand jury by the narrow margin of one vote. Yet he was much liked +as a human sinner who had no pretenses about him, and who told a good +story surpassingly well. + +Ten minutes later Mr. Neal and Mr. West met in a private room at +Berringer's, having arrived thither by different routes. Over a table, +the door shut against all-comers, Mr. Neal went at once to the point, +apologizing diffidently for a "butting in" which Mr. West might resent, +but which he, Mr. West's friend, could no longer be restrained from. The +_Post_, he continued, had been going along splendidly--"better'n under +Cowles even--everybody says so--" and then, to the sorrow and +disappointment of the new editor's admirers, up had come this dashed old +reformatory business and spoiled everything. + +West, whose thoughts had unconsciously run back to his last private talk +with Plonny--the talk about getting in line--good-naturedly asked his +friend if he was really lined up with the wire-pulling moss-backs who +were fighting the reformatory bill. + +"You just watch me and see," said Plonny, with humorous reproachfulness. +"No charge f'r lookin', and rain checks given in case of wet grounds." + +"Then for once in your life, anyhow, you've called the turn wrong, +Plonny. This institution is absolutely necessary for the moral and +social upbuilding of the State. It would be necessary if it cost five +times one hundred thousand dollars, and it's as sure to come as judgment +day." + +"Ain't it funny!" mused Plonny. "Take a man like you, with fine high +ideas and all, and let anything come up and pass itself off f'r a maw'l +question and he'll go off half-cocked ten times out of ten." + +"Half-cocked!" laughed West. "We've been studying this question three +years." + +"Yes, and began your studies with your minds all made up." + +Plonny fastened upon the young man a gaze in which superior wisdom +struggled unsuccessfully with overwhelming affection. "You know what it +is, Mr. West? You've been took in, you've bit on a con game like a +hungry pike. Excuse my speaking so plain, but I told you a long time ago +I was mightily interested in you." + +"Speak as plain as you like, Plonny. In fact, my only request at the +moment is that you will speak plainer still. Who is it that has taken me +in, and who is working this little con game you mention?" + +"Rev. George Dayne of the Charities," said Plonny at once. "You +mentioned wire-pulling just now. Lemme tell you that in the Rev. George +you got the champeen wire-puller of the lot, the king politician of them +all--the only one in this town, I do believe, could have thrown a bag as +neat over _your_ head, Mr. West." + +"Why, Plonny! Much learning has made you mad! I know Dayne like a book, +and he's as straightforward a fellow as ever lived." + +Mr. Neal let his eyes fall to the table-top and indulged in a slow +smile, which he appeared to be struggling courteously, but without hope, +to suppress. + +"O' course you got a right to your opinion, Mr. West." + +A brief silence ensued, during which a tiny imp of memory whispered into +West's ear that Miss Weyland herself had commented on the Rev. Mr. +Dayne's marvelous gifts as a lobbyist. + +"I'm a older man than you," resumed Neal, with precarious smilelessness, +"and mebbe I've seen more of practical poltix. It would be a strange +thing, you might say, if at my time of life, I didn't know a politician +when I passed him in the road. Still, don't you take my word for it. I'm +only repeating what others say when I tell you that Parson Dayne wants +to be Governor of this State some day. That surprises you a little, hey? +You was kind of thinking that 'Rev.' changed the nature of a man, and +that ambition never thought of keeping open f'r business under a +high-cut vest, now wasn't you? Well, I've seen funny things in my time. +I'd say that the parson wants this reformatory some f'r the good of the +State, and mostly f'r the good of Mr. Dayne. Give it to him, with the +power of appointing employees--add this to what he's already got--and in +a year he'll have the prettiest little private machine ever you did see. +I don't ask you to believe me. All I ask is f'r you to stick a pin in +what I say, and see 'f it don't come true." + +West mused, impressed against his will. "You're wrong, Plonny, in my +opinion, and if you were ten times right, what of it? You seem to think +that the _Post_ is advocating this reformatory because Dayne has asked +for it. The _Post_ is doing nothing of the sort. It is advocating the +reformatory because it has studied this question to the bottom for +itself, because it knows--" + +"Right! Good f'r you!" exclaimed Mr. Neal, much gratified. "That's just +what I tell the boys when they say you're playin' poltix with the little +dominie. And that," said he, briskly, "is just why I'm _for_ the +reformatory, in spite of Rev. Dayne's little games." + +"You're for it! You said just now that you were opposed to it." + +"Not to the reformatory, Mr. West. Not at all. I'm only opposed to +spending a hundred thousand dollars for it in a poverty year." + +"Oh! You want the reformatory, but you don't want it now. That's where +you stand, is it?" + +"Yes, and everybody else that understands just what the situation is. I +believe in this reformatory--the _Post_ converted me, that's a fact--and +if you'll only let her stand two years, take my word for it, she'll go +through with a whoop. But if you're going to hurry the thing--" + +"What's your idea of hurry exactly? The war has been over forty years--" + +"And look how splendid we've got along these forty years without the +reformatory! Will you care to say, Mr. West, that we couldn't make it +forty-two without bringing great danger to the State?" + +"No, certainly not. But the point is--" + +"The point is that if we spend all this money now, the people will kick +the party out at the next election. I wouldn't admit this to many, +'cause I'm ashamed of it, but it's gospel truth. Mr. West," said Plonny, +earnestly, "I _know_ you want the _Post_ to stand for the welfare of the +party--" + +"Certainly. And it has been my idea that evidence of sane interest in +public morals was a pretty good card for--" + +"So it would be at any ordinary time. But it's mighty different when the +people from one end of the State to the other are howling economy and +saying that all expenses must go to bed-rock or they'll know the reason +why. There's the practical side of it--look at it f'r a minute. The +legislature was elected by these people on a platform promising +strictest economy. They're tryin' to carry out their promise faithfully. +They turn down and postpone some mighty good plans to advance the +progress of the State. They rejuice salaries in various +departments"--(one was the exact number)--"heelers come up lookin' f'r +jobs, and they send 'em away empty-handed and sore. Old-established +institutions, that have been doin' grand work upbuildin' the State f'r +years, are told that they must do with a half or three quarters of their +appropriations f'r the next two years. You've seen all this happen, Mr. +West?" + +West admitted that he had. + +"Well, now when everything is goin' smooth and promisin', you come along +and tell 'em they got to shell out a _hundred_ _thousand dollars_ right +away f'r a brand-new institution, with an annual appropriation to keep +it up. Now s'pose they do what you tell 'em. What happens? You think +there's no poltix at all in this reformatory business, but I can tell +you the Republicans won't take such a view as that. They'll say that the +party spent a hundred thousand dollars of the people's money in a hard +times year, just to make a few more jobs f'r favorites. They'll throw +that up at us from every stump in the State. And when our leaders +explain that it was done for the maw'l good of the State, they'll give +us the laugh--same as they did when we established the Foundling +Hospital in '98. Now I tell you the party can't stand any talk of that +kind this year. We're on shaky ground right now f'r the same reason that +we're all so proud of--spendin' money f'r the maw'l uplift of the State. +We either got to slow up f'r awhile or take a licking. That's what all +the talk comes down to--one simple question: Will we hold off this big +expense f'r just two years, or will we send the old party down to +defeat?" + +West laughed, not quite comfortably. + +In all this dialogue, Mr. Neal had over him the enormous advantage of +exact and superior knowledge. To tell the truth, West knew very little +about the reformatory situation, and considered it, among the dozens of +matters in which he was interested, rather a small issue. Having turned +the campaign over to his assistant, he had dismissed it from his mind; +and beyond his general conviction that the reformatory would be a good +thing for the State, he had only the sketchiest acquaintance with the +arguments that were being used pro and con. Therefore Plonny Neal's +passionate earnestness surprised him, and Plonny's reasoning, which he +knew to be the reasoning of the thoroughly informed State leaders, +impressed him very decidedly. Of the boss's sincerity he never +entertained a doubt; to question that candid eye was impossible. That +Plonny had long been watching him with interest and admiration, West +knew very well. It began to look to him very much as though Queed, +through excess of sociological zeal, had allowed himself to be misled, +and that the paper's advanced position was founded on theory without +reference to existing practical conditions. + +West keenly felt the responsibility of his post. To safeguard and +promote the welfare of the Democratic party had long been a cardinal +principle of the paper whose utterances he now controlled. Still, it +must be true that Neal was painting the situation in colors altogether +too black. + +"You're a pretty good stump performer yourself, Plonny. Don't you know +that exactly the same argument will be urged two years from now?" + +"I know it won't," said Plonny with the calmness of absolute conviction. +"A fat legislature _always_ follows a lean one. They come in strips, +same as a shoulder of bacon." + +"Well! I wouldn't think much of a party whose legs were so weak that a +little step forward--everybody knows _it's_ forward--would tumble it +over in a heap." + +"The party! I ain't thinking of the _party_, Mr. West. I'm thinking," +said Neal, the indignation in his voice giving way to a sudden +apologetic softness, "of you." + +"Me? What on earth have I got to do with it?" asked West, rather touched +by the look of dog-like affection in the other's eyes. + +"Everything. If the party gets let in for this extravagance, you'll be +the man who did it." + +There was a silence, and then West said, rather nobly: + +"Well, I suppose I will have to stand that. I must do what I think is +right, you know, and take the consequences." + +"Two years from now," said Mr. Neal, gently, "there wouldn't be no +consequences." + +"Possibly not," said West, in a firm voice. + +"While the consequences now," continued Mr. Neal, still more gently, +"would be to put you in very bad with the party leaders. Fine men they +are, but they never forgive a man who puts a crimp into the party. You'd +be a marked man to the longest day you lived!" + +"Well, Plonny! I'm not asking anything of the party leaders--" + +"But suppose some of your friends wanted to ask something for _you_?" + +Suddenly Plonny leaned over the table, and began speaking rapidly and +earnestly. + +"Listen here, Mr. West. I understand your feelings and your position +just like they was print, and I was reading them over your shoulder. +You're walking with y'r eyes on the skies, and you don't like to look at +the ground to see that you don't break nothing as you go forward. Your +mind's full of the maw'l idea and desire to uplift the people, and it's +kind of painful to you to stop and look at the plain practical way by +which things get done. But I tell you that everybody who ever got +anything big done in this world, got it done in a practical way. All the +big men that you and I admire--all the public leaders and governors and +reform mayors and so on--got where they have by doing practical good in +a practical way. Now, you don't like me to say that if you do so-and-so, +you'll be in bad with the State leaders, f'r that looks to you as if I +thought you could be infloonced by what would be your personal +advantage. And I honor you f'r them feelin's which is just what I knew +you'd had, or I wouldn't be here talkin' to you now. But you mustn't +blame others if they ain't as partic'lar, mebbe, as to how things might +_look_. You mustn't blame y'r friends--and you've got a sight more of +them than you have any idea of--if they feel all broke up to see you get +in bad, both for your own sake and f'r the sake of the party." + +Plonny's voice trembled with earnestness; West had had no idea that the +man admired him so much. + +"You want to serve the people, Mr. West? How could you do it better than +in public orf'ce. Lemme talk to you straight f'r once--will you? Or am I +only offendin' you by buttin' in this way, without having ever been +asked?" + +West gave his admirer the needed assurance. + +"I'm glad of it, f'r I can hardly keep it in my system any longer. +Listen here, Mr. West. As you may have heard, there's to be a primary +f'r city orf'cers in June. Secret ballot or no secret ballot, the +organization's going to win. You know that. Now, who'll the organization +put up f'r Mayor? From what I hear, they dassen't put up any old machine +hack, same's they been doin' f'r years. They might want to do it, but +they're a-scared the people won't stand f'r it. From what little I hear, +the feelin's strong that they _got_ to put up some young progressive +public-spirited man of the reformer type. Now s'posin' the friends of a +certain fine young man, sittin' not a hundred miles from this table, had +it in their minds to bring _him_ forward f'r the nomination. This young +man might say he wasn't seekin' the orf'ce and didn't want it, but I say +public orf'ce is a duty, and no man that wants to serve the people can +refuse it, partic'larly when he may be needed to save the party. And now +I ask you this, Mr. West: What show would the friends of this young man +have, if he had a bad spot on his record? What chance'd there be of +namin' to lead the party in the city the _man who had knifed the party +in the State_?" + +West's chin rested upon his hand; his gaze fell dreamily upon the +table-top. Before his mind's eye there had unrolled a favorite vision--a +white meadow of faces focussed breathlessly upon a great orator. He +recalled himself with a start, a stretch, and a laugh. + +"Aren't you wandering rather carelessly into the future, Plonny?" + +"If I am," said Mr. Neal, solemnly, "it's because you stand at the +crossroads to-day." + + * * * * * + +West found the office deserted, his assistant being gone for lunch. He +finished two short articles begun earlier in the day, and himself +departed with an eye to food. Later, he had to attend a couple of board +meetings, which ran off into protracted by-talk, and the rainy twilight +had fallen before his office knew him again. + +Not long after, Queed, already hatted and overcoated to go, pushed open +the connecting door and entered. The two chatted a moment of the make-up +of next day's "page." Presently West said: "By the bye, written anything +about the reformatory?" + +"Anything!" echoed Queed, with a faint smile. "You might say that I've +written everything about it--the best article I ever wrote, I should +say. It's our last chance, you know." + +Queed thought of Eva Bernheimer, and a light crept into his ordinarily +impassive eye. At the same time, West's ordinarily buoyant face fell a +little. + +"That so? Let me see how you've handled it, will you?" + +"Certainly," said Queed, showing no surprise, though it was many a day +since any composition of his had undergone supervision in that office. + +It was on the tip of West's tongue to add, "I rather think we've been +pressing that matter too hard," but he checked himself. Why should he +make any explanation to his assistant? Was it not the fact that he had +trusted the young man too far already? + +Queed brought his article and laid it on West's desk, his face very +thoughtful now. "If there is any information I can give you about the +subject, I'll wait." + +West hardly repressed a smile. "Thank you, I think I understand the +situation pretty well." + +Still Queed lingered and hesitated, most unlike himself. Presently he +strolled over to the window and looked down unseeingly into the lamp-lit +wetness of Centre Street. In fact, he was the poorest actor in the +world, and never pretended anything, actively or passively, without +being unhappy. + +"It's raining like the mischief," he offered uncomfortably. + +"Cats and dogs," said West, his fingers twiddling with Queed's copy. + +"By the way," said Queed, turning with a poorly done air of casualness, +"what is commonly supposed to have become of Henry G. Surface? Do people +generally believe that he is dead?" + +"Bless your heart, no!" said West, looking up in some surprise at the +question. "That kind never die. They invariably live to a green old +age--green like the bay-tree." + +"I--have gotten very much interested in his story," said Queed, which +was certainly true enough. "Where do people think that he is now?" + +"Oh, in the West somewhere, living like a fat hog off Miss Weyland's +money." + +Queed's heart lost a beat. An instinct, swift as a reflex, turned him +to the window again; he feared that his face might commit treason. A +curious contraction and hardening seemed to be going on inside of him, a +chilling petrifaction, and this sensation remained; but in the next +instant he felt himself under perfect control, and was calmly saying:-- + +"Why, I thought the courts took all the money he had." + +"They took all they could find. If you've studied high finance you'll +appreciate the distinction." Amiably West tapped the table-top with the +long point of his pencil, and wished that Queed would restore him his +privacy. "Everybody thought at the time, you know, that he had a hundred +thousand or so put away where the courts never got hold of it. The +general impression was that he'd somehow smuggled it over to the woman +he'd been living with--his wife", he said. "She died, I believe, but +probably our friend Surface, when he got out, hadn't the slightest +trouble in putting his hands on the money." + +"No, I suppose not. An interesting story, isn't it? You'll telephone if +you need anything to-night?" + +"Oh, I shan't need anything. The page is shaping up very satisfactorily, +I think. Good-night, my dear fellow." + +Left alone, West picked up Queed's closely-written sheets, and leaning +back in his chair read them with the closest attention. Involuntarily, +his intellect paid a tribute to the writer as he read. The article was +masterly. The argument was close and swift, the language impassioned, +the style piquant. "Where did he learn to write like that!" wondered +West. Here was the whole subject compressed into half a column, and so +luminous a half column that the dullest could not fail to understand and +admire. Two sarcastic little paragraphs were devoted to stripping the +tatters from the nakedness of the economy argument, and these Mr. +Queed's chief perused twice. + +"The talk of a doctrinaire," mused he presently. "The closet +philosopher's ideas. How far afield from the real situation ..." + +It was a most fortunate thing, he reflected, that he himself had means +of getting exact and accurate information at first hand. Suppose that he +had not, that, like some editors, he had simply passed this article in +without examination and correction. It would have made the _Post_ +ridiculous, and decidedly impaired its reputation for common sense and +fair play. Whatever should or should not be said, this was certainly no +way to talk of honest men, who were trying to conserve the party and who +differed from the _Post_ only on an unimportant question of detail. + +West leaned back in his chair and stared at the farther wall.... For +that was exactly what it was--an unimportant detail. The important +thing, the one thing that he himself had insisted on, was that the State +should have a reformatory. Whether the State had it now or two years +from now, made relatively little difference, except to those who, like +his editorial assistant, had sunk themselves in the question till their +sense of proportion had deserted them. Was not that a fair statement of +the case? Whatever he did, he must not let his views be colored by +probable effects upon his own future.... Surely, to wait two brief years +for the institution, with the positive assurance of it then, could be no +hardship to a State which had got along very well without it for all the +years of its lifetime. Surely not. Plonny Neal, whose sharp horse sense +he would back against any man in the State, was absolutely sound there. + +He tried to consider the question with chill judiciality, and believed +that he was doing so. But the fervor which Plonny had imparted to it, +and the respect which he had for Plonny's knowledge of practical +conditions, stood by him, unconsciously guiding his thoughts along the +line of least resistance.... Though nobody dared admit it publicly, the +party was facing a great crisis; and it was in his hand to save or to +wreck it. All eyes were anxiously on the _Post_, which wielded the +decisive power. The people had risen with the unreasonable demand that +progress be checked for a time, because of the cost of it. The leaders +had responded to the best of their ability, but necessary expenses were +so great that it was going to be a narrow shave at best--so narrow that +another hundred thousand spent would land the whole kettle of fish in +the fire. The grand old party would go crashing down the precipice. Was +not that a criminal price to pay for getting a reformatory institution +two years before the people were ready to pay for it? There was the +whole question in a nutshell. + +The one unpleasant aspect of this view was Sharlee Weyland, the dearest +girl in the world. She would be much disappointed, and, for the first +moment, would possibly be somewhat piqued with him personally. He knew +that women were extremely unreasonable about these things; they looked +at affairs from the emotional point of view, from the point of view of +the loose, large "effect." But Sharlee Weyland was highly intelligent +and sensible, and he had not the smallest doubt of his ability to make +her understand what the unfortunate situation was. He could not tell her +everything--Plonny had cautioned secrecy about the real gravity of the +crisis--but he would tell her enough to show her how he had acted, with +keen regrets, from his sternest sense of public duty. It was a cruel +stroke of fate's that his must be the hand to bring disappointment to +the girl he loved, but after all, would she not be the first to say that +he must never put his regard for her preferences above the larger good +of City and State? He could not love her, dear, so well, loved he not +honor more. + +He picked up Queed's article and glanced again at the astonishing words, +words which, invested with the _Post's_ enormous prestige, simply kicked +and cuffed the party to its ruin. A wave of resentment against his +assistant swept through the editor's mind. This was what came of +trusting anything to anybody else. If you wanted to be sure that things +were done right, do them yourself. Because he had allowed Queed a little +rope, that young man had industriously gathered in almost enough to +hang, not himself, for he was nothing, but the _Post_ and its editor. +However, there was no use crying over spilt milk. What was done was +done. Fortunately, the _Post's_ general position was sound; had not the +editor himself dictated it? If the expression of that position in cold +type had been gradually carried by a subordinate to a more and more +violent extreme, to an intemperance of utterance which closely +approached insanity, what was it the editor's duty to do? Obviously to +take charge himself and swing the position back to a safe and sane mean, +exactly where he had placed it to begin with. That was all that was +asked of him--to shift back the paper's position to where he had placed +it in the beginning, and by so doing to save the party from wreck. Could +a sensible man hesitate an instant? And in return.... + +West's gaze wandered out of the window, and far on into the beyond.... +His friends were watching him, silently but fearfully. Who and what +these friends were his swift thought did not stay to ask. His glamorous +fancy saw them as a great anxious throng, dominant men, yet respectful, +who were trembling lest he should make a fatal step--to answer for it +with his political life. Public life--he rejected the term political +life--was of all things what he was preeminently fitted for. How else +could a man so fully serve his fellows?--how so surely and strongly +promote the uplift? And Plonny Neal had served notice on him that he +stood to-day on the crossroads to large public usefulness. The czar of +them all, the great Warwick who made and unmade kings by the lifting of +his finger, had told him, as plain as language could speak, that he, +West, was his imperial choice for the mayoralty, with all that that +foreshadowed.... Truly, he had served his apprenticeship, and was meet +for his opportunity. For eight long months he had stood in line, doing +his duty quietly and well, asking no favor of anybody. And now at last +Warwick had beckoned him and set the mystic star upon his forehead.... + +Iridescent visionry enwrapped the young man, and he swam in it goldenly. +In time his spirit returned to his body, and he found himself leaning +back in a very matter-of-fact chair, facing a very plain question. How +could the shifting back, the rationalizing, of the paper's position be +accomplished with the minimum of shock? How could he rescue the party +with the least possible damage to the _Post's_ consistency? + +West went to a filing cabinet in the corner of the room, pulled out a +large folder marked, _Reformatory_, and, returning to his seat, ran +hurriedly through the _Post's_ editorials on this subject during the +past twelvemonth. Over some of the phrases he ground his teeth. They +floated irritatingly in his head as he once more leaned back in his +chair and frowned at the opposite wall. + +Gradually there took form in his mind a line of reasoning which would +appear to grow with some degree of naturalness out of what had gone +before, harmonizing the basic continuity of the _Post's_ attitude, and +minimizing the change in present angle or point of view. His fertile +mind played about it, strengthening it, building it up, polishing and +perfecting; and in time he began to write, at first slowly, but soon +with fluent ease. + + + + +XXVI + + _In which Queed forces the Old Professor's Hand, and the Old + Professor takes to his Bed._ + + +Raincoat buttoned to his throat, Queed set his face against the steady +downpour. It was a mild, windless night near the end of February, +foreshadowing the early spring already nearly due. He had no umbrella, +or wish for one: the cool rain in his face was a refreshment and a +vivifier. + +So the worst had come to the worst, and he had been living for nearly a +year on Sharlee Weyland's money, stolen from her by her father's false +friend. Wormwood and gall were the fruits that altruism had borne him. +Two casual questions had brought out the shameful truth, and these +questions could have been asked as easily a year ago as now. + +Bitterly did the young man reproach himself now, for his criminal +carelessness in regard to the sources of Surface's luxurious income. For +the better part of a year he had known the old man for an ex-convict +whose embezzlings had run high into six figures. Yet he had gone on +fatuously swallowing the story that the money of which the old rogue was +so free represented nothing but the savings of a thrifty schoolteacher. +A dozen things came back to him now to give the lie to that tale. He +thought of the costly books that Surface was constantly buying; the +expensive repairs he had made in his rented house; the wine that stood +on the dinner-table every night; the casual statement from the old man +that he meant to retire from the school at the end of the present +session. Was there ever a teacher who could live like this after a dozen +years' roving work? And the probability was that Surface had never +worked at all until, returning to his own city, he had needed a position +as a cover and a blind. + +Mathematical computations danced through the young man's brain. He +figured that their present scale of living must run anywhere from $3500 +to $5000 a year. Surface's income from the school was known to be $900 a +year. His income from his lodger was $390 a year. This difference +between, say $4000 and $1290, was $2710 a year, or 4 per cent on some +$70,000. And this tidy sum was being filched from the purse of Charlotte +Lee Weyland, who worked for her living at an honorarium of $75 a month. + +Queed walked with his head lowered, bent less against the rain than his +own stinging thoughts. At the corner of Seventh Street a knot of young +men, waiting under a dripping awning for a car that would not come, +cried out gayly to the Doc; they were Mercuries; but the Doc failed to +respond to their greetings, or even to hear them. He crossed the humming +street, northerly, with an experienced sureness acquired since his +exploit with the dog Behemoth; and so came into his own section of the +town. + +He was an apostle of law who of all things loved harmony. Already his +mind was busily at work seeking to restore order out of the ruins of his +house. Obviously the first thing to do, the one thing that could not +wait an hour, was to get his sense of honesty somehow back again. He +must compel Surface to hand over to Miss Weyland immediately every cent +of money that he had. The delivery could be arranged easily enough, +without any sensational revelations. The letter to Miss Weyland could +come from a lawyer in the West; in Australia, if the old man liked; that +didn't matter. The one thing that did matter was that he should +immediately make restitution as fully as lay within the power of them +both. + +Surface, of course, would desperately resist such a suggestion. Queed +knew of but one club which could drive him to agree to it, one goad +which could rowel him to the height. This was his own continued +companionship. He could compel Surface to disgorgement only at the price +of a new offering of himself to the odious old man who had played false +with him as with everybody else. Queed did not hesitate. At the moment +every cost seemed small to clear his dearest belonging, which was his +personal honesty, of this stain. As for Surface, nothing could make him +more detestable in a moral sense than he had been all along. He had been +a thief and a liar from the beginning. Once the cleansing storm was +over, their unhappy domestic union could go on much as it had done +before. + +For his part, he must at once set about restoring his half of the joint +living expenses consumed during the past nine months. This money could +be passed in through the lawyer with the rest, so that she would never +know. Obviously, he would have to make more money than he was making +now, which meant that he would have to take still more time from his +book. There were his original tax articles in the _Post_, which a +publisher had asked him at the time to work over into a primer for +college use. There might be a few hundreds to be made there. He could +certainly place some articles in the reviews. If for the next twelve +months he ruthlessly eliminated everything from his life that did not +bring in money, he could perhaps push his earnings for the next year to +three thousand dollars, which would be enough to see him through.... + +And busy with thoughts like these, he came home to Surface's pleasant +little house, and was greeted by the old man with kindness and good +cheer. + +It was dinner-time--for they dined at night now, in some state--and they +sat down to four dainty courses, cooked and served by the capable +Henderson. The table was a round one, so small that the two men could +have shaken hands across it without the smallest exertion. By old +Surface's plate stood a gold-topped bottle, containing, not the ruddy +burgundy which had become customary of late, but sparkling champagne. +Surface referred to it, gracefully, as his medicine; doctors, he said, +were apparently under the delusion that schoolmasters had bottomless +purses. To this pleasantry Queed made no reply. He was, indeed, spare +with his remarks that evening, and his want of appetite grieved old +Henderson sorely. + +The servant brought the coffee and retired. He would not be back again +till he was rung for: that was the iron rule. The kitchen was separated +from the dining-room by a pantry and two doors. Thus the diners were as +private as they were ever likely to be in this world, and in the breast +of one of them was something that would brook no more delay. + +"Professor," said this one, with a face which gave no sign of inner +turmoil, "I find myself obliged to refer once more to--an unwelcome +subject." + +Surface was reaching for his coffee cup; he was destined never to pick +it up. His hand fell; found the edge of the table; his long fingers +gripped and closed over it. + +"Ah?" he said easily, not pretending to doubt what subject was meant. +"I'm sorry. I thought that we had laid the old ghosts for good." + +"I thought so, too. I was mistaken, it seems." + +Across the table, the two men looked at each other. To Surface, the +subject must indeed have been the most unwelcome imaginable, especially +when forced upon him with so ominous a directness. Yet his manner was +the usual bland mask; his face, rather like a bad Roman senator's in the +days of the decline, had undergone no perceptible change. + +"When I came here to live with you," said Queed, "I understood, of +course, that you would be contributing several times as much toward our +joint expenses as I. To a certain degree, you would be supporting me. +Naturally, I did not altogether like that. But you constantly assured +me, you may remember, that you would rather put your savings into a home +than anything else, that you could not manage it without my assistance, +and that you considered my companionship as fully offsetting the +difference in the money we paid. So I became satisfied that the +arrangement was honorable to us both." + +Surface spoke with fine courtesy. "All this is so true, your +contribution toward making our house a home has been so much greater +than my own, that I feel certain nothing can have happened to disturb +your satisfaction." + +"Yes," said Queed. "I have assumed all the time that the money you were +spending here was your own." + +There was a silence. Queed looked at the table-cloth. He had just become +aware that his task was hateful to him. The one thing to do was to get +it over as swiftly and decisively as possible. + +"I am at a loss," said the old man, dryly, "to understand where the +assumption comes in, in view of the fact that I have stated, more than +once--" + +"I am forced to tell you that I cannot accept these statements." + +For a moment the brilliant eyes looked dangerous. "Are you aware that +your language is exceedingly offensive?" + +"Yes. I'm very sorry. Nevertheless, this tooth must come out. It has +suddenly become apparent to me that you must be spending here the income +on hardly less than seventy-five thousand dollars. Do you seriously ask +me to believe, now that I directly bring up the matter, that you amassed +this by a few years of school-teaching?" + +Surface lit a cigarette, and, taking a slow puff, looked unwinkingly +into the young man's eyes, which looked as steadily back into his own. +"You are mistaken in assuming," he said sternly, "that, in giving you my +affection, I have given you any right to cross-examine me in--" + +"Yes, you gave it to me when you invited me to your house as, in part, +your guest--" + +"I am behind the times, indeed, if it is esteemed the privilege of a +guest to spy upon his host." + +"That," said Queed, quietly, "is altogether unjust. You must know that I +am not capable of spying on you. I have, on the contrary, been culpably +short-sighted. Never once have I doubted anything you told me until you +yourself insisted on rubbing doubts repeatedly into my eyes. Professor," +he went on rapidly, "are you aware that those familiar with your story +say that, when you--that, after your misfortune, you started life again +with a bank account of between one and two hundred thousand dollars?" + +The black eyes lit up like two shoe-buttons in the sunlight. "That is a +wicked falsehood, invented at the time by a lying reporter--" + +"Do you assert that everything you have now has been earned since your +misfortune?" + +"Precisely that." + +The voice was indignantly firm, but Queed, looking into the old man's +face, read there as plain as day that he was lying. + +"Think a moment," he said sorrowfully. "This is pretty serious, you see. +Are you absolutely sure that you carried over nothing at all?" + +"In the sight of God, I did not. But let me tell you, my friend--" + +A chair-leg scraped on the carpeted floor, and Queed was standing, +playing his trump card with a grim face. + +"We must say good-by, Professor--now. I'll send for my things in the +morning." + +"What do you mean, you--" + +"That you and I part company to-night. Good-by." + +"Stop!" cried Surface. He rose, greatly excited and leaned over the +table. A faint flush drove the yellow from his cheek; his eyes were +blazing. He shook a menacing finger at close range in Queed's face, +which remained entirely unmoved by the demonstration. + +"So this is the reward of my kindness and affection! I won't endure it, +do you understand? I won't be kicked into the gutter like an old shoe, +do you hear? Sit down in that chair. I forbid you to leave the house." + +Queed's gaze was more formidable than his own. "Mr. Surface," he said, +in a peculiarly quiet voice, "you forget yourself strangely. You are in +no position to speak to me like this." + +Surface appeared suddenly to agree with him. He fell back into his chair +and dropped his face into his hands. + +Queed, standing where he was, watched him across the tiny dinner-table +and, against his reason, felt very sorry. How humiliating this ripping +up of old dishonor was to the proud old man, rogue though he was, he +understood well enough. From nobody in the world but him, he knew, would +Surface ever have suffered it to proceed as far as this, and this +knowledge made him want to handle the knife with as little roughness as +possible. + +"I--was wrong," said the muffled voice. "I ask your forgiveness for my +outbreak." + +"You have it." + +Surface straightened himself up, and, by an obvious effort, managed to +recapture something like his usual smoothness of voice and manner. + +"Will you be good enough to sit down? I will tell you what you wish." + +"Certainly. Thank you." + +Queed resumed his seat. His face was a little pale, but otherwise just +as usual. Inwardly, after the moment of critical uncertainty, he was +shaken by a tempest of fierce exultation. His club, after all, was going +to be strong enough; the old man would give up the money rather than +give up him. + +Surface picked up his cigarette. All his storm signals had disappeared +as by magic. + +"I did manage," began the old man, flicking off his ash with an +admirable effect of calm, "to save a small nest-egg from the wreck, to +keep me from the poorhouse in my old age. I did not wish to tell you +this because, with your lack of acquaintance with business methods, the +details would only confuse, and possibly mislead, you. I had, too, +another reason for wishing to keep it a surprise. You have forced me, +against my preferences, to tell you. As to this small pittance," he +said, without the flicker of an eye-lash, "any court in the country +would tell you that it is fairly and honorably mine." + +"Thank you. I appreciate your telling me this." Queed leaned over the +table, and began speaking in a quiet, brisk voice. "Now, then, here is +the situation. You have a certain sum of money put away somewhere, +estimated to be not less than a hundred thousand dollars--" + +"Nothing of the sort! Far less than that! A few beggarly thousands, +which--" + +"Very well--a few thousands. Of course your books will readily show the +exact figures. This money was withheld at the time your affairs were +settled, and therefore was not applied to reducing the--the loss on the +trustee account. Of course, if its existence had been known, it would +have been so applied. In other words, the Weyland estate has been +deprived to the exact extent of the sum withheld. Fortunately, it is +never too late to correct an error of this sort. My idea is that we +should make the restitution without the loss of an unnecessary day." + +Doubtless the old man had seen it coming; he heard the galling proposal +with a face which showed nothing stronger than profound surprise. +"Restitution! My dear boy, I owe no restitution to any one." + +"You hardly take the position that you have acquired a title to the +Weyland trustee funds?" + +"Ah, there it is!" purred Surface, making a melancholy gesture. "You see +why I did not wish to open up this complicated subject. Your ignorance, +if you will pardon me, of modern business procedure, makes it very +difficult for you to grasp the matter in its proper bearings. Without +going into too much detail, let me try to explain it to you. This +settlement of my affairs that you speak of was forcibly done by the +courts, in the interest of others, and to my great injury. The rascals +set out to cut my throat--was it required of me to whet the knife for +them? They set out to strip me of the last penny I had, and they had +every advantage, despotic powers, with complete access to all my private +papers. If the robbers overlooked something that I had, a bagatelle I +needed for the days of my adversity, was it my business to pluck them by +the sleeve and turn traitor to myself? Why, the law itself gave me what +they passed over. I was declared a bankrupt. Don't you know what that +means? It means that the courts assumed responsibility for my affairs, +paid off my creditors, and, as a small compensation for having robbed +me, wiped the slate clean and declared me free of all claims. And this +was twenty-five years ago. My dear boy! Read the Bankruptcy Act. Ask a +lawyer, any lawyer--" + +"Let us not speak of lawyers--now," interrupted Queed, stirring in his +chair. "Let their opinion wait as a last alternative, which, I earnestly +hope, need never be used at all. I am not bringing up this point to you +now as a legal question, but as a moral one." + +"Ah! You do not find that the morals provided by the law are good enough +for you, then?" + +"If your reading of the law is correct--of which I am not so certain as +you are, I fear--it appears that they are not. But--" + +"It is my misfortune," interrupted the old man, his hand tightening on +the table-edge, "that your sympathies are not with me in the matter. +Mistaken sentiment, youthful Quixotism, lead you to take an absurdly +distorted view of what--" + +"No, I'm afraid not. You see, when stripped of all unnecessary language, +the repulsive fact is just this: we are living here on money that was +unlawfully abstracted from the Weyland estate. No matter what the law +may say, we know that this money morally belongs to its original owners. +Now I ask you--" + +"Let me put it another way. I can show you exactly where your +misapprehension is--" + +Queed stopped him short by a gesture. "My mind is so clear on this point +that discussion only wastes our time." + +The young man's burst of exultation was all but stillborn; already +despair plucked chilly at his heart-strings. For the first time the +depth of his feeling broke through into his voice: "Say, if you like +that I am unreasonable, ignorant, unfair. Put it all down to besotted +prejudice.... Can't you restore this money because I ask it? Won't you +do it as a favor to me?" + +Surface's face became agitated. "I believe there is nothing else in the +world--that I wouldn't do for you--a thousand times over--but--" + +Then Queed threw the last thing that he had to offer into the scales, +namely himself. He leaned over the table and fixed the old man with +imploring eyes. + +"I'd do my best to make it up to you. I'll--I'll live with you till one +or the other of us dies. You'll have somebody to take care of you when +you are old, and there will never be any talk of the poorhouse between +you and me. It can all be arranged quietly through a lawyer, +Professor--and nobody will guess your secret. You and I will find quiet +lodgings somewhere, and live together--as friends--live cleanly, +honorably, honestly--" + +"For God's sake, stop!" said Surface, in a broken-voice. "This is more +than I can bear." + +So Queed knew that it was hopeless, and that the old man meant to cling +to his dishonored money, and let his friend go. He sank back in his +chair, sick at heart, and a painful silence fell. + +"If I refuse," Surface took up the theme, "it is for your sake as well +as mine. My boy, you don't know what you ask. It is charity, mere mad +charity to people whom I have no love for, who--" + +"Then," said Queed, "two things must happen. First, I must lay the facts +before Miss Weyland." + +Surface's manner changed; his eyes became unpleasant. + +"You are not serious. You can hardly mean to repeat to anybody what I +have told you in sacred confidence." + +Queed smiled sadly. "No, you have not told me anything in confidence. +You have never told me anything until I first found it out for myself, +and then only because denial was useless." + +"When I told you my story last June, you assured me--" + +"However, you have just admitted that what you told me last June was not +the truth." + +Again their eyes clashed, and Surface, whose face was slowly losing all +its color, even the sallowness, found no sign of yielding in those of +the younger man. + +Queed resumed: "However, I do not mean that I shall tell her who you +are, unless you yourself compel me to. I shall simply let her know that +you are known to be alive, within reach of the courts, and in possession +of a certain sum of money withheld from the trustee funds. This will +enable her to take the matter up with her lawyers and, as I believe, +bring it before the courts. If her claim is sustained, she would +doubtless give you the opportunity to make restitution through +intermediaries, and thus sensational disclosures might be avoided. +However, I make you no promises about that." + +Surface drew a breath; he permitted his face to show signs of relief. +"Since my argument and knowledge carry so little weight with you," he +said with a fine air of dignity, "I am willing to let the courts +convince you, if you insist. But I do beg--" + +Queed cut him short; he felt that he could not bear one of the old man's +grandiloquent speeches now. "There is one other thing that must be +mentioned," he said in a tired voice. "You understand, of course, that I +can live here no longer." + +"My God! Don't say that! Aren't you satisfied with what you've done to +me without that!" + +"I haven't done anything to you. Whatever has been done, you have +deliberately done to yourself. I have no desire to hurt or injure you. +But--what are you thinking about, to imagine that I could continue to +live here--on this money?" + +"You contradict yourself twice in the same breath! You just said that +you would let the courts settle that question--" + +"As to the Weyland estate's claim, yes. But I do not let the courts +regulate my own sense of honor." + +Surface, elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands. Queed slowly +rose, a heart of lead in his breast. He had failed. He had offered all +that he had, and it had been unhesitatingly kicked aside. And, unless +long litigation was started, and unless it ultimately succeeded, Henry +G. Surface would keep his loot. + +He glanced about the pleasant little dining-room, symbol of the only +home he had ever known, where, after all, he had done great work, and +been not unhappy. Personally, he was glad to leave it, glad to stand out +from the shadow of the ruin of Henry G. Surface. Nevertheless it was a +real parting, the end of an epoch in his life, and there was sadness in +that. Sadness, too, he saw, deeper than his repugnance and anger, in the +bowed figure before him, the lost old man whom he was to leave solitary +henceforward. Saddest of all was the consciousness of his own terrible +failure. + +He began speaking in a controlled voice. + +"This interview is painful to us both. It is useless to prolong it. +I--have much to thank you for--kindness which I do not forget now and +shall not forget. If you ever reconsider your decision--if you should +ever need me for anything--I shall be within call. And now I must leave +you ... sorrier than I can say that our parting must be like this." He +paused: his gaze rested on the bent head, and he offered, without hope, +the final chance. "Your mind is quite made up? You are sure +that--this--is the way you wish the matter settled?" + +Surface took his face from his hands and looked up. His expression was a +complete surprise. It was neither savage nor anguished, but +ingratiating, complacent, full of suppressed excitement. Into his eyes +had sprung an indescribable look of cunning, the look of a broken-down +diplomat about to outwit his adversary with a last unsuspected card. + +"No, no! Of course I'll not let you leave me like this," he said, with a +kind of trembling eagerness, and gave a rather painful laugh. "You force +my hand. I had not meant to tell you my secret so soon. You can't guess +the real reason why I refuse to give my money to Miss Weyland, even +when you ask it, now can you? You can't guess, now can you?" + +"I think I can. You had rather have the money than have me." + +"Not a bit of it. Nothing of the kind! Personally I care nothing for the +money. I am keeping it," said the old man, lowering his voice to a +chuckling whisper, "_for you!_" He leaned over the table, fixing Queed +with a gaze of triumphant cunning. "I'm going to make you _my heir!_ +Leave everything I have in the world _to you!_" + +A wave of sick disgust swept through the young man, momentarily +engulfing his power of speech. Never had the old man's face looked so +loathsome to him, never the man himself appeared so utterly detestable. + +Surface had risen, whispering and chuckling. "Come up to the +sitting-room, my dear boy. I have some papers up there that may open +your eyes. You need never work--" + +"Stop!" said Queed, and the old man stopped in his tracks. "Can't I make +you understand?" he went on, fighting hard for calmness. "Isn't it clear +to you that _nothing_ could induce me to touch another penny of this +money?" + +"Ah!" said Surface, in his softest voice. "Ah! And might I inquire the +reason for this heroic self-restraint?" + +"You choose your words badly. It is no restraint to honest men to +decline to take other people's money." + +"Ah, I see. I see. I see," said Surface, nodding his shining hairless +head up and down. + +"Good-by." + +"No, no," said the old man, in an odd thick voice. "Not quite yet, if +you please. There is still something that I want to say to you." + +He came slowly around the tiny table, and Queed watched his coming with +bursts of fierce repugnance which set his hard-won muscles to twitching. +An elemental satisfaction there might be in throwing the old man through +the window. Yet, in a truer sense, he felt that the necessity of +manhandling him would be the final touch in this degrading interview. + +"You value your society too high, my dear boy," said Surface with a face +of chalk. "You want too big a price. I must fork over every penny I +have, to a young trollop who happens to have caught your fancy--" + +"Stand away from me!" cried Queed, with a face suddenly whiter than his +own. "You will tempt me to do what I shall be sorry for afterwards." + +But Surface did not budge, and to strike, after all, was hardly +possible; it would be no better than murder. The two men stood, white +face to white face, the two pairs of fearless eyes scarcely a foot +apart. And beyond all the obvious dissimilarity, there appeared a +curious resemblance in the two faces at that moment: in each the same +habit of unfaltering gaze, the same high forehead, the same clean-cut +chin, the same straight, thin-lipped mouth. + +"Oh, I see through you clearly enough," said Surface. "You're in love +with her! You think it is a pretty thing to sacrifice me to her, +especially as the sacrifice costs you nothing--" + +"Stop! Will you force me in the name of common decency--" + +"But I'll not permit you to do it, do you hear?" continued Surface, his +face ablaze, his lower lip trembling and twitching, as it does sometimes +with the very old. "You need some discipline, my boy. Need some +discipline--and you shall have it. You will continue to live with me +exactly as you have heretofore, only henceforward I shall direct your +movements and endeavor to improve your manners." + +He swayed slightly where he stood, and Queed's tenseness suddenly +relaxed. Pity rose in his heart above furious resentment; he put out his +hand and touched the old man's arm. + +"Control yourself," he said in an iron voice. "Come--I will help you to +bed before I go." + +Surface shook himself free, and laughed unpleasantly. "Go! Didn't you +hear me tell you that you were not going? Who do you think I am that you +can flout and browbeat and threaten--" + +"Come! Let us go up to bed--" + +"Who do you think I am!" repeated Surface, bringing his twitching face +nearer, his voice breaking to sudden shrillness. "Who do you think I am, +I say?" + +Queed thought the old man had gone off his head, and indeed he looked +it. He began soothingly: "You are--" + +"I'm your father! Your _father_, do you hear!" cried Surface. "_You're +my son--Henry G. Surface, Jr.!_" + +This time, Queed, looking with a wild sudden terror into the flaming +eyes, knew that he heard the truth from Surface at last. The revelation +broke upon him in a stunning flash. He sprang away from the old man with +a movement of loathing unspeakable. + +"Father!" he said, in a dull curious whisper. "_O God! Father!_" + +Surface gazed at him, his upper lip drawn up into his old purring sneer. + +"So that is how you feel about it, my son?" he inquired suavely, and +suddenly crumpled down upon the floor. + + * * * * * + +The young man shook him by the shoulder, but he did not stir. Henderson +came running at the sound of the fall, and together they bore the old +man, breathing, but inert as the dead, to his room. In an hour, the +doctor had come and gone. In two hours, a trained nurse was sitting by +the bed as though she had been there always. The doctor called it a +"stroke," superinduced by a "shock." He said that Professor Nicolovius +might live for a week, or a year, but was hardly likely to speak again +on this side the dark river that runs round the world. + + + + +XXVII + + _Sharlee Weyland reads the Morning Post; of Rev. Mr. Dayne's Fight + at Ephesus and the Telephone Message that never came; of the + Editor's Comment upon the Assistant Editor's Resignation, which + perhaps lacked Clarity; and of how Eight Men elect a Mayor._ + + +Next morning, in the first moment she had, Sharlee Weyland read the +Post's editorial on the reformatory. And as she read she felt as though +the skies had fallen, and the friendly earth suddenly risen up and +smitten her. + +It was a rainy morning, the steady downpour of the night before turned +into a fine drizzle; and Sharlee, who nearly always walked, took the car +downtown. She was late this morning; there had been but flying minutes +she could give to breakfast; not a second to give to anything else; and +therefore she took the Post with her to read on the ride to "the" +office. And, seating herself, she turned immediately to the editorial +page, in which the State Department of Charities felt an especial +interest this morning. + +Both the name and the position of the editorial were immediately +disappointing to her. It was not in the leading place, and its caption +was simply "As to the Reformatory," which seemed to her too colorless +and weak. Subconsciously, she passed the same judgment upon the opening +sentences of the text, which somehow failed to ring out that challenge +to the obstructionists she had confidently expected. As she read +further, her vague disappointment gave way to a sudden breathless +incredulity; that to a heartsick rigidity of attention; and when she +went back, and began to read the whole article over, slowly and +carefully, from the beginning, her face was about the color of the +pretty white collar she wore. For what she was looking on at was, so it +seemed to her, not simply the killing of the chief ambition of her two +years' work, but the treacherous murder of it in the house of its +friends. + +As she reread "As to the Reformatory," she became impressed by its +audacious cleverness. It would have been impossible to manage a +tremendous shift in position with more consummate dexterity. Indeed, she +was almost ready to take the _Post's_ word for it that no shift at all +had been made. From beginning to end the paper's unshakable loyalty to +the reformatory was everywhere insisted upon; that was the strong +keynote; the ruinous qualifications were slipped in, as it were, +reluctantly, hard-wrung concessions to indisputable and overwhelming +evidence. But there they were, scarcely noticeable to the casual reader, +perhaps, but to passionate partisans sticking up like palm-trees on a +plain. In a backhanded, sinuous but unmistakable way, the _Post_ was +telling the legislature that it had better postpone the reformatory for +another two years. It was difficult to say just what phrase or phrases +finally pushed the odious idea out into the light; but Sharlee lingered +longest on a passage which, after referring to the "list of inescapable +expenditures published elsewhere," said: + + Immediacy, of course, was never the great question; but it was a + question; and the _Post_ has therefore watched with keen regret the + rolling up of absolutely unavoidable expenses to the point where + the spending of another dollar for any cause, however meritorious + in itself, must be regarded as of dubious wisdom. + +That sentence was enough. It would be as good as a volume to the +powerful opposition in the House, hardly repressed heretofore by the +_Post's_ thunders. The reformatory, which they had labored for so long, +was dead. + +The thought was bitter to the young assistant secretary. But from the +first, her mind had jumped beyond it, to fasten on another and, to her, +far worse one, a burning personal question by the side of which the loss +of the reformatory seemed for the moment an unimportant detail. + +_Which of the two men had done it?_ + +Rev. Mr. Dayne was sitting bowed over his desk, his strong head clamped +in his hands, the morning Post crumpled on the floor beside him. He did +not look up when his assistant entered the office; his response to her +"Good-morning" was of the briefest. Sharlee understood. It was only the +corporeal husk of her friend that was seated at the desk. All the rest +of him was down at Ephesus fighting with the beasts, and grimly resolved +to give no sign from the arena till he had set his foot upon their necks +for the glory of God and the honor of his cloth. + +Sharlee herself did not feel conversational. In silence she took off her +things, and, going over to her own desk, began opening the mail. In an +hour, maybe more, maybe less, the Secretary stood at her side, his kind +face calm as ever. + +"Well," he said quietly, "how do you explain it?" + +Sharlee's eyes offered him bay-leaves for his victory. + +"There is a suggestion about it," said she, still rather white, "of +thirty pieces of silver." + +"Oh! We can hardly say that. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt, +as long as there can be any doubt. Let us view it for the present as a +death-bed repentance." + +Him? Which did he mean? + +"No," said Sharlee, "it is not possible to view it that way. The _Post_ +has been as familiar with the arguments all along, from beginning to +end, as you or I. It could not be honestly converted any more than you +could. This," said she, struggling to speak calmly, "is treachery." + +"Appearances, I am sorry to say, are much that way. Still--I think we +should not condemn the paper unheard." + +"Then why not have the hearing at once? An explanation is--" + +"I shall seek none," interrupted Mr. Dayne, quietly. "The _Post_ must +volunteer it, if it has any to offer. Of course," he went on, "we know +nothing of the history of that editorial now. Of one thing, however, I +feel absolutely certain; that is, that it was published without the +knowledge of Mr. West. Developments may follow.... As for instance a +shake-up in the staff." + +That settled it. This good man whom she admired so much had not +entertained a doubt that the editorial was from the brain and pen of Mr. +Queed. + +She said painfully: "As to the effect upon the--the reformatory--" + +"It is killed," said Mr. Dayne, and went away to his desk. + +Sharlee turned in her desk-chair and looked out of the rain-blurred +windows. + +Through and beyond the trees of the park, over ridges of roofs and away +to the west and north, she saw the weatherbeaten _Post_ building, its +distant gray tower cutting mistily out of the dreary sky. From where she +sat she could just pick out, as she had so often noticed before, the +tops of the fifth-floor row of windows, the windows from which the +_Post's_ editorial department looked out upon a world with which it +could not keep faith. Behind one of those windows at this moment, in all +likelihood, sat the false friend who had cut down the reformatory from +behind. + +Which was it? Oh, was not Mr. Dayne right, as he always was? Where was +there any room for doubt? + +Long before Sharlee knew Charles Gardiner West personally, when she was +a little girl and he just out of college, she had known him by report as +a young man of fine ideals, exalted character, the very pattern of +stainless honor. Her later intimate knowledge of him, she told herself, +had fully borne out the common reputation. Wherever she had touched him, +she had found him generous and sound and sweet. That he was capable of +what seemed to her the baldest and basest treachery was simply +unthinkable. And what reason was there ever to drag his name into her +thought of the affair at all? Was it not Mr. Queed who had written all +the reformatory articles since Colonel Cowles's death--Mr. Queed who had +promised only twenty-four hours ago to do his utmost for the cause at +the critical moment to-day? + +And yet ... and yet ... her mind clung desperately to the thought that +possibly the assistant editor had not done this thing, after all. The +memory of his visit to her, less than a week ago, was very vivid in her +mind. What sort of world was it that a man with a face of such shining +honesty could stoop to such shabby dishonesty?--that a man who had +looked at her as he had looked at her that night, could turn again and +strike her such a blow? That Queed should have done this seemed as +inconceivable as that West should have done it. There was the wild +hundredth chance that neither had done it, that the article had been +written by somebody else and published by mistake. + +But the hope hardly fluttered its wings before her reason struck it +dead. No, there was no way out there. The fact was too plain that one of +her two good friends, under what pressure she could not guess, had +consented to commit dishonor and, by the same stroke, to wound her so +deeply. For no honest explanation was possible; there was no argument in +the case to-day that was not equally potent a month ago. It was all a +story of cajolery or intimidation from the formidable opposition, and of +mean yielding in the places of responsibility. And--yes--She felt it as +bad for one of her two friends to be so stained as another. It had come +to that. At last she must admit that they stood upon level ground in her +imagination, the nameless little Doctor of two years back side by side +with the beau ideal of all her girlhood. One's honor was as dear to her +as another's; one's friendship as sweet; and now one of them was her +friend no more. + +And it was not West whom she must cast out. There was no peg anywhere to +hang even the smallest suspicion of him upon. She scourged her mind for +seeking one. It was Queed who, at the pinch, had broken down and +betrayed them with a kiss: Queed, of the obscure parentage, dubious +inheritance, and omitted upbringing; Queed, whom she had first stood +upon his feet and started forward in a world of men, had helped and +counseled and guided, had admitted to her acquaintance, her +friendship--for this. + +But because Sharlee had known Queed well as a man who loved truth, +because the very thing that she had seen and most admired in him from +the beginning was an unflinching honesty of intellect and character, +because of the remembrance of his face as she had last seen it: a tiny +corner of her mind, in defiance of all reason, revolted against this +condemnation and refused to shut tight against him. All morning she sat +at her work, torn by anxiety, hoping every moment that her telephone +might ring with some unthought-of explanation, which would leave her +with nothing worse upon her mind than the dead reformatory. But though +the telephone rang often, it was never for this. + + * * * * * + +Sitting in a corner of the House gallery, about noon, Mr. Dayne saw the +reformatory bill, which he himself had written, called up out of order +and snowed under. The only speech was made by the Solon who had the bill +called up, a familiar organization wheelhorse, named Meachy T. Bangor, +who quoted with unconcealed triumph from the morning's _Post_, wholly +ignoring all the careful safeguards and tearing out of the context only +such portions as suited his humor and his need. Mr. Bangor pointed out +that, inasmuch as the "acknowledged organ" of the State Department of +Charities now at length "confessed" that the reformatory had better wait +two years, there were no longer two sides to the question. Many of the +gentleman's hearers appeared to agree with him. They rose and fell upon +the bill, and massacred it by a vote of 54 to 32. + +From "Sis" Hopkins, legislative reporter of the _Post_, the news went +skipping over the telephone wire to the editorial rooms, where the +assistant editor, who received it, remarked that he was sorry to hear +it. That done, the assistant hung up the receiver, and resumed work upon +an article entitled "A Constitution for Turkey?" He had hardly added a +sentence to this composition before West came in and, with a cheery word +of greeting, passed into his own office. + +The assistant editor went on with his writing. He looked worn this +morning, Henry Surface's son, and not without reason. Half the night he +had shared the nurse's vigil at the bedside of Surface, who lay in +unbroken stupor. Half the night he had maintained an individual vigil in +his own room, lying flat on his back and staring wide-eyed into the +darkness. And on the heels of the day, there had come new trouble for +him, real trouble, though in the general cataclysm its full bearings and +farther reaches did not at once come home to him. Running professionally +through the _Post_ at breakfast-time, his eye, like Miss Weyland's, had +been suddenly riveted by that paper's remarks upon the reformatory.... +What was the meaning of the staggering performance he had no idea, and +need not inquire. Its immediate effect upon his own career was at least +too plain for argument. His editorship and his reformatory had gone down +together. + +Yet he was in no hurry now about following West into his sanctum. Of all +things Queed, as people called him, despised heroics and abhorred a +"scene." Nothing could be gained by a quarrel now; very earnestly he +desired the interview to be as matter-of-fact as possible. In half an +hour, when he had come to a convenient stopping-place, he opened the +door and stood uncomfortably before the young man he had so long +admired. + +West, sitting behind his long table, skimming busily through the paper +with blue pencil and scissors, looked up with his agreeable smile. + +"Well! What do you see that looks likely for--What's the matter? Are you +sick to-day?" + +"No, I am quite well, thank you. I find very little in the news, though. +You notice that a digest of the railroad bill is given out?" + +"Yes. You don't look a bit well, old fellow. You must take a holiday +after the legislature goes. Yes, I'm going to take the hide off that +bill. Or better yet--you. Don't you feel like shooting off some big guns +at it?" + +"Certainly, if you want me to. There is the farmers' convention, too. +And by the way, I'd like to leave as soon as you can fill my place." + +West dropped scissors, pencil, and paper and stared at him with dismayed +amazement. "_Leave!_ Why, you are never thinking of _leaving_ me!" + +"Yes. I'd--like to leave. I thought I ought to tell you this morning, so +that you can at once make your plans as to my successor." + +"But my dear fellow! I can't let you _leave me!_ You've no idea how I +value your assistance, how I've come to lean and depend upon you at +every point. I never dreamed you were thinking of this. What's the +matter? What have you got on your mind?" + +"I think," said Queed, unhappily, "that I should be better satisfied off +the paper than on it." + +"Why, confound you--it's the money!" said West, with a sudden relieved +laugh. "Why didn't you tell me, old fellow? You're worth five times what +they're paying you--five times as much as I am for that matter--and I +can make the directors see it. Trust me to make them raise you to my +salary at the next meeting." + +"Thank you--but no, my salary is quite satisfactory." + +West frowned off into space, looking utterly bewildered. "Of course," he +said in a troubled voice, "you have a perfect right to resign without +saying a word. I haven't the smallest right to press you for an +explanation against your will. But--good Lord! Here we've worked +together side by side, day after day, for nearly a year, pretty good +friends, as I thought, and--well, it hurts a little to have you put on +your hat and walk out without a word. I wish you would tell me what's +wrong. There's nothing I wouldn't do, if I could, to fix it and keep +you." + +The eyes of the two men met across the table, and it was Queed's that +faltered and fell. + +"Well," he said, obviously embarrassed, "I find that I am out of +sympathy with the policy of the paper." + +"Oh-h-ho!" said West, slowly and dubiously. "Do you mean my article on +the reformatory?" + +"Yes--I do." + +"Why, my dear fellow!" + +West paused, his handsome eyes clouded, considering how best he might +put the matter to overcome most surely the singular scruples of his +assistant. + +"Let's take it this way, old fellow. Suppose that my standpoint in that +article was diametrically wrong. I am sure I could convince you that it +was not, but admit, for argument's sake, that it was. Do you feel that +the appearance in the paper of an article with which you don't agree +makes it necessary for you, in honor, to resign?" + +"No, certainly not--" + +"Is it that you don't like my turning down one of your articles and +printing one of my own instead? I didn't know you objected to that, old +fellow. You see--while your judgment is probably a hanged sight better +than mine, after all I am the man who is held responsible, and I am paid +a salary to see that my opinions become the opinions of the _Post_." + +"It is entirely right that your opinions--" + +"Then wherein have I offended? Be frank with me, like a good fellow, I +beg you!" + +Queed eyed him strangely. Was the editor's inner vision really so +curiously astigmatic? + +"I look at it this way," he said, in a slow, controlled voice. "The +_Post_ has said again and again that _this_ legislature must establish a +reformatory. That was the burden of a long series of editorials, running +back over a year, which, as I thought, had your entire approval. Now, at +the critical moment, when it was only necessary to say once more what +had been said a hundred times before, the _Post_ suddenly turns about +and, in effect, authorizes this legislature not to establish the +reformatory. The House killed the bill just now. Bangor quoted from the +_Post_ editorial. There can be no doubt, of course, that it turned a +number of votes--enough to have safely carried the bill." + +West looked disturbed and unhappy. + +"But if we find out that this legislature is so drained by inescapable +expenses that it simply cannot provide the money? Suppose the State +had been swept by a plague? Suppose there was a war and a million of +unexpected expenses had suddenly dropped on us from the clouds? Wouldn't +you agree that circumstances altered cases, and that, under such +circumstances, everything that was not indispensable to the State's +existence would have to go over?" + +Queed felt like answering West's pepper-fire of casuistry by throwing +Eva Bernheimer at his head. Despite his determination to avoid a +"scene," he felt his bottled-up indignation rising. A light showed in +his stone-gray eyes. + +"Can't you really see that these circumstances are not in the least like +those? Did you do me the courtesy to read what I wrote about this +so-called 'economy argument' last night?" + +"Certainly," said West, surprised by the other's tone. "But clever as it +was, it was not based, in my opinion, on a clear understanding of the +facts as they actually exist. You and I stay so close inside of four +walls here that we are apt to get out of touch with practical +conditions. Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get new facts, from a +confidential and highly authoritative source. In the light of these--I +wish I could explain them more fully to you, but I was pledged to +secrecy--I am obliged to tell you that what you had written seemed to me +altogether out of focus, unfair, and extreme." + +"Did you get these facts, as you call them, from Plonny Neal?" + +"As to that, I am at liberty to say nothing." + +Queed, looking at him, saw that he had. He began to feel sorry for West. + +"I would give four hundred and fifty dollars," he said slowly--"all the +money that I happen to have--if you had told me last night that you +meant to do this." + +"I am awfully sorry," said West, with a touch of dignity, "that you take +it so hard. But I assure you--" + +"I know Plonny Neal even better than you do," continued Queed, "for I +have known him as his social equal. He is laughing at you to-day." + +West, of course, knew better than that. The remark confirmed his belief +that Queed had brooded over the reformatory till he saw everything about +it distorted and magnified. + +"Well, old fellow," he said, without a trace of ill-humor in his voice +or his manner, "then it is I he is laughing at--not you. That brings us +right back to my point. If you feel, as I understand it, that the _Post_ +is in the position of having deserted its own cause, I alone am the +deserter. Don't you see that? Not only am I the editor of the paper, and +so responsible for all that it says; but I wrote the article, on my own +best information and judgment. Whatever consequences there are," said +West, his thoughts on the consequences most likely to accrue to the +saviour of the party, "I assume them all." + +"A few people," said Queed, slowly, "know that I have been conducting +this fight for the _Post_. They may not understand that I was suddenly +superseded this morning. But of course it isn't that. It is simply a +matter--" + +"Believe me, it can all be made right. I shall take the greatest +pleasure in explaining to your friends that I alone am responsible. I +shall call to-day--right now--at--" + +"I'm sorry," said Queed, abruptly, "but it is entirely impossible for me +to remain." + +West looked, and felt, genuinely distressed. "I wish," he said, "the old +reformatory had never been born"; and he went on in a resigned voice: +"Of course I can't keep you with a padlock and chain, but--for the life +of me, I can't catch your point of view. To my mind it appears the +honorable and courageous thing to correct a mistake, even at the last +moment, rather than stand by it for appearance's sake." + +"You see I don't regard our principles as a mistake." + +But he went back to his office marveling at himself for the ease with +which West had put him in the wrong. + +For friendship's sake, West had meant to call at the Charities +Department that day, and explain to his two friends there how his sense +of responsibility to the larger good had made it necessary for him to +inflict a momentary disappointment upon them. But this disturbing +interview with his assistant left him not so sure that an immediate call +would be desirable, after all. At the moment, both Dayne and the dearest +girl in the world would naturally be feeling vexed over the failure of +their plan; wouldn't it be the sensible and considerate thing to give +them a little time to conquer their pique and compose themselves to see +facts as they were? + +The _Chronicle_ that afternoon finally convinced him that this would be +the considerate thing. That offensive little busybody, which pretended +to have been a champion of "this people's institution" came out with a +nasty editorial, entitled "The _Post's_ Latest Flop." "Flop" appeared to +be an intensely popular word in the _Chronicle_ office. The article +boldly taxed "our more or less esteemed contemporary" with the murder of +the reformatory, and showed unpleasant freedom in employing such phrases +as "instantaneous conversion," "treacherous friendship," "disgusting +somersaulting," and the like. Next day, grown still more audacious, it +had the hardihood to refer to the _Post_ as "The Plonny Neal organ." + +Now, of course, the reformatory had not been in any sense a burning +public "issue." Measures like this, being solid and really important, +seldom interest the people. There was not the smallest popular +excitement over the legislature's conduct, or the _Post's_. The +_Chronicle's_ venomous remarks were dismissed as the usual "newspaper +scrap." All this West understood perfectly. Still, it was plain that a +few enthusiasts, reformatory fanatics, were taking the first flush of +disappointment rather hard. For himself, West reflected, he cared +nothing about their clamor. Conscious of having performed an +unparalleled service to his party, and thus to his State, he was willing +to stand for a time the indignation of the ignorant, the obloquy of the +malicious, even revolt and disloyalty among his own lieutenants. One +day the truth about his disinterested patriotism would become known. For +the present he would sit silent, calmly waiting at least until unjust +resentment subsided and reason reasserted her sway. + +Many days passed, as it happened, before West and the Secretary of +Charities met; six days before West and the Assistant Secretary met. On +the sixth night, about half-past seven in the evening, he came +unexpectedly face to face with Sharlee Weyland in the vestibule of Mrs. +Byrd, Senior's, handsome house. In the days intervening, Sharlee's state +of mind had remained very much where it was on the first morning: only +now the tiny open corner of her mind had shrunk to imperceptible +dimensions. Of West she entertained not the smallest doubt; and she +greeted him like the excellent friend she knew him to be. + +There was a little dinner-dance at Mrs. Byrd's, for the season's +_débutantes_. It became remembered as one of the most charming of all +her charming parties. To the buds were added a sprinkling of older girls +who had survived as the fittest, while among the swains a splendid +catholicity as to age prevailed. A retinue of imported men, Caucasian at +that, served dinner at six small tables, six at a table; the viands were +fashioned to tickle tired epicures; there was vintage champagne such as +kings quaff to pledge the comity of nations; Wissner's little band of +artists, known to command its own price, divinely mingled melody with +the rose-sweetness of the air. West, having dined beautifully, and +lingered over coffee in the smoking-room among the last, emerged to find +the polished floors crowded with an influx of new guests, come to +enliven the dance. His was, as ever, a Roman progress; he stopped and +was stopped everywhere; like a happy opportunist, he plucked the flowers +as they came under his hand, and gayly whirled from one measure to +another. So the glorious evening was half spent before, in an +intermission, he found himself facing Sharlee Weyland, who was +uncommonly well attended, imploring her hand for the approaching waltz. + +Without the smallest hesitation, Sharlee drew her ornamental pencil +through the next name on her list, and ordered her flowers and fan +transferred from the hands of Mr. Beverley Byrd to those of Mr. Charles +Gardiner West. + +"Only," said she, thinking of her partners, "you'll have to hide me +somewhere." + +With a masterful grace which others imitated, indeed, but could not +copy, West extricated his lady from her gallants, and led her away to a +pretty haven; not indeed, to a conservatory, since there was none, but +to a bewitching nook under the wide stairway, all banked about with palm +and fern and pretty flowering shrub. There they sat them down, unseeing +and unseen, near yet utterly remote, while in the blood of West beat the +intoxicating strains of Straus, not to mention the vintage champagne, to +which he had taken a very particular fancy. + +All night, while the roses heard the flute, violin, bassoon, none in all +the gay company had been gayer than Sharlee. Past many heads in the +dining-room, West had watched her, laughing, radiant, sparkling as the +wine itself, a pretty little lady of a joyous sweetness that never knew +a care. In the dance, for he had watched her there, too, wondering, as +she circled laughing by, whether she felt any lingering traces of pique +with him, she had been the same: no girl ever wore a merrier heart. But +a sudden change came now. In the friendly freedom of the green-banked +alcove, Sharlee's gayety dropped from her like a painted mask, which, +having amused the children, has done its full part. Against the back of +the cushioned settle where they sat she leaned a weary head, and frankly +let her fringed lids droop. + +At another time West might have been pleased by such candid evidences of +confidence and intimacy, but not to-night. He felt that Sharlee, having +advertised a delightful gayety by her manner, should now proceed to +deliver it: it certainly was not for tired sweetness and disconcerting +silences that he had sought this _tête-à-tête_. But at last his failure +to arouse her on indifferent topics became too marked to be passed +over; and then he said in a gentle voice:-- + +"Confess, Miss Weyland. You're as tired as you can be." + +She turned her head, and smiled a little into his eyes. "Yes--you don't +mind, do you?" + +"Indeed I do, though! You're going altogether too hard--working like a +Trojan all day and dancing like a dryad all night. You'll break yourself +down--indeed you will!" + +Hardly conscious of it herself, Sharlee had been waiting with a tense +anxiety of which her face began to give signs, for him to speak. And now +she understood that he would not speak; and she knew why.... How her +heart warmed to him for his honorable silence in defense of his unworthy +friend. + +But she herself was under no such restraint. "It isn't that," she said +quickly. "It's the reformatory--I've worried myself sick over it." + +West averted his gaze; he saw that it had come, and in a peculiarly +aggravated form. He recognized at once how impossible it would be to +talk the matter over, in a calm and rational way, under such conditions +as these. This little girl had brooded over it till the incident had +assumed grotesque and fantastic proportions in her mind. She was seeing +visions, having nightmares. In a soothing, sympathetic voice, he began +consoling her with the thought that a postponement for two brief years +was really not so serious, and that-- + +"It isn't that!" she corrected him again, in the same voice. "That was +pretty bad, but--what I have minded so much was M---- was the _Post's_ +desertion." + +West's troubled eyes fell. But some hovering imp of darkness instantly +popped it into his head to ask: "Have you seen Queed?" + +"No," said Sharlee, colorlessly. "Not since--" + +"You--didn't know, then, that he has left the _Post?_" + +"Left the _Post!_" she echoed, with a face suddenly rigid. "No! Did he? +Won't you tell me--?" + +West looked unhappily at the floor. "Well--I'd much rather not go into +this now. But the fact is that he left because ... well, we had a +difference of opinion as to that reformatory article." + +Sharlee turned hastily away, pretending to look for her fan. The sudden +shutting of that tiny door had shot her through with unexpected pain. +The last doubt fell now; all was plain. Mr. Queed had been discharged +for writing an article which outraged his chief's sense of honor, that +knightly young chief who still would not betray him by a word. The +little door clicked; Sharlee turned the key upon it and threw away the +key. And then she turned upon West a face so luminous with pure trust +that it all but unsteadied him. + +To do West justice, it was not until his words had started caroming down +the eternal halls of time, that their possible implication dawned upon +him. His vague idea had been merely to give a non-committal summary of +the situation to ease the present moment; this to be followed, at a more +suitable time, by the calm and rational explanation he had always +intended. But the magical effect of his chance words, entirely +unexpected by him, was quite too delightful to be wiped out. To erase +that look from the tired little lady's face by labored exposition and +tedious statistic would be the height of clumsy unkindness. She had been +unhappy; he had made her happy; that was all that was vital just now. At +a later time, when she had stopped brooding over the thing and could see +and discuss it intelligently, he would take her quietly and straighten +the whole matter out for her. + +For this present, there was a look in her eyes which made a trip-hammer +of his heart. Never had her face--less of the mere pretty young girl's +than he had ever seen it, somewhat worn beneath its color, a little +wistful under her smile--seemed to him so immeasurably sweet. In his +blood Straus and the famous Verzenay plied their dizzying vocations. +Suddenly he leaned forward, seeing nothing but two wonderful blue eyes, +and his hand fell upon hers, with a grip which claimed her out of all +the world. + +"Sharlee" he said hoarsely. "Don't you know that--" + +But he was, alas, summarily checked. At just that minute, outraged +partners of Miss Weyland's espied and descended upon them with loud +reproachful cries, and Charles Gardiner West's moment of superb +impetuosity had flowered in nothing. + + * * * * * + +At a little earlier hour on the same evening, in a dining-room a mile +away, eight men met "without political significance" to elect a new set +of officers for the city. A bit of red-tape legislation permitted the +people to ratify the choices at a "primary," to be held some months +later; but the election came now. Unanimously, and with little or no +discussion, the eight men elected one of their own number, Mr. Meachy T. +Bangor by name, to the office of Mayor of the City. + +One of them then referred humorously to Mr. Bangor as just the sort of +progressive young reformer that suited _him_. Another suggested, more +seriously, that they might have to allow for the genuine article some +day. Plonny Neal, who sat at the head of the table, as being the wisest +of them, said that the organization certainly must expect to knuckle to +reform some day; perhaps in eight years, perhaps in twelve years, +perhaps in sixteen. + +"Got your young feller all picked out, Plonny?" queried the Mayor elect, +Mr. Bangor, with a wink around the room. + +Plonny denied that he had any candidate. Under pressure, however, he +admitted having his eye on a certain youth, a "dark horse" who was +little known at present, but who, in his humble judgment, was a coming +man. Plonny said that this man was very young just now, but would be +plenty old enough before they would have need of him. + +Mr. Bangor once more winked at the six. "Why, Plonny, I thought you were +rooting for Charles Gardenia West." + +"Then there's two of ye," said Plonny, dryly, "he being the other one." + +He removed his unlighted cigar, and spat loudly into a tall brass +cuspidor, which he had taken the precaution to place for just such +emergencies. + +"Meachy," said Plonny, slowly, "I wouldn't give the job of dog-catcher +to a man you couldn't trust to stand by his friends." + + + + +XXVIII + + _How Words can be like Blows, and Blue Eyes stab deep; how Queed + sits by a Bedside and reviews his Life; and how a Thought leaps at + him and will not down._ + + +In the first crushing burst of revelation, Queed had had a wild impulse +to wash his hands of everything, and fly. He would pack Surface off to a +hospital; dispose of the house; escape back to Mrs. Paynter's; forget +his terrible knowledge, and finally bury it with Surface. His reason +fortified the impulse at every point. He owed less than nothing to his +father; he had not the slightest responsibility either toward him or for +him; to acknowledge the relation between them would do no conceivable +good to anybody. He would go back to the Scriptorium, and all would be +as it had been before. + +But when the moment came either to go or to stay, another and deeper +impulse rose against this one, and beat it down. Within him a voice +whispered that though he might go back to the Scriptorium, he would +never be as he had been before. Whether he acknowledged the relation or +not, it was still there. And, in time, his reason brought forth material +to fortify this impulse, too: it came out in brief, grim sentences which +burned themselves into his mind. Surface was his father. To deny the +primal blood-tie was not honorable. The sins of the fathers descended to +the children. To suppress Truth was the crowning blasphemy. + +Queed did not go. He stayed, resolved, after a violent struggle--it was +all over in the first hour of his discovery--to bear his burden, +shouldering everything that his sonship involved. + +By day and by night the little house stood very quiet. Its secret +remained inviolate; the young man was still Mr. Queed, the old one +still Professor Nicolovius, who had suffered the last of his troublesome +"strokes." Inside the darkened windows, life moved on silent heels. The +doctor came, did nothing, and went. The nurse did nothing but stayed. +Queed would have dismissed her at once, except that that would have been +bad economy; he must keep his own more valuable time free for the +earning of every possible penny. To run the house, he had, for the +present, his four hundred and fifty dollars in bank, saved out of his +salary. This, he figured, would last nine weeks. Possibly Surface would +last longer than that: that remained to be seen. + +Late on a March afternoon, Queed finished a review article--his second +since he had left the newspaper, four days before--and took it himself +to the post-office. He wanted to catch the night mail for the North; and +besides his body, jaded by two days' confinement, cried aloud for a +little exercise. His fervent desire was to rush out all the articles +that were in him, and get money for them back with all possible speed. +But he knew that the market for this work was limited. He must find +other work immediately; he did not care greatly what kind it was, +provided only that it was profitable. Thoughts of ways and means, mostly +hard thoughts, occupied his mind all the way downtown. And always it +grew plainer to him how much he was going to miss, now of all times, his +eighteen hundred a year from the _Post_. + +In the narrowest corridor of the post-office--like West in the Byrds' +vestibule--he came suddenly face to face with Sharlee Weyland. + +The meeting was unwelcome to them both, and both their faces showed it. +Sharlee had told herself, a thousand times in a week, that she never +wanted to see Mr. Queed again. Queed had known, without telling himself +at all, that he did not want to see Miss Weyland, not, at least, till he +had more time to think. But Queed's dread of seeing the girl had nothing +to do with what was uppermost in her mind--the _Post's_ treacherous +editorial. Of course, West had long since made that right as he had +promised, as he would have done with no promising. But--ought he to +tell her now, or to wait?... And what would she say when she knew the +whole shameful truth about him--knew that for nearly a year Surface +Senior and Surface Junior, shifty father and hoodwinked son, had been +living fatly on the salvage of her own plundered fortune? + +She would have passed him with a bow, but Queed, more awkward than she, +involuntarily halted. The dingy gas-light, which happened to be behind +him, fell full upon her face, and he said at once:-- + +"How do you do?--not very well, I fear. You look quite used up--not well +at all." + +Pride raised a red flag in her cheek. She lifted a great muff to her +lips, and gave a little laugh. + +"Thank you. I am quite well." + +Continuing to gaze at her, he went ahead with customary directness: +"Then I am afraid you have been taking--the reformatory too hard." + +"No, not the reformatory. It is something worse than that. I had a +friend once," said Sharlee, muff to her lips, and her level eyes, upon +him, "and he was not worthy." + +To follow out that thought was impossible, but Queed felt very sorry for +West when he saw how she said it. + +"I'm sorry that you should have had this--to distress you. However--" + +"Isn't it rather late to think of that now? As to saying it--I should +have thought that you would tell me of your sorrow immediately--or not +at all." + +A long look passed between them. Down the corridor, on both sides of +them, flowed a stream of people bent upon mails; but these two were +alone in the world. + +"Have you seen West?" asked Queed, in a voice unlike his own. + +She made a little movement of irrepressible distaste. + +"Yes.... But you must not think that he told me. He is too kind, too +honorable to betray his friend." + +He stared at her, reft of the power of speech. + +From under the wide hat, the blue eyes seemed to leap out and stab him; +they lingered, turning the knife, while their owner appeared to be +waiting for him to speak; and then with a final twist, they were pulled +away, and Queed found himself alone in the corridor. + +He dropped his long envelope in the slot labeled _North_, and turned his +footsteps toward Duke of Gloucester Street again. + +Within him understanding had broken painfully into flame. Miss Weyland +believed that he was the author of the unforgivable editorial--_he_, who +had so gladly given, first the best abilities he had, and then his +position itself, to the cause of Eva Bernheimer. West had seen her, and +either through deliberate falseness or his characteristic fondness for +shying off from disagreeable subjects--Queed felt pretty sure it was the +latter--had failed to reveal the truth. West's motives did not matter in +the least. The terrible situation in which he himself had been placed +was all that mattered, and that he must straighten out at once. What +dumbness had seized his tongue just now he could not imagine. But it was +plain that, however much he would have preferred not to see the girl at +all, this meeting had made another one immediately necessary: he must +see her at once, to-night, and clear himself wholly of this cruel +suspicion. And yet ... he could never clear himself of her _having_ +suspected him; he understood that, and it seemed to him a terrible +thing. No matter how humble her contrition, how abject her apologies, +nothing could ever get back of what was written, or change the fact that +she had believed him capable of that. + +The young man pursued his thoughts over three miles of city streets, and +returned to the house of Surface. + +The hour was 6.30. He took the nurse's seat by the bedside of his father +and sent her away to her dinner. + +There was a single gas-light in the sick-room, turned just high enough +for the nurse to read her novels. The old man lay like a log, though +breathing heavily; under the flickering light, his face looked ghastly. +It had gone all to pieces; advanced old age had taken possession of it +in a night. Moreover the truth about the auburn mustaches and goatee was +coming out in snowy splotches; the fading dye showed a mottle of red and +white not agreeable to the eye. Here was not merely senility, but +ignoble and repulsive senility. + +His father!... his _father!_ O God! How much better to have sprung, as +he once believed, from the honest loins of Tim Queed! + +The young man averted his eyes from the detestable face of his father, +and let his thoughts turn inward upon himself. For the first time in all +his years, he found himself able to trace his own life back to its +source, as other men do. A flying trip to New York, and two hours with +Tim Queed, had answered all questions, cleared up all doubts. First of +all, it had satisfied him that there was no stain upon his birth. +Surface's second marriage had been clandestine, but it was genuine; in +Newark the young man found the old clergyman who had officiated at the +ceremony. His mother, it seemed, had been Miss Floretta May Earle, a +"handsome young opery singer," of a group, so Tim said, to which the +gentleman, his father, had been very fond of giving his "riskay little +bacheldore parties." + +Tim's story, in fact, was comprehensive at all points. He had been Mr. +Surface's coachman and favorite servant in the heyday of the Southern +apostate's metropolitan glories. About a year before the final +catastrophe, Surface's affairs being then in a shaky condition, the +servants had been dismissed, the handsome house sold, and the financier, +in a desperate effort to save himself, had moved off somewhere to modest +quarters in a side street. That was the last Tim heard of his old +patron, till the papers printed the staggering news of his arrest. A few +weeks later, Tim one day received a message bidding him come to see his +former master in the Tombs. + +The disgraced capitalist's trial was then in its early stages, but he +entertained not the smallest hope of acquittal. Broken and embittered, +he confided to his faithful servant that, soon after the break-up of +his establishment, he had quietly married a wife; that some weeks +earlier she had presented him with a son; and that she now lay at the +point of death with but remote chances of recovery. To supply her with +money was impossible, for his creditors, he said, had not only swooped +down like buzzards upon the remnant of his fortune, but were now +watching his every move under the suspicion that he had managed to keep +something back. All his friends had deserted him as though he were a +leper, for his had been the unpardonable sin of being found out. In all +the world there was no equal of whom he was not too proud to ask a +favor. + +In short, he was about to depart for a long sojourn in prison, leaving +behind a motherless, friendless, and penniless infant son. Would Tim +take him and raise him as his own? + +While Tim hesitated over this amazing request, Surface leaned forward +and whispered a few words in his ear. He _had_ contrived to secrete a +little sum of money, a very small sum, but one which, well invested as +it was, would provide just enough for the boy's keep. Tim was to receive +twenty-five dollars monthly for his trouble and expense; Surface pledged +his honor as a gentleman that he would find a way to smuggle this sum to +him on the first of every month. Tim, being in straits at the time, +accepted with alacrity. No, he could not say that Mr. Surface had +exhibited any sorrow over the impending decease of his wife, or any +affectionate interest in his son. In fact the ruined man seemed to +regard the arrival of the little stranger--"the brat," as he called +him--with peculiar exasperation. Tim gathered that he never expected or +desired to see his son, whatever the future held, and that, having +arranged for food and shelter, he meant to wash his hands of the whole +transaction. The honest guardian's sole instructions were to keep mum as +the grave; to provide the necessaries of life as long as the boy was +dependent upon him; not to interfere with him in any way; but if he +left, always to keep an eye on him, and stand ready to produce him on +demand. To these things, and particularly to absolute secrecy, Tim was +sworn by the most awful of oaths; and so he and his master parted. A +week later a carriage was driven up to Tim's residence in the dead of +the night, and a small bundle of caterwauling humankind was transferred +from the one to the other. Such was the beginning of the life of young +Queed. The woman, his mother, had died a day or two before, and where +she had been buried Tim had no idea. + +So the years passed, while the Queeds watched with amazement the subtly +expanding verification of the adage that blood will tell. For Mr. +Surface, said Tim, had been a great scholard, and used to sit up to all +hours reading books that Thomason, the butler, couldn't make head nor +tail of; and so with Surface's boy. He was the strange duckling among +chickens who, with no guidance, straightway plumed himself for the seas +of printed knowledge. Time rolled on. When Surface was released from +prison, as the papers announced, there occurred not the smallest change +in the status of affairs; except that the monthly remittances now bore +the name of Nicolovius, and came from Chicago or some other city in the +west. More years passed; and at last, one day, after a lapse of nearly a +quarter of a century, the unexpected happened, as it really will +sometimes. Tim got a letter in a handwriting he knew well, instructing +him to call next day at such-and-such a time and place. + +Tim was not disobedient to the summons. He called; and found, instead of +the dashing young master he had once known, a soft and savage old man +whom he at first utterly failed to recognize. Surface paced the floor +and spoke his mind. It seemed that an irresistible impulse had led him +back to his old home city; that he had settled and taken work there; and +there meant to end his days. Under these circumstances, some deep-hidden +instinct--a whim, the old man called it--had put it into his head to +consider the claiming and final acknowledgment of his son. After all the +Ishmaelitish years of bitterness and wandering, Surface's blood, it +seemed, yearned for his blood. But under no circumstances, he told Tim, +would he acknowledge his son before his death, since that would involve +the surrender of his incognito; and not even then, so the old man swore, +unless he happened to be pleased with the youth--the son of his body +whom he had so utterly neglected through all these years. Therefore, his +plan was to have the boy where they would meet as strangers; where he +could have an opportunity to watch, weigh, and come to know him in the +most casual way; and thereafter to act as he saw fit. + +So there, in the shabby lodging-house, the little scheme was hatched +out. Surface undertook by his own means to draw his son, as the magnet +the particle of steel, to his city. Tim, to whom the matter was sure to +be broached, was to encourage the young man to go. But more than this: +it was to be Tim's diplomatic task to steer him to the house where +Surface, as Nicolovius, resided. Surface himself had suggested the +device by which this was to be done; merely that Tim, mentioning the +difficulties of the boarding-house question in a strange city, was to +recall that through the lucky chance of having a cousin in this +particular city, he knew of just the place: a house where accommodations +were of the best, particularly for those who liked quiet for studious +work, and prices ridiculously low. The little stratagem worked +admirably. The address which Tim gave young Surface was the address of +Mrs. Paynter's, where Surface Senior had lived for nearly three years. +And so the young man had gone to his father, straight as a homing +pigeon. + +How strange, how strange to look back on all this now! + +Half reclining in the nurse's chair, unseeing eyes on the shaded and +shuttered window, for the fiftieth time Queed let his mind go back over +his days at Mrs. Paynter's, reading them all anew in the light of his +staggering knowledge. With three communications of the most fragmentary +sort, his father had had his full will of his son. With six typewritten +lines, he had drawn the young man to his side at his own good pleasure. +Boarding-house gossip made it known that the son was in peril of +ejectment for non-payment of board, and a twenty-dollar bill had been +promptly transmitted--at some risk of discovery--to ease his stringency. +Last came the mysterious counsel to make friends and to like people, the +particular friends and people intended being consolidated, he could +understand now, in the person of old Nicolovius. And that message out of +the unknown had had its effect: Queed could see that now, at any rate. +His father clearly had been satisfied with the result; he appeared as +his father no more. Thenceforward he stalked his prey as +Nicolovius--with what consummate skill and success! + +Oh, but did he not have a clever father, a stealthy, cunning, merciless +father, soft-winged, foul-eyed, hungry-taloned, flitting noiselessly in +circles, that grew ever and ever narrower, sure, and unfaltering to the +final triumphant swoop! Or no--Rather a coiled and quiescent father, +horrible-eyed, lying in slimy rings at the foot of the tree, basilisk +gaze fixed upward, while the enthralled bird fluttered hopelessly down, +twig by twig, ever nearer and nearer. + +But no--his metaphors were very bad; he was sentimentalizing, +rhetorizing, a thing that he particularly abhorred. Not in any sense was +he the pitiful prey of his father, the hawk or the snake. Rather was he +glad that, after long doubt and perplexity, at last he knew. For that +was the passion of all his chaste life: to know the truth and to face it +without fear. + +Surface stirred slightly in his bed, and Queed, turning his eyes, let +them rest briefly on that repulsive face. _His father_!... And he must +wear that name and shoulder that infamy forevermore! + + * * * * * + +The nurse came back and relieved him of his vigil. He descended the +stairs to his solitary dinner. And as he went, and while he lingered +over food which he did not eat, his thoughts withdrew from his terrible +inheritance to centre anew on the fact that, within an hour, he was to +see Miss Weyland again. + +The prospect drew him while it even more strongly repelled. + +For a week he had hesitated, unable to convince himself that he was +justified in telling Miss Weyland at once the whole truth about himself, +his father, and her money. There was much on the side of delay. Surface +might die at any moment, and this would relieve his son from the +smallest reproach of betraying a confidence: the old man himself had +said that everything was to be made known when he died. On the other +hand Surface might get well, and if he did, he ought to be given a final +chance to make the restitution himself. Besides this, there was the +great uncertainty about the money. Queed had no idea how much it was, or +where it was, or whether or not, upon Surface's death, he himself was to +get it by bequest. But all through these doubts, passionately protesting +against them, had run his own insistent feeling that it was not right to +conceal the truth, even under such confused conditions--not, at least, +from the one person who was so clearly entitled to know it. This feeling +had reached a climax even before he met the girl this afternoon. Somehow +that meeting had served to precipitate his decision. After all, Surface +had had both his chance and his warning. + +That his sonship would make him detestable in Miss Weyland's sight was +highly probable, but he could not let the fear of that keep him silent. +His determination to tell her the essential facts had come now, at last, +as a kind of corollary to his instant necessity of straightening out the +reformatory situation. This latter necessity had dominated his thought +ever since the chance meeting in the post-office. And as his mind +explored the subject, it ramified, and grew more complicated and +oppressive with every step of the way. + +It gradually became plain to him that, in clearing himself of +responsibility for the _Post's_ editorial, he would have to put West in +a very unpleasant position. He would have to convict him, not only of +having written the perfidious article, but of having left another man +under the reproach of having written it. But no; it could not be said +that he was putting West in this position. West had put himself there. +It was he who had written the article, and it was he who had kept silent +about it. Every man must accept the responsibility for his own acts, or +the world would soon be at sixes and sevens. In telling Miss Weyland the +truth about the matter, as far as that went, he would be putting himself +in an unpleasant position. Nobody liked to see one man "telling on" +another. He did not like it himself, as he remembered, for instance, in +the case of young Brown in the Blaines College hazing affair. + +Queed sat alone in the candle-lit dining-room, thinking things out. A +brilliant idea came to him. He would telephone to West, explain the +situation to him, and ask him to set it right immediately. West, of +course, would do so. At the worst, he had only temporized with the +issue--perhaps had lost sight of it altogether--and he would be shocked +to learn of the consequences of his procrastination. He himself could +postpone his call on Miss Weyland till to-morrow, leaving West to go +to-night. Of course, however, nothing his former chief could do now +would change the fact that Miss Weyland herself had doubted him. + +Undoubtedly, the interview would be a painful one for West. How serious +an offense the girl considered the editorial had been plain in his own +brief conversation with her. And West would have to acknowledge, +further, that he had kept quiet about it for a week. Miss Weyland would +forgive West, of course, but he could never be the same to her again. He +would always have that spot. Queed himself felt that way about it. He +had admired West more than any man he ever knew, more even than Colonel +Cowles, but now he could never think very much of him again. He was +quite sure that Miss Weyland was like that, too. Thus the matter began +to grow very serious. For old Surface, who was always right about +people, had said that West was the man that Miss Weyland meant to marry. + +Very gradually, for the young man was still a slow analyst where people +were concerned, an irresistible conclusion was forced upon him. + +Miss Weyland would rather think that he had written the editorial than +to know that West had written it. + +The thought, when he finally reached it, leapt up at him, but he pushed +it away. However, it returned. It became like one of those swinging logs +which hunters hang in trees to catch bears: the harder he pushed it +away, the harder it swung back at him. + +He fully understood the persistence of this idea. It was the heart and +soul of the whole question. He himself was simply Miss Weyland's friend, +the least among many. If belief in his dishonesty had brought her +pain--and he had her word for that--it was a hurt that would quickly +pass. False friends are soon forgotten. But to West belonged the shining +pedestal in the innermost temple of her heart. It would go hard with the +little lady to find at the last moment this stain upon her lover's +honor. + +He had only to sit still and say nothing to make her happy. That was +plain. So the whole issue was shifted. It was not, as it had first +seemed, merely a matter between West and himself. The real issue was +between Miss Weyland and himself--between her happiness and his ... no, +not his happiness--his self-respect, his sense of justice, his honor, +his chaste passion for Truth, his ... yes, his happiness. + +Did he think most of Miss Weyland or of himself? That was what it all +came down to. Here was the new demand that his acknowledgment of a +personal life was making upon him, the supreme demand, it seemed, that +any man's personal life could ever make upon him. For if, on the day +when Nicolovius had suddenly revealed himself as Surface, he had been +asked to give himself bodily, he was now asked to give himself +spiritually--to give all that made him the man he was. + +From the stark alternative, once raised, there was no escape. Queed +closed with it, and together they went down into deep waters. + + + + +XXIX + + _In which Queed's Shoulders can bear One Man's Roguery and + Another's Dishonor, and of what these Fardels cost him: how for the + Second Time in his Life he stays out of Bed to think._ + + +Sharlee, sitting upstairs, took the card from the tray and, seeing the +name upon it, imperceptibly hesitated. But even while hesitating, she +rose and turned to her dressing-table mirror. + +"Very well. Say that I'll be down in a minute." + +She felt nervous, she did not know why; chilled at her hands and cold +within; she rubbed her cheeks vigorously with a handkerchief to restore +to them some of the color which had fled. There was a slightly pinched +look at the corners of her mouth, and she smiled at her reflection in +the glass, somewhat artificially and elaborately, until she had chased +it away. Undoubtedly she had been working too hard by day, and going too +hard by night; she must let up, stop burning the candle at both ends. +But she must see Mr. Queed, of course, to show him finally that no +explanation could explain now. It came into her mind that this was but +the third time he had ever been inside her house--the third, and it was +the last. + +He had been shown into the front parlor, the stiffer and less friendly +of the two rooms, and its effect of formality matched well with the +temper of their greeting. By the obvious stratagem of coming down with +book in one hand and some pretense at fancy-work in the other, Sharlee +avoided shaking hands with him. Having served their purpose, the small +burdens were laid aside upon the table. He had been standing, awaiting +her, in the shadows near the mantel; the chair that he chanced to drop +into stood almost under one of the yellow lamps; and when she saw his +face, she hardly repressed a start. For he seemed to have aged ten +years since he last sat in her parlor, and if she had thought his face +long ago as grave as a face could be, she now perceived her mistake. + +The moment they were seated he began, in his usual voice, and with +rather the air of having thought out in advance exactly what he was to +say. + +"I have come again, after all, to talk only of definite things. In fact, +I have something of much importance to tell you. May I ask that you will +consider it as confidential for the present?" + +At the very beginning she was disquieted by the discovery that his gaze +was steadier than her own. She was annoyingly conscious of looking away +from him, as she said:-- + +"I think you have no right to ask that of me." + +Surface's son smiled sadly. "It is not about--anything that you could +possibly guess. I have made a discovery of--a business nature, which +concerns you vitally." + +"A discovery?" + +"Yes. The circumstances are such that I do not feel that anybody should +know of it just yet, but you. However--" + +"I think you must leave me to decide, after hearing you--" + +"I believe I will. I am not in the least afraid to do so. Miss Weyland, +Henry G. Surface is alive." + +Her face showed how completely taken back she was by the introduction of +this topic, so utterly remote from the subject she had expected of him. + +"Not only that," continued Queed, evenly--"he is within reach. Both +he--and some property which he has--are within reach of the courts." + +"Oh! How do you know?... Where is he?" + +"For the present I am not free to answer those questions." + +There was a brief silence. Sharlee looked at the fire, the stirrings of +painful memories betrayed in her eyes. + +"We knew, of course, that he might be still alive," she said slowly. +"I--hope he is well and happy. But--we have no interest in him now. +That is all closed and done with. As for the courts--I am sure that he +has been punished already more than enough." + +"It is not a question of punishing him any more. You fail to catch my +meaning, it seems. It has come to my knowledge that he has some money, a +good deal of it--" + +"But you cannot have imagined that I would want his money?" + +"His money? He has none. It is all yours. That is why I am telling you +about it." + +"Oh, but that can't be possible. I don't understand." + +Sitting upright in his chair, as businesslike as an attorney, Queed +explained how Surface had managed to secrete part of the embezzled +trustee funds, and had been snugly living on it ever since his release +from prison. + +"The exact amount is, at present, mere guesswork. But I think it will +hardly fall below fifty thousand dollars, and it may run as high as a +hundred thousand. I learn that Mr. Surface thinks, or pretends to think, +that this money belongs to him. He is, needless to say, wholly mistaken. +I have taken the liberty of consulting a lawyer about it, of course +laying it before him as a hypothetical case. I am advised that when Mr. +Surface was put through bankruptcy, he must have made a false statement +in order to withhold this money. Therefore, that settlement counts for +nothing, except to make him punishable for perjury now. The money is +yours whenever you apply for it. That--" + +"Oh--but I shall not apply for it. I don't want it, you see." + +"It is not a question of whether you want it or not. It is yours--in +just the way that the furniture in this room is yours. You simply have +no right to evade it." + +Through all the agitation she felt in the sudden dragging out of this +long-buried subject, his air of dictatorial authority brought the blood +to her cheek. + +"I have a right to evade it, in the first place, and in the second, I am +not evading it at all. He took it; I let him keep it. That is the whole +situation. I don't want it--I couldn't touch it--" + +"Well, don't decide that now. There would be no harm, I suppose, in your +talking with your mother about it--even with some man in whose judgment +you have confidence. You will feel differently when you have had time to +think it over. Probably it--" + +"Thinking it over will make not the slightest difference in the way I +feel--" + +"Perhaps it would if you stopped thinking about it from a purely selfish +point of view. Other--" + +"_What_?" + +"I say," he repeated dryly, "that you should stop thinking of the matter +from a purely selfish point of view. Don't you know that that is what +you are doing? You are thinking only whether or not you, personally, +desire this money. Well, other people have an interest in the question +besides you. There is your mother, for example. Why not consider it from +her standpoint? Why not consider it from--well, from the standpoint of +Mr. Surface?" + +"Of Mr. Surface?" + +"Certainly. Suppose that in his old age he has become penitent, and +wants to do what he can to right the old wrong. Would you refuse him +absolution by declining to accept your own money?" + +"I think it will be time enough to decide that when Mr. Surface asks me +for absolution." + +"Undoubtedly. I have particularly asked, you remember, that you do not +make up your mind to anything now." + +"But you," said she, looking at him steadily enough now--"I don't +understand how you happen to be here apparently both as my counselor and +Mr. Surface's agent." + +"I have a right to both capacities, I assure you." + +"Or--have you a habit of being--?" + +She left her sentence unended, and he finished it for her in a colorless +voice. + +"Of being on two sides of a fence, perhaps you were about to say?" + +She made no reply. + +"That is what you were going to say, isn't it?" + +"Yes, I started to say that," she answered, "and then I thought better +of it." + +She spoke calmly; but she was oddly disquieted by his fixed gaze, and +angry with herself for feeling it. + +"I will tell you," said he, "how I happen to be acting in both +capacities." + +The marks of his internal struggle broke through upon his face. For the +first time, it occurred to Sharlee, as she looked at the new markings +about his straight-cut mouth, that this old young man whom she had +commonly seen so matter-of-fact and self-contained, might be a person of +stronger emotions than her own. After all, what did she really know +about him? + +As if to answer her, his controlled voice spoke. + +"Mr. Surface is my father. I am his son." + +She smothered a little cry. "_Your father_!" + +"My name," he said, with a face of stone, "is Henry G. Surface, Jr." + +"Your father!" she echoed lifelessly. + +Shocked and stunned, she turned her head hurriedly away; her elbow +rested on the broad chair-arm, and her chin sank into her hand. +Surface's son looked at her. It was many months since he had learned to +look at her as at a woman, and that is knowledge that is not unlearned. +His eyes rested upon her piled-up mass of crinkly brown hair; upon the +dark curtain of lashes lying on her cheek; upon the firm line of the +cheek, which swept so smoothly into the white neck; upon the rounded +bosom, now rising and falling so fast; upon the whole pretty little +person which could so stir him now to undreamed depths of his being.... +No altruism here, Fifi; no self-denial to want to make _her_ happy. + +He began speaking quietly. + +"I can't tell you now how I found out all this. It is a long story; you +will hear it all some day. But the facts are all clear. I have been to +New York and seen Tim Queed. It is--strange, is it not? Do you remember +that afternoon in my office, when I showed you the letters from him? We +little thought--" + +"Oh me!" said Sharlee. "Oh me!" + +She rose hastily and walked away from him, unable to bear the look on +his face. For a pretense of doing something, she went to the fire and +poked aimlessly at the glowing coals. + +As on the afternoon of which he spoke, waves of pity for the little +Doctor's worse than fatherlessness swept through her; only these waves +were a thousand times bigger and stormier than those. How hardly he +himself had taken his sonship she read in the strange sadness of his +face. She dared not let him see how desperately sorry for him she felt; +the most perfunctory phrase might betray her. Her knowledge of his +falseness stood between them like a wall; blindly she struggled to keep +it staunch, not letting her rushing pity undermine and crumble it. He +had been false to her, like his father. Father and son, they had +deceived and betrayed her; honor and truth were not in them. + +"So you see," the son was saying, "I have a close personal interest in +this question of the money. Naturally it--means a good deal to me +to--have as much of it as possible restored. Of course there is a great +deal which--he took, and which--we are not in position to restore at +present. I will explain later what is to be done about that--" + +"Oh, don't!" she begged. "I never want to see or hear of it again." + +Suddenly she turned upon him, aware that her self-control was going, but +unable for her life to repress the sympathy for him which welled up +overwhelmingly from her heart. + +"Won't you tell me something more about it? Please do! Where is he? Have +you seen him--?" + +"I cannot tell you--" + +"Oh, I will keep your confidence. You asked me if I would. I +will--won't you tell me? Is he here--in the city--?" + +"You must not ask me these questions," he said with some evidence of +agitation. + +But even as he spoke, he saw knowledge dawn painfully on her face. His +shelter, after all, was too small; once her glance turned that way, once +her mind started upon conjectures, discovery had been inevitable. + +"Oh!" she cried, in a choked voice.... "It is Professor Nicolovius!" + +He looked at her steadily; no change passed over his face. When all was +said, he was glad to have the whole truth out; and he knew the secret to +be as safe with her as with himself. + +"No one must know," he said sadly, "until his death. That is not far +away, I think." + +She dropped into a chair, and suddenly buried her face in her hands. + +Surface's son had risen with her, but he did not resume his seat. He +stood looking down at her bowed head, and the expression in his eyes, if +she had looked up and captured it, might have taken her completely by +surprise. + +His chance, indeed, had summoned him, though not for the perfect +sacrifice. Circumstance had crushed out most of the joy of giving. For, +first, she had suspected him, which nothing could ever blot out; and +now, when she knew the truth about him, there could hardly be much left +for him to give. It needed no treacherous editorial to make her hate the +son of his father; their friendship was over in any case. + +Still, it was his opportunity to do for her something genuine and large; +to pay in part the debt he owed her--the personal and living debt, which +was so much greater than the dead thing of principal and interest. + +No, no. It was not endurable that this proud little lady, who kept her +head so high, should find at the last moment, this stain upon her +lover's honor. + +She dropped her hands and lifted a white face. + +"And you--" she began unsteadily, but checked herself and went on in a +calmer voice. "And you--after what he has done to you, too--you are +going to stand by him--take his name--accept that inheritance--_be_ his +son?" + +"What else is there for me to do?" + +Their eyes met, and hers were hurriedly averted. + +"Don't you think," he said, "that that is the only thing to do?" + +Again she found it impossible to endure the knowledge of his fixed gaze. +She rose once more and stood at the mantel, her forehead leaned against +her hand upon it, staring unseeingly down into the fire. + +"How can I tell you how fine a thing you are doing--how big--and +splendid--when--" + +A dark red color flooded his face from neck to forehead; it receded +almost violently leaving him whiter than before. + +"Not at all! Not in the least!" he said, with all his old impatience. "I +could not escape if I would." + +She seemed not to hear him. "How can I tell you that--and about how +sorry I am--when all the time it seems that I can think only +of--something else!" + +"You are speaking of the reformatory," he said, with bracing directness. + +There followed a strained silence. + +"Oh," broke from her--"how could you bear to do it?" + +"Don't you see that we cannot possibly discuss it? It is a question of +one's honor--isn't it? It is impossible that such a thing could be +argued about." + +"But--surely you have something to say--some explanation to make! Tell +me. You will not find me--a hard judge." + +"I'm sorry," he said brusquely, "but I can make no explanation." + +She was conscious that he stood beside her on the hearth-rug. Though her +face was lowered and turned from him, the eye of her mind held perfectly +the presentment of his face, and she knew that more than age had gone +over it since she had seen it last. Had any other man in the world but +West been in the balance, she felt that, despite his own words, she +could no longer believe him guilty. And even as it was--how could that +conceivably be the face of a man who-- + +"Won't you shake hands?" + +Turning, she gave him briefly the tips of fingers cold as ice. As their +hands touched, a sudden tragic sense overwhelmed him that here was a +farewell indeed. The light contact set him shaking; and for a moment his +iron self-control, which covered torments she never guessed at, almost +forsook him. + +"Good-by. And may that God of yours who loves all that is beautiful and +sweet be good to you--now and always." + +She made no reply; he wheeled, abruptly, and left her. But on the +threshold he was checked by the sound of her voice. + +The interview, from the beginning, had profoundly affected her; these +last words, so utterly unlike his usual manner of speech, had shaken her +through and through. For some moments she had been miserably aware that, +if he would but tell her everything and throw himself on her mercy, she +would instantly forgive him. And now, when she saw that she could not +make him do that, she felt that tiny door, which she had thought +double-locked forever, creaking open, and heard herself saying in a +small, desperate voice:-- + +"_You did write it, didn't you_?" + +But he paused only long enough to look at her and say, quite +convincingly:-- + +"You need hardly ask that--now--need you?" + + * * * * * + +He went home, to his own bedroom, lit his small student-lamp, and sat +down at his table to begin a new article. The debt of money which was +his patrimony required of him that he should make every minute tell now. + +In old newspaper files at the State Library, he had found the facts of +his father's defalcations. The total embezzlement from the Weyland +estate, allowing for $14,000 recovered in the enforced settlement of +Surface's affairs, stood at $203,000. But that was twenty-seven years +ago, and in all this time interest had been doubling and redoubling: +simple interest, at 4%, brought it to $420,000; compound interest to +something like $500,000, due at the present moment. Against this could +be credited only his father's "nest-egg"--provided always that he could +find it--estimated at not less than $50,000. That left his father's son +staring at a debt of $450,000, due and payable now. It was of course, +utterly hopeless. The interest on that sum alone was $18,000 a year, and +he could not earn $5000 a year to save his immortal soul. + +So the son knew that, however desperately he might strive, he would go +to his grave more deeply in debt to Sharlee Weyland than he stood at +this moment. But of course it was the trying that chiefly counted. The +fifty thousand dollars, which he would turn over to her as soon as he +got it--how he was counting on a sum as big as that!--would be a help; +so would the three or four thousand a year which he counted on paying +toward keeping down the interest. This money in itself would be a good. +But much better than that, it would stand as a gage that the son +acknowledged and desired to atone for his father's dishonor. + +His book must stand aside now--it might be forever. Henceforward he must +count his success upon a cash-register. But to-night his pencil labored +and dragged. What he wrote he saw was not good. He could do harder +things than force himself to sit at a table and put writing upon paper; +but over the subtler processes of his mind, which alone yields the rich +fruit, no man is master. In an hour he put out his lamp, undressed in +the dark, and went to bed. + +He lay on his back in the blackness, and in all the world he could find +nothing to think about but Sharlee Weyland. + +Of all that she had done for him, in a personal way, he had at least +tried to give her some idea; he was glad to remember that now. And now +at the last, when he was nearer worthy than ever before, she had turned +him out because she believed that he had stooped to dishonor. She would +have forgiven his sonship; he had been mistaken about that. She had felt +sympathy and sorrow for Henry Surface's son, and not repulsion, for he +had read it in her face. But she could not forgive him a personal +dishonor. And he was glad that, so believing, she would do as she had +done; it was the perfect thing to do; to demand honor without a blemish, +or to cancel all. Never had she stood so high in his fancy as now when +she had ordered him out of her life. His heart leapt with the knowledge +that, though she would never know it, he was her true mate there, in +their pure passion for Truth. + +Whatever else might or might not have been, the knowledge remained with +him that she herself had suspected and convicted him. In all that +mattered their friendship had ended there. Distrust was unbearable +between friends. It was a flaw in his little lady that she could believe +him capable of baseness.... But not an unforgivable flaw, it would seem, +since every hour that he had spent in her presence had become roses and +music in his memory, and the thought that he would see her no more +stabbed ceaselessly at his heart. + +Yes, Surface's son knew very well what was the matter with him now. The +knowledge pulled him from his bed to a seat by the open window; dragged +him from his chair to send him pacing on bare feet up and down his +little bedroom, up and down, up and down; threw him later, much later, +into his chair again, to gaze out, quiet and exhausted, over the +sleeping city. + +He had written something of love in his time. In his perfect scheme of +human society, he had diagnosed with scientific precision the instinct +of sex attraction implanted in man's being for the most obvious and +grossly practical of reasons: an illusive candle-glow easily lit, +quickly extinguished when its uses were fulfilled. And lo, here was love +tearing him by the throat till he choked; an exquisite torture, a +rampant passion, a devastating flame, that most glorified when it burned +most deeply, aroar and ablaze forevermore. + +He sat by the window and looked out over the sleeping city. + +By slow degrees, he had allowed himself to be drawn from his academic +hermitry into contact with the visible life around him. And everywhere +that he had touched life, it had turned about and smitten him. He had +meant to be a great editor of the _Post_ some day, and the _Post_ had +turned him out with a brand of dishonor upon his forehead. He had tried +to befriend a friendless old man, and he had acquired a father whose +bequest was a rogue's debt, and his name a byword and a hissing. He had +let himself be befriended by a slim little girl with a passion for Truth +and enough blue eyes for two, and the price of that contact was this +pain in his heart which would not be still ... which would not be still. + +Yet he would not have had anything different, would not have changed +anything if he could. He was no longer the pure scientist in the +observatory, but a bigger and better thing, a man ... A man down in the +thick of the hurly-burly which we call This Life, and which, when all is +said, is all that we certainly know. Not by pen alone, but also by body +and mind and heart and spirit, he had taken his man's place in Society. +And as for this unimagined pain that strung his whole being upon the +thumb-screw, it was nothing but the measure of the life he had now, and +had it more abundantly. Oh, all was for the best, all as it should be. +He knew the truth about living at last, and it is the truth that makes +men free. + + + + +XXX + + _Death of the Old Professor, and how Queed finds that his List of + Friends has grown; a Last Will and Testament; Exchange of Letters + among Prominent Attorneys, which unhappily proves futile._ + + +On the merriest, maddest day in March, Henry G. Surface, who had +bitterly complained of earthly justice, slipped away to join the +invisible procession which somewhere winds into the presence of the +Incorruptible Judge. He went with his lips locked. At the last moment +there had been faint signs of recurring consciousness; the doctor had +said that there was one chance in a hundred that the dying man might +have a normal moment at the end. On this chance his son had said to the +nurse, alone with him in the room:-- + +"Will you kindly leave me with him a moment? If he should be conscious +there is a private question of importance that I must ask him." + +She left him. The young man knelt down by the bedside, and put his lips +close to the old man's ear. Vainly he tried to drive his voice into that +stilled consciousness, and drag from his father the secret of the +hiding-place of his loot. + +"Father!" he said, over and over. "Father! _Where is the money?_" + +There was no doubt that the old man stirred a little. In the dim light +of the room it seemed to his son that his right eye half opened, leaving +the other closed in a ghastly parody of a wink, while the upper lip drew +away from the strong teeth like an evil imitation of the old bland +sneer. But that was all. + +So Surface died, and was gathered to his fathers. The embargo of secrecy +was lifted; and the very first step toward righting the ancient wrong +was to let the full facts be known. Henry G. Surface, Jr., took this +step, in person, by at once telephoning all that was salient to the +_Post_. Brower Williams, the _Post's_ city editor, at the other end of +the wire, called the name of his God in holy awe at the dimensions of +the scoop thus dropped down upon him as from heaven; and implored the +Doc, for old time's sake, by all that he held most sacred and most dear, +to say not a word till the evening papers were out, thus insuring the +sensation for the _Post_. + +Mr. Williams's professional appraisement of the scoop proved not +extravagant. The _Post's_ five columns next morning threw the city into +something like an uproar. It is doubtful if you would not have to go +back to the '60's to find a newspaper story which eclipsed this one in +effect. For a generation, the biography of Henry G. Surface had had, in +that city and State, a quality of undying interest, and the sudden +denouement, more thrilling than any fiction, captured the imagination of +the dullest. Nothing else was mentioned at any breakfast-table where a +morning paper was taken that day; hardly anything for many breakfasts to +follow. In homes containing boys who had actually studied Greek under +the mysterious Professor Nicolovius at Mimer's School, discussion grew +almost hectic; while at Mrs. Paynter's, where everybody was virtually a +leading actor in the moving drama, the excitement closely approached +delirium. + +Henry G. Surface, Jr., was up betimes on the morning after his father's +death--in fact, as will appear, he had not found time to go to bed at +all--and the sensational effects of the _Post's_ story were not lost +upon him. As early as seven o'clock, a knot of people had gathered in +front of the little house on Duke of Gloucester Street, staring +curiously at the shut blinds, and telling each other, doubtless, how +well they had known the dead man. When young Surface came out of the +front door, an awed hush fell upon them; he was aware of their nudges, +and their curious but oddly respectful stare. And this, at the very +beginning, was typical of the whole day; wherever he went, he found +himself an object of the frankest public curiosity. But all of this +interest, he early discovered, was neither cool nor impersonal. + +To begin with, there was the _Post's_ story itself. As he hurried +through it very early in the morning, the young man was struck again and +again with the delicacy of the phrasing. And gradually it came to him +that the young men of the _Post_ had made very special efforts to avoid +hurting the feelings of their old associate and friend the Doc. This +little discovery had touched him unbelievably. And it was only part with +other kindness that came to him to soften that first long day of his +acknowledged sonship. Probably the sympathy extended to him from various +sources was not really so abundant, but to him, having looked for +nothing, it was simply overwhelming. All day, it seemed to him, his +door-bell and telephone rang, all day unexpected people of all sorts and +conditions stopped him on the street--only to tell him, in many ways and +sometimes without saying a word about it, that they were sorry. + +The very first of them to come was Charles Gardiner West, stopping on +his way to the office, troubled, concerned, truly sympathetic, to +express, in a beautiful and perfect way, his lasting interest in his +one-time assistant. Not far behind him had come Mr. Hickok, the director +who looked like James E. Winter, who had often chatted with the +assistant editor in times gone by, and who spoke confidently of the day +when he would come back to the _Post_. Beverley Byrd had come, too, +manly and friendly; Plonny Neal, ill at ease for once in his life; Evan +Montague, of the _Post_, had asked to be allowed to make the +arrangements for the funeral; Buck Klinker had actually made those +arrangements. Better than most of these, perhaps, were the young men of +the Mercury, raw, embarrassed, genuine young men, who, stopping him on +the street, did not seem to know why they stopped him, who, lacking +West's verbal felicity, could do nothing but take his hand, hot with the +fear that they might be betrayed into expressing any feeling, and +stammer out: "Doc, if you want anything--why dammit, Doc--you call on +_me_, hear?" + +Best of all had been Buck Klinker--Buck, who had made him physically, +who had dragged him into contact with life over his own protests, who +had given him the first editorial he ever wrote that was worth +reading--Buck, the first real friend he had ever had. It was to Buck +that he had telephoned an hour after his father's death, for he needed +help of a practical sort at once, and his one-time trainer was the man +of all men to give it to him. Buck had come, constrained and silent; he +was obviously awed by the Doc's sudden emergence into stunning +notoriety. To be Surface's son was, to him, like being the son of +Iscariot and Lucrezia Borgia. On the other hand, he was aware that, of +Klinkers and Queeds, a Surface might proudly say: "There are no such +people." So he had greeted his friend stiffly as Mr. Surface, and was +amazed at the agitation with which that usually impassive young man had +put a hand upon his shoulder and said: "I'm the same Doc always to you, +Buck, only now I'm Doc Surface instead of Doc Queed." After that +everything had been all right. Buck had answered very much after the +fashion of the young men of the Mercury, and then rushed off to arrange +for the interment, and also to find for Doc Surface lodgings somewhere +which heavily undercut Mrs. Paynter's modest prices. + +The sudden discovery that he was not alone in the world, that he had +friends in it, real friends who believed in him and whom nothing could +ever take away, shook the young man to the depths of his being. Was not +this compensation for everything? Never had he imagined that people +could be so kind; never had he dreamed that people's kindness could mean +so much to him. In the light of this new knowledge, it seemed to him +that the last scales fell from his eyes ... Were not these friendships, +after all, the best work of a man's life? Did he place a higher value +even on his book itself, which, it seemed, he might never finish now? + +And now there returned to him something that the dead old Colonel had +told him long ago, and to-day he saw it for truth. However his father +had wronged him, he would always have this, at least, to bless his +memory for. For it was his father who had called him to live in this +city where dwelt, as the strong voice that was now still had said, the +kindest and sweetest people in the world. + + * * * * * + +Henry G. Surface died at half-past two o'clock on the afternoon of March +24. At one o'clock that night, while the _Post's_ startling story was +yet in process of the making, his son stood at the mantel in Surface's +sitting-room, and looked over the wreck that his hands had made. That +his father's treasures were hidden somewhere here he had hardly +entertained a doubt. Yet he had pulled the place all to pieces without +finding a trace of them. + +The once pretty sitting-room looked, indeed, as if a tornado had struck +it. The fireplace was a litter of broken brick and mortar; half the +floor was ripped up and the boards flung back anyhow; table drawers and +bookcases had been ransacked, and looked it; books rifled in vain were +heaped in disorderly hummocks wherever there was room for them; +everywhere a vandal hand had been, leaving behind a train of devastation +and ruin. + +And it had all been fruitless. He had been working without pause since +half-past six o'clock, and not the smallest clue had rewarded him. + +It was one of those interludes when early spring demonstrates that she +could play August convincingly had she a mind to. The night was +stifling. That the windows had to be shut tight, to deaden the noise of +loosening brick and ripping board, made matters so much the worse. +Surface was stripped to the waist, and it needed no second glance at +him, as he stood now, to see that he was physically competent. There was +no one-sided over-development here; Klinker's exercises, it will be +remembered, were for all parts of the body. Shoulders stalwart, but not +too broad, rounded beautifully into the upper arm; the chest swelled +like a full sail; many a woman in that town had a larger waist. Never he +moved but muscle flowed and rippled under the shining skin; he raised +his right hand to scratch his left ear, and the hard blue biceps leaped +out like a live thing. In fact, it had been some months since the young +man had first entertained the suspicion that he could administer that +thrashing to Mr. Pat whenever he felt inclined. Only it happened that he +and Mr. Pat had become pretty good friends now, and it was the +proof-reader's boast that he had never once made a bull in "Mr. Queed's +copy" since the day of the famous fleas. + +In the quiet night the young man stood resting from his labors, and +taking depressed thought. He was covered with grime and streaked with +sweat; a ragged red stripe on his cheek, where a board had bounced up +and struck him, detracted nothing from the sombreness of his appearance. +Somewhere, valuable papers waited to be found; bank-books, certainly; +very likely stock or bonds or certificates of deposit; please God, a +will. Somewhere--but where? From his father's significant remark during +their last conversation, he would have staked his life that all these +things were here, in easy reach. And yet-- + +Standing precariously on the loose-piled bricks of the fireplace, he +looked over the ravaged room. He felt profoundly discouraged. Success in +this search meant more to him than he liked to think about, and now his +chance of success had shrunk to the vanishing point. The bowels of the +room lay open before his eye, and there was no hiding-place in them. He +knew of nowhere else to look. The cold fear seized him that the money +and the papers were hidden beyond his finding--that they lay tucked away +in some safety-deposit vault in New York, where his eye would never hunt +them out. + +Surface's son leaned against the elaborate mantel, illimitably weary. He +shifted his position ever so little; and thereupon luck did for him what +reason would never have done. The brick on which his right foot rested +turned under his weight and he lost his foothold. To save himself, he +caught the mantel-top with both hands, and the next moment pitched +heavily backward to the floor. + +The mantel, in fact, had come off in his hands. It pitched to the floor +with him, speeding his fall, thumping upon his chest like a vigorous +adversary. But the violence of his descent only made him the more +sharply aware that this strange mantel had left its moorings as though +on greased rollers. + +His heart playing a sudden drum-beat, he threw the carven timber from +him and bounded to his feet. The first flying glance showed him the +strange truth: his blundering feet had marvelously stumbled into his +father's arcana. For he looked, not at an unsightly mass of splintered +laths and torn wall-paper and shattered plaster, but into as neat a +little cupboard as a man could wish. + +The cupboard was as wide as the mantel itself; lined and ceiled with a +dark red wood which beautifully threw back the glare of the dancing +gas-jet. It was half-full of things, old books, letters, bundles of +papers held together with rubber bands, canvas bags--all grouped and +piled in the most orderly way about a large tin dispatch-box. This box +drew the young man's gaze like a sudden shout; he was hardly on his feet +before he had sprung forward and jerked it out. Instantly the +treacherous bricks threw him again; sprawled on the floor he seized one +of them and smashed through the hasp at a blow. + +Bit by bit the illuminating truth came out. In all his own calculations, +close and exact as he had thought them, he had lost sight of one simple +but vital fact. In the years that he had been in prison, his father had +spent no money beyond the twenty-five dollars a month to Tim Queed; and +comparatively little in the years of his wanderings. In all this time +the interest upon his "nest-egg" had been steadily accumulating. Five +per cent railroad bonds, and certificates of deposit in four different +banks, were the forms in which the money had been tucked away, by what +devilish cleverness could only be imagined. But the simple fact was that +his father had died worth not less than two hundred thousand dollars and +probably more. And this did not include the house, which, it appeared, +his father had bought, and not leased as he said; nor did it include +four thousand four hundred dollars in gold and banknotes which he found +in the canvas sacks after his first flying calculation was made. + +Early in the morning, when the newsboys were already crying the _Post_ +upon the streets, young Henry Surface came at last upon the will. It was +very brief, but entirely clear and to the point. His father had left to +him without conditions, everything of which he died possessed. The will +was dated in June of the previous summer--he recalled a two days' +absence of his father's at that time--and was witnessed, in a villainous +hand, by Timothy Queed. + + * * * * * + +There were many formalities to be complied with, and some of them would +take time. But within a week matters were on a solid enough footing to +warrant a first step; and about this time Sharlee Weyland read, at her +breakfast-table one morning, a long letter which surprised and disturbed +her very much. + +The letter came from a well-known firm of attorneys. At great length it +rehearsed the misfortunes that had befallen the Weyland estate, through +the misappropriations of the late Henry G. Surface. But the gist of this +letter, briefly put, was that the late Henry G. Surface had died +possessed of a property estimated to be worth two hundred thousand +dollars, either more or less; that this property was believed to be +merely the late trustee's appropriations from the Weyland estate, with +accrued interest; that "our client Mr. Henry G. Surface, Jr., heir by +will to his father's ostensible property," therefore purposed to pay +over this sum to the Weyland estate, as soon as necessary formalities +could be complied with; and that, further, our client, Mr. Henry G. +Surface, Jr., assumed personal responsibility "for the residue due to +your late father's estate, amounting to one hundred and seventeen +thousand dollars, either more or less, with interest since 1881; and +this debt, he instructs us to say, he will discharge from time to time, +as his own resources will permit." + +So wrote Messrs. Blair and Jamieson to Miss Charlotte Lee Weyland, +congratulating her, "in conclusion, upon the strange circumstances which +have brought you, after so long an interval, justice and restitution," +and begging to remain very respectfully hers. To which letter after four +days' interval, they received the following reply: + + Messrs. Blair & Jamieson, + Commonwealth Building, + City. + + DEAR SIRS:-- + + Our client, Miss C.L. Weyland, of this city, instructs us to advise + you, in reply to your letter of the 4th inst., directed to her, + that, while thanking you for the expression of intention therein + contained anent the property left by the late Henry G. Surface, and + very cordially appreciating the spirit actuating Mr. Henry G. + Surface, Jr., in the matter, she nevertheless feels herself without + title or claim to said property, and therefore positively declines + to accept it, in whole or in any part. + + Respectfully yours, + + AMPERSAND, BOLLING AND BYRD. + +A more argumentative and insistent letter from Messrs. Blair and +Jamieson was answered with the same brief positiveness by Messrs. +Ampersand, Bolling and Byrd. Thereafter, no more communications were +exchanged by the attorneys. But a day or two after her second refusal, +Sharlee Weyland received another letter about the matter of dispute, +this time a more personal one. The envelope was directed in a small neat +hand which she knew very well; she had first seen it on sheets of yellow +paper in Mrs. Paynter's dining-room. The letter said: + + DEAR Miss WEYLAND:--- + + Your refusal to allow my father's estate to restore to you, so far + as it can, the money which it took from you, and thus to right, in + part, a grave wrong, is to me a great surprise and disappointment. + I had not thought it possible that you, upon due reflection, could + take a position the one obvious effect of which is to keep a son + permanently under the shadow of his father's dishonor. + + Do not, of course, misunderstand me. I have known you too well to + believe for a moment that you can be swayed by ungenerous motives. + I am very sure that you are taking now the part which you believe + most generous. But that view is, I assure you, so far from the real + facts that I can only conclude that you have refused to learn what + these facts are. Both legally and morally the money is yours. No + one else on earth has a shadow of claim to it. I most earnestly beg + that, in fairness to me, you will at least give my attorneys the + chance to convince yours that what I write here is true and + unanswerable. + + Should you adhere to your present position, the money will, of + course, be trusteed for your benefit, nor will a penny of it be + touched until it is accepted, if not by you, then by your heirs or + assigns. But I cannot believe that you will continue to find + magnanimity in shirking your just responsibilities, and denying to + me my right to wipe out this stain. + + Very truly yours, + + HENRY G. SURFACE, Jr. + + +No answer ever came to this letter, and there the matter rested through +March and into the sultry April. + + + + +XXXI + + _God moves in a Mysterious Way: how the Finished Miss Avery appears + as the Instrument of Providence; how Sharlee sees her Idol of Many + Years go toppling in the Dust, and how it is her Turn to meditate + in the Still Watches._ + + +The print danced before his outraged eyes; his chest heaved at the +revolting evidence of man's duplicity; and Charles Gardiner West laid +down his morning's _Post_ with a hand that shook. + +_Meachy T. Bangor announces his candidacy for the nomination for Mayor, +subject to the Democratic primary._ + +For West had not a moment's uncertainty as to what this announcement +meant. Meachy T. Bangor spoke, nay invented, the language of the tribe. +He was elect of the elect; what the silent powers that were thought was +his thought; their ways were his ways, their people his people. When +Meachy T. Bangor announced that he was a candidate for the nomination +for Mayor, it meant that the all-powerful machine had already nominated +him for Mayor, and whom the organization nominated it elected. Meachy T. +Bangor! Plonny Neal's young, progressive candidate of the reformer type! + +Bitterness flooded West's soul when he thought of Plonny. Had the boss +been grossly deceived or grossly deceiving? Could that honest and +affectionate eye, whose look of frank admiration had been almost +embarrassing, have covered base and deliberate treachery? Was it +possible that he, West, who had always been confident that he could see +as far into a millstone as another, had been a cheap trickster's easy +meat? + +Day by day, since the appearance of the reformatory article, West had +waited for some sign of appreciation and understanding from those on the +inside. None had come. Not a soul except himself, and Plonny, had +appeared aware that he, by a masterly compromise, had averted disaster +from the party, and clearly revealed himself as the young man of +destiny. On the contrary, the House spokesmen, apparently utterly blind +to any impending crisis, had, in the closing hours of the session, voted +away some eighty thousand dollars of the hundred thousand rescued by +West from the reformatory, in a multiplication of offices which it was +difficult to regard as absolutely indispensable in a hard times year. +This action, tallying so closely with what his former assistant had +predicted, had bewildered and unsettled West; the continuing silence of +the leaders--"the other leaders," he had found himself saying--had led +him into anxious speculations; and now, in a staggering burst, the +disgraceful truth was revealed to him. They had used him, tricked and +used him like a smooth tool, and having used him, had deliberately +passed him, standing fine and patient in the line, to throw the mantle +over the corrupt and unspeakable Bangor. + +By heavens, it was not to be endured. Was it for this that he had left +Blaines College, where a career of honorable usefulness lay before him; +that he had sacrificed personal wishes and ambitions to the insistent +statement that his City and State had need of him; that he had stood ten +months in the line without a murmur; and that at last, confronted with +the necessity of choosing between the wishes of his personal intimates +and the larger good, he had courageously chosen the latter and suffered +in silence the suspicion of having played false with the best friends he +had in the world? Was it for this that he had lost his valuable +assistant, whose place he could never hope to fill?--for this that he +was referred to habitually by an evening contemporary as the Plonny Neal +organ? + +He was thoroughly disgusted with newspaper work this morning, disgusted +with the line, disgusted with hopeful efforts to uplift the people. What +did his _Post_ work really amount to?--unremitting toil, the ceaseless +forcing up of immature and insincere opinions, no thanks or +appreciation anywhere, and at the end the designation of the Plonny Neal +organ. What did the uplift amount to? Could progress really ever be +forced a single inch? And why should he wear out his life in the +selfless service of those who, it seemed, acknowledged no obligation to +him? As for public life, if this was a sample, the less he saw of it the +better. He would take anything in the world sooner than a career of +hypocrisy, double-dealing and treachery, of dirty looting in the name of +the public good, of degrading traffic with a crew of liars and +confidence men. + +But through all the young man's indignation and resentment there ran an +unsteadying doubt, a miserable doubt of himself. Had his motives in the +reformatory matter been as absolutely spotless as he had charmed himself +into believing?... What manner of man was he? Did he really have any +permanent convictions about anything?... Was it possible, was it +thinkable or conceivable, that he was a complaisant invertebrate whom +the last strong man that had his ear could play upon like a flute? + +West passed a most unhappy morning. But at lunch, at the club, it was +his portion to have his buoyant good-humor completely restored to him. +He fell in with ancient boon companions; they made much of him; involved +him in gay talk; smoothed him down, patted him on the head, found his +self-esteem for him, and handed it over in its pristine vigor. Before he +had sat half an hour at the merry table, he could look back at his +profound depression of the morning with smiling wonder. Where in the +world had he gotten his terrible grouch? Not a thing in the world had +happened, except that the mayoralty was not going to be handed to him on +a large silver platter. Was that such a fearful loss after all? On the +contrary, was it not rather a good riddance? Being Mayor, in all human +probability, would be a horrible bore. + +It was a mild, azure, zephyrous day; spring at her brightest and best. +West, descending the club steps, sniffed the fragrant air +affectionately, and was hanged if he would go near the office on such an +afternoon. Let the _Post_ readers plod along to-morrow with an editorial +page both skimpy and inferior; anything he gave them would still be too +good for them, middle-class drabs and dullards that they were. + +The big red automobile was old now, and needed paint, but it still ran +staunch and true; and Miss Avery had a face, a form, and a sinuous +graceful manner, had veils and hats and sinuous graceful coats, that +would have glorified a far less worthy vehicle. And she drove divinely. +By invitation she took the wheel that afternoon, and with sure, clever +hands whipped the docile leviathan over the hills and far away. + +The world knows how fate uses her own instruments in her own way, +frequently selecting far stranger ones than the delightful and wealthy +Miss Avery. Now for more than a year this accomplished girl had been +thinking that if Charles Gardiner West had anything to say to her, it +was high time that he should say it. If she had not set herself to find +out what was hobbling the tongue of the man she wanted, she would have +been less than a woman; and Miss Avery was a good deal more. Hence, when +she had seen West with Sharlee Weyland, and in particular on the last +two or three times she had seen West with Sharlee Weyland, she had +watched his manner toward that lady with profound misgivings, of the +sort which starts every true woman to fighting for her own. + +Now Miss Avery had a weapon, in the shape of valuable knowledge, or, at +any rate, a valuable suspicion that had lately reached her: the +suspicion, in short, which had somehow crept abroad as suspicions will, +that West had done a certain thing which another man was supposed to +have done. Therefore, when they turned homeward in the soft dusk, her +man having been brought to exactly the right frame of mind, she struck +with her most languorous voice. + +"How is that dear little Charlotte Weyland? It seems to me I haven't +seen her for a year, though it was positively only last week." + +"Oh! She seemed very well when I saw her last." + +So Mr. West, of the lady he was going to marry. For, though he had never +had just the right opportunity to complete the sweet message he had +begun at the Byrds' one night, his mind was still quite made up on that +point. It was true that the atmosphere of riches which fairly exuded +from the girl now at his side had a very strong appeal for his lower +instincts. But he was not a man to be ridden by his lower instincts. No; +he had set his foot upon the fleshpots; his idealistic nature had +overcome the world. + +Miss Avery, sublimely unaware that Mr. West was going to offer marriage +to her rival during the present month, the marriage itself to take place +in October, indolently continued:-- + +"To my mind she's quite the most attractive dear little thing in town. I +suppose she's quite recovered from her disappointment over +the--hospital, or whatever it was?" + +"Oh, I believe so. I never heard her mention it but once." + +West's pleasant face had clouded a little. Through her fluttering veil +she noted that fact with distinct satisfaction. + +"I never met that interesting young Mr. Surface," said she, sweeping the +car around a curve in the white road and evading five women in a surrey +with polished skill. "But--truly, I have found myself thinking of him +and feeling sorry for him more than once." + +"Sorry for him--What about?" + +"Oh, haven't you heard, then? It's rather mournful. You see, when +Charlotte Weyland found out that he had written a certain editorial in +the _Post_--you know more about this part of it than I--" + +"But he didn't write it," said West, unhesitatingly. "I wrote it +myself." + +"You?" + +She looked at him with frank surprise in her eyes; not too much frank +surprise; rather as one who feels much but endeavors to suppress it for +courtesy's sake. "Forgive me--I didn't know. There has been a little +horrid gossip but of course nearly every one has thought that he--" + +"I'm sure I'm not responsible for what people think," said West, a +little aggressively, but with a strangely sinking heart. "There has been +not the slightest mystery or attempt at concealment--" + +"Oh! Then of course Charlotte knows all about it now?" + +"I don't know whether she does or not. When I tried to tell her the +whole story," explained West, "soon after the incident occurred, she was +so agitated about it, the subject seemed so painful to her, that I was +forced to give it up. You can understand my position. Ever since, I have +been waiting for an opportunity to take her quietly and straighten out +the whole matter for her in a calm and rational way. For her part she +has evidently regarded the subject as happily closed. Why under heaven +should I press it upon her--merely to gain the academic satisfaction of +convincing her that the _Post_ acted on information superior and +judgment sounder than her own?" + +Miss Avery, now devoting herself to her chauffeur's duties through a +moment of silence, was no match for Mr. West at the game of ethical +debate, and knew it. However, she held a very strong card in her pongee +sleeve, and she knew that too. + +"I see--of course. You know I think you have been quite right through it +all. And yet--you won't mind?--I can't help feeling sorry for Mr. +Surface." + +"Very well--you most mysterious lady. Go on and tell me why you can't +help feeling sorry for Mr. Surface." + +Miss Avery told him. How she knew anything about the private affairs of +Mr. Surface and Miss Weyland, of which it is certain that neither of +them had ever spoken, is a mystery, indeed: but Gossip is Argus and has +a thousand ears to boot. Miss Avery was careful to depict Sharlee's +attitude toward the unfortunate Mr. Surface as just severe enough to +suggest to West that he must act at once, and not so severe as to +suggest to him--conceivably--the desirability, from a selfish point of +view, of not acting at all. It was a task for a diplomat, which is to +say a task for a Miss Avery. + +"Rather fine of him, wasn't it, to assume all the blame?--particularly +if it's true, as people say," concluded Miss Avery, "that the man's in +love with her and she cares nothing for him." + +"Fine--splendid--but entirely unnecessary," said West. + +The little story had disturbed him greatly. He had had no knowledge of +any developments between Sharlee and his former assistant; and now he +was unhappily conscious that he ought to have spoken weeks ago. + +"I'm awfully sorry to hear this," he resumed, "for I am much attached to +that boy. Still--if, as you say, everything is all right now--" + +"Oh, but I don't know at all that it is," said Miss Avery, hastily. +"That is just the point. The last I heard of it, she had forbidden him +her house." + +"That won't do," said Charles Gardiner West, in a burst of generosity. +"I'll clear up that difficulty before I sleep to-night." + +And he was as good as his word, or, let us say, almost as good. The next +night but one he called upon Sharlee Weyland with two unalterable +purposes in his mind. One was to tell her the full inside history of the +reformatory article from the beginning. The other was to notify her in +due form that she held his heart in permanent captivity. + +To Miss Avery, it made not the slightest difference whether the gifted +and charming editor of the Post sold out his principles for a price +every morning in the month. At his pleasure he might fracture all of the +decalogue that was refinedly fracturable, and so long as he rescued his +social position intact from the ruin, he was her man just the same. But +she had an instinct, surer than reasoned wisdom, that Sharlee Weyland +viewed these matters differently. Therefore she had sent West to make +his little confession, face to face. And therefore West, after an hour +of delightful _tête-à-tête_ in the charming little back parlor, +stiffened himself up, his brow sicklying o'er with the pale cast of +disagreeable thought, and began to make it. + +"I've got to tell you something about--a subject that won't be welcome +to you," he plunged in, rather lugubriously. "I mean--the reformatory." + +Sharlee's face, which had been merry and sweet, instantly changed and +quieted at that word; interest sprang full-armed in her deep blue eyes. + +"Have you? Tell me anything about it you wish." + +"You remember that--last editorial in the _Post?_" + +"Do you think that I forget so easily?" + +West hardly liked that reply. Nor had he ever supposed that he would +find the subject so difficult. + +"Well! I was surprised and--hurt to learn--recently--that you had--well, +had been rather severe with Surface, under the impression that--the full +responsibility for that article was his." + +Sharlee sat in the same flowered arm-chair she had once occupied to put +this same Surface, then known as little Dr. Queed, in his place. Her +heart warmed to West for his generous impulse to intercede. Still, she +hardly conceived that her treatment of Mr. Surface was any concern of +Mr. West's. + +"And so?" + +"I must tell you," he said, oddly uneasy under her straightforward look, +"that--that you have made a mistake. The responsibility is mine." + +"Ah, you mean that you, as the editor, are willing to take it." + +"No," said West--"no"; and then suddenly he felt like a rash suicide, +repentant at the last moment. Already the waters were rushing over his +head; he felt a wild impulse to clutch at the life-belt she had flung +out to him. It is to be remembered to his credit that he conquered it. +"No,--I--I wrote the article myself." + +"You?" + +Her monosyllable had been Miss Avery's, but there resemblance parted. +Sharlee sat still in her chair, and presently her lashes fluttered and +fell. To West's surprise, a beautiful color swept upward from her throat +to drown in her rough dark hair. "Oh," said she, under her breath, "I'm +glad--so _glad!_" + +West heaved a great sigh of relief. It was all over, and she was glad. +Hadn't he known all along that a woman will always forgive everything in +the man she loves? She was glad because he had told her when another man +might have kept silent. And yet her look perplexed him; her words +perplexed him. Undoubtedly she must have something more to say than a +mere expression of vague general gladness over the situation. + +"Need I say that I never intended there should be any doubt about the +matter? I meant to explain it all to you long ago, only there never +seemed to be any suitable opportunity." + +Sharlee's color died away. In silence she raised her eyes and looked at +him. + +"I started to tell you all about it once, at the time, but you know," he +said, with a little nervous laugh, "you seemed to find the subject so +extremely painful then--that I thought I had better wait till you could +look at it more calmly." + +Still she said nothing, but only sat still in her chair and looked at +him. + +"I shall always regret," continued West, laboriously, "that my--silence, +which I assure you I meant in kindness, should have--Why do you look at +me that way, Miss Weyland?" he said, with a quick change of voice. "I +don't understand you." + +Sharlee gave a small start and said: "Was I looking at you in any +particular way?" + +"You looked as mournful," said West, with that same little laugh, "as +though you had lost your last friend. Now--" + +"No, not my last one," said Sharlee. + +"Well, don't look so sad about it," he said, in a voice of affectionate +raillery. "I am quite unhappy enough over it without--" + +"I'm afraid I can't help you to feel happier--not to-night. If I look +sad, you see, it is because I feel that way." + +"Sad?" he echoed, bewildered. "Why should you be sad now--when it is all +going to be straightened out--when--" + +"Well, don't you think it's pretty sad--the part that can't ever be +straightened out?" + +Unexpectedly she got up, and walked slowly away, a disconcerting trick +she had; wandered about the room, looking about her something like a +stranger in a picture gallery; touching a bowl of flowers here, there +setting a book to rights; and West, rising too, following her sombrely +with his eyes, had never wanted her so much in all his life. + +Presently she returned to him; asked him to sit down again; and, still +standing herself, began speaking in a quiet kind voice which, +nevertheless, rang ominously in his ears from her first word. + +"I remember," said Sharlee, "when I was a very little girl, not more +than twelve years old, I think, I first heard about you--about Charles +Gardiner West. You were hardly grown then, but already people were +talking about you. I don't remember now, of course, just what they said, +but it must have been something very splendid, for I remember the sort +of picture I got. I have always liked for men to be very clean and +high-minded--I think because my father was that sort of man. I have put +that above intellect, and abilities, and what would be called +attractions; and so what they said about you made a great impression on +me. You know how very young girls are--how they like to have the figure +of a prince to spin their little romances around ... and so I took you +for mine. You were my knight without fear and without reproach ... Sir +Galahad. When I was sixteen, I used to pass you in the street and wonder +if you didn't hear my heart thumping. You never looked at me; you +hadn't any idea who I was. And that is a big and fine thing, I think--to +be the hero of somebody you don't even know by name ... though of course +not so big and fine as to be the hero of somebody who knows you very +well. And you were that to me, too. When I grew up and came to know you, +I still kept you on that pedestal you never saw. I measured you by the +picture I had carried for so many years, and I was not disappointed. All +that my little girl's fancy had painted you, you seemed to be. I look +back now over the last few years of my life, and so much that I have +liked most--that has been dearest--has centred about you. Yes, more than +once I have been quite sure that I was in love with you. You wonder that +I can show you my heart this way? I couldn't of course, +except--well--that it is all past now. And that is what seems sad to +me.... There never was any prince; my knight is dead; and Sir Galahad I +got out of a book.... Don't you think that that is pretty sad?" + +West, who had been looking at her with a kind of frightened fascination, +hastily averted his eyes, for he saw that her own had suddenly filled +with tears. She turned away from him again; a somewhat painful silence +ensued; and presently she broke it, speaking in a peculiarly gentle +voice, and not looking at him. + +"I'm glad that you told me--at last. I'll be glad to remember that ... +and I'm always your friend. But don't you think that perhaps we'd better +finish our talk some other time?" + +"No," said West. "No." + +He pulled himself together, struggling desperately to throw off the +curious benumbing inertia that was settling down upon him. "You are +doing me an injustice. A most tremendous injustice. You have +misunderstood everything from the beginning. I must explain--" + +"Don't you think that argument will only make it all so much worse?" + +"Nothing could possibly be worse for me than to have you think of me and +speak to me in this way." + +Obediently she sat down, her face still and sad; and West, pausing a +moment to marshal his thoughts into convincing form, launched forth upon +his defense. + +From the first he felt that he did not make a success of it; was not +doing himself justice. Recent events, in the legislature and with +reference to Meachy T. Bangor, had greatly weakened his confidence in +his arguments. Even to himself he seemed to have been strangely "easy"; +his exposition sounded labored and hollow in his own ears. But worse +than this was the bottomless despondency into which the girl's brief +autobiography had strangely cast him. A vast mysterious depression had +closed over him, which entirely robbed him of his usual adroit felicity +of speech. He brought his explanation up to the publication of the +unhappy article, and there abruptly broke off. + +A long silence followed his ending, and at last Sharlee said:-- + +"I suppose a sudden change of heart in the middle of a fight is always +an unhappy thing. It always means a good deal of pain for somebody. +Still--sometimes they must come, and when they do, I suppose the only +thing to do is to meet them honestly--though, personally, I think I +should always trust my heart against my head. But ... if you had only +come to us that first morning and frankly explained just why you +deserted us--if you had told us all this that you have just told me--" + +"That is exactly what I wanted and intended to do," interrupted West. "I +kept silent out of regard for you." + +"Out of regard for me?" + +"When I started to tell you all about it, that night at Mrs. Byrd's, it +seemed to me that you had brooded over the matter until you had gotten +in an overwrought and--overstrung condition about it. It seemed to me +the considerate thing not to force the unwelcome topic upon you, but +rather to wait--" + +"But had you the right to consider my imaginary feelings in such a +matter between yourself and ...? And besides, you did not quite keep +silent, you remember. You said something that led me to think that you +had discharged Mr. Surface for writing that article." + +"I did not intend you to think anything of the kind. Anything in the +least like that. If my words were ambiguous, it was because, seeing, as +I say, that you were in an overstrung condition, I thought it best to +let the whole matter rest until you could look at it calmly and +rationally." + +She made no reply. + +"But why dwell on that part of it?" said West, beseechingly. "It was +simply a wretched misunderstanding all around. I'm sorrier than I can +tell you for my part in it. I have been greatly to blame--I can see that +now. Can't you let bygones be bygones? I have come to you voluntarily +and told you--" + +"Yes, after six weeks. Why, I was the best friend he had, Mr. West, +and--Oh, me! How can I bear to remember what I said to him!" + +She turned her face hurriedly away from him. West, much moved, struggled +on. + +"But don't you see--I didn't know it! I never dreamed of such a thing. +The moment I heard how matters stood--" + +"Did it never occur to you in all this time that it might be assumed +that Mr. Surface, having written all the reformatory articles, had +written this one?" + +"I did not think of that. I was short-sighted, I own. And of course," he +added more eagerly, "I supposed that he had told you himself." + +"You don't know him," said Sharlee. + +A proud and beautiful look swept over her face. West rose, looking +wretchedly unhappy, and stood, irresolute, facing her. + +"Can't you--forgive me?" he asked presently, in a painful voice. + +Sharlee hesitated. + +"Don't you know I said that it would only make things worse to talk +about it to-night?" she said gently. "Everything you say seems to put us +further and further apart. Why, there is nothing for me to forgive, Mr. +West. There was a situation, and it imposed a certain conduct on you; +that is the whole story. I don't come into it at all. It is all a matter +between you and--your own-" + +"You do forgive me then? But no--you talk to me just as though you had +learned all this from somebody else--as though I had not come to you +voluntarily and told you everything." + +Sharlee did not like to look at his face, which she had always seen +before so confident and gay. + +"No," said she sadly--"for I am still your friend." + +"_Friend!_" + +He echoed the word wildly, contemptuously. He was just on the point of +launching into a passionate speech, painting the bitterness of +friendship to one who must have true love or nothing, and flinging his +hand and his heart impetuously at her feet. But looking at her still +face, he checked himself, and just in time. Shaken by passion as he was, +he was yet enough himself to understand that she would not listen to +him. Why should he play the spendthrift and the wanton with his love? +Why give her, for nothing, the sterile satisfaction of rejecting him, +for her to prize, as he knew girls did, as merely one more notch upon +her gun? + +Leaving his tempestuous exclamation hanging in mid-air, West stiffly +shook Sharlee's hand and walked blindly out of the room. + +He went home, and to bed, like one moving in a horrible dream. That +night, and through all the next day, he felt utterly bereft and +wretched: something, say, as though flood and pestilence had swept +through his dear old town and carried off everything and everybody but +himself. He crawled alone in a smashed world. On the second day +following, he found himself able to light a cigarette; and, glancing +about him with faint pluckings of convalescent interest, began to +recognize some landmarks. On the third day, he was frankly wondering +whether a girl with such overstrained, not to say hysterical ideals of +conduct, would, after all, be a very comfortable person to spend one's +life with. + +On the evening of this day, about half-past eight o'clock, he emerged +from his mother's house, light overcoat over his arm in deference to his +evening clothes, and started briskly down the street. On the second +block, as luck had it, he overtook Tommy Semple walking the same way. + +"Gardiner," said Semple, "when are you going to get over all this uplift +rot and come back to Semple and West?" + +The question fell in so marvelously with West's mood of acute discontent +with all that his life had been for the past two years, that it looked +to him strangely like Providence. The easy ways of commerce appeared +vastly alluring to him; his income, to say truth, had suffered sadly in +the cause of the public; never had the snug dollars drawn him so +strongly. He gave a slow, curious laugh. + +"Why, hang it, Tommy! I don't know but I'm ready to listen to your siren +spiel--now!" + +In the darkness Semple's eyes gleamed. His receipts had never been so +good since West left him. + +"That's the talk! I need you in my business, old boy. By the bye, you +can come in at bully advantage if you can move right away. I'm going to +come talk with you to-morrow." + +"Right's the word," said West. + +At the end of that block a large house stood in a lawn, half hidden from +the street by a curtain of trees. From its concealed veranda came a +ripple of faint, slow laughter, advertising the presence of charming +society. West halted. + +"Here's a nice house, Tommy; I think I'll look in. See you to-morrow." + +Semple, walking on, glanced back to see what house it was. It proved to +be the brownstone palace leased for three years by old Mr. Avery, +formerly of Mauch Chunk but now of Ours. + +Sharlee, too, retired from her painful interview with West with a sense +of irreparable loss. Her idol of so many years had, at a word, toppled +off into the dust, and not all the king's horses could ever get him back +again. It was like a death to her, and in most ways worse than a death. + +She lay awake a long time that night, thinking of the two men who, for +she could not say how long, had equally shared first place in her +thoughts. And gradually she read them both anew by the blaze lit by one +small incident. + +She could not believe that West was deliberately false; she was certain +that he was not deliberately false. But she saw now, as by a sudden +searchlight flung upon him, that her one-time paladin had a fatal +weakness. He could not be honest with himself. He could believe anything +that he wanted to believe. He could hypnotize himself at will by the +enchanting music of his own imaginings. He had pretty graces and he told +himself they were large, fine abilities; dim emotions and he thought +they were ideals; vague gropings of ambition, and when he had waved the +hands of his fancy over them, presto, they had become great dominating +purposes. He had fluttered fitfully from business to Blaines College; +from the college to the _Post_; before long he would flutter on from the +_Post_ to something else--always falling short, always secretly +disappointed, everywhere a failure as a man, though few might know it +but himself. West's trouble, in fact, was that he was not a man at all. +He was weakest where a real man is strongest. He was merely a chameleon +taking his color from whatever he happened to light upon; a handsome +boat which could never get anywhere because it had no rudder; an +ornamental butterfly driving aimlessly before the nearest breeze. He +meant well, in a general way, but his good intentions proved descending +paving-stones because he was constitutionally incapable of meaning +anything very hard. + +West had had everything in the beginning except money; and he had the +faculty of making all of that he wanted. Queed--she found that name +still clinging to him in her thoughts--had had nothing in the beginning +except his fearless honesty. In everything else that a man should he, he +had seemed to her painfully destitute. But because through everything he +had held unflinchingly to his honesty, he had been steadily climbing the +heights. He had passed West long ago, because their faces were set in +opposite directions. West had had the finest distinctions of honor +carefully instilled into him from his birth. Queed had deduced his, raw, +from his own unswerving honesty. And the first acid test of a real +situation showed that West's honor was only burnished and decorated +dross, while Queed's, which he had made himself, was as fine gold. In +that test, all superficial trappings were burned and shriveled away; men +were made to show their men's colors; and the "queer little man with the +queer little name" had instantly cast off his resplendent superior +because contact with his superior's dishonesty was degrading to him. Yet +in the same breath, he had allowed his former chief to foist off that +dishonesty upon his own clean shoulders, and borne the detestable burden +without demand for sympathy or claim for gratitude. And this was the +measure of how, as Queed had climbed by his honesty, his whole nature +had been strengthened and refined. For if he had begun as the most +unconscious and merciless of egoists, who could sacrifice little Fifi to +his comfort without a tremor, he had ended with the supreme act of +purest altruism: the voluntary sacrifice of himself to save a man whom +in his heart he must despise. + +But was that the supreme altruism? What had it cost him, after all, but +her friendship? Perhaps he did not regard that as so heavy a price to +pay. + +Sharlee turned her face to the wall. In the darkness, she felt the color +rising at her throat and sweeping softly but resistlessly upward. And +she found herself feverishly clinging to all that her little Doctor had +said, and looked, in all their meetings which, remembered now, gave her +the right to think that their parting had been hard for him, too. + +Yet it was not upon their parting that her mind busied itself most, but +upon thoughts of their remeeting. The relations which she had thought to +exist between them had, it was clear, been violently reversed. The one +point now was for her to meet the topsy-turveyed situation as swiftly, +as generously, and as humbly as was possible. + +If she had been a man, she would have gone to him at once, hunted him up +this very night, and told him in the most groveling language at her +command, how infinitely sorry and ashamed she was. Lying wide-eyed in +her little white bed, she composed a number of long speeches that she, +as a man, would have made to him; embarrassing speeches which he, as a +man, or any other man that ever lived, would never have endured for a +moment. But she was not a man, she was a girl; and girls were not +allowed to go to men, and frankly and honestly say what was in their +hearts. She was not in the least likely to meet him by accident; the +telephone was unthinkable. There remained only to write him a letter. + +Yes, but what to say in the letter? There was the critical and crucial +question. No matter how artful and cajoling an apology she wrote, she +knew exactly how he would treat it. He would write a civil, formal +reply, assuring her that her apology was accepted, and there the matter +would stand forever. For she had put herself terribly in the wrong; she +had betrayed a damning weakness; it was extremely probable that he would +never care to resume friendship with one who had proved herself so +hatefully mistrustful. Then, too, he was evidently very angry with her +about the money. Only by meeting for a long, frank talk could she ever +hope to make things right again; but not to save her life could she +think of any form of letter which would bring such a meeting to pass. + +Pondering the question, she fell asleep. All next day, whenever she had +a minute and sometimes when she did not, she pondered it, and the next, +and the next. Her heart smote her for the tardiness of her reparation; +but stronger than this was her fear of striking and missing fire. And at +last an idea came to her; an idea so big and beautiful that it first +startled and dazzled her, and then set her heart to singing; the perfect +idea which would blot away the whole miserable mess at one stroke. She +sat down and wrote Mr. Surface five lines, asking him to be kind enough +to call upon her in regard to the business matter about which he had +written her a few weeks before. + +She wrote this note from her house, one night; she expected, of course, +that he would come there to see her; she had planned out exactly where +they were each to sit, and even large blocks of their conversation. But +the very next morning, before 10 o'clock, there came a knock upon the +Departmental door and he walked into her office, looking more +matter-of-fact and businesslike than she had ever seen him. + + + + +XXXII + + _Second Meeting between a Citizen and the Great Pleasure-Dog + Behemoth, involving Plans for Two New Homes._ + + +And this time they did not have to go into the hall to talk. + +No sooner had the opening door revealed the face of young Mr. Surface +than Mr. Dayne, the kind-faced Secretary, reached hastily for his hat. +In the same breath with his "Come in" and "Good-morning," he was heard +to mention to the Assistant Secretary something about a little urgent +business downtown. + +Mr. Dayne acted so promptly that he met the visitor on the very +threshold of the office. The clergyman held out his hand with a light in +his manly gray eye. + +"I'm sincerely glad to see you, Mr. Queed, to have the chance--" + +"Surface, please." + +Mr. Dayne gave his hand an extra wring. "Mr. Surface, you did a splendid +thing. I'm glad of this chance to tell you so, and to beg your +forgiveness for having done you a grave injustice in my thoughts." + +The young man stared at him. "I have nothing to forgive you for, Mr. +Dayne. In fact, I have no idea what you are talking about." + +But Mr. Dayne did not enlighten him; in fact he was already walking +briskly down the hall. Clearly the man had business that would not brook +an instant's delay. + +Hat in hand, the young man turned, plainly puzzled, and found himself +looking at a white-faced little girl who gave back his look with brave +steadiness. + +"Do you think you can forgive me, too?" she asked in a very small +voice. + +He came three steps forward, into the middle of the room, and there +halted dead, staring at her with a look of searching inquiry. + +"I don't understand this," he said, in his controlled voice. + +"What are you talking about?" + +"Mr. West," said Sharlee, "has told me all about it. About the +reformatory. And I'm sorry." + +There she stuck. Of all the speeches of prostrate yet somehow noble +self-flagellation which in the night seasons she had so beautifully +polished, not one single word could she now recall. Yet she continued to +meet his gaze, for so should apologies be given though the skies fall; +and she watched as one fascinated the blood slowly ebb from his +close-set face. + +"Under the circumstances," he said abruptly, "it was hardly a--a +judicious thing to do. However, let us say no more about it." + +He turned away from her, obviously unsteadied for all his even voice. +And as he turned, his gaze, which had shifted only to get away from +hers, was suddenly arrested and became fixed. + +In the corner of the room, beside the bookcase holding the works of +Conant, Willoughby, and Smathers, lay the great pleasure-dog Behemoth, +leonine head sunk upon two massive outstretched paws. But Behemoth was +not asleep; on the contrary he was overlooking the proceedings in the +office with an air of intelligent and paternal interest. + +Between Behemoth and young Henry Surface there passed a long look. The +young man walked slowly across the room to where the creature lay, and, +bending down, patted him on the head. He did it with indescribable +awkwardness. Certainly Behemoth must have perceived what was so plain +even to a human critic, that here was the first dog this man had ever +patted in his life. Yet, being a pleasure-dog, he was wholly civil about +it. In fact, after a lidless scrutiny unembarrassed by any recollections +of his last meeting with this young man, he declared for friendship. +Gravely he lifted a behemothian paw, and gravely the young man shook it. + +To Behemoth young Mr. Surface addressed the following remarks:-- + +"West was simply deceived--hoodwinked by men infinitely cleverer than he +at that sort of thing. It was a manly thing--his coming to you now and +telling you; much harder than never to--have made the mistake in the +beginning. Of course--it wipes the slate clean. It makes everything all +right now. You appreciate that." + +Behemoth yawned. + +The young man turned, and came a step or two forward, both face and +voice under complete control again. + +"I received a note from you this morning," he began briskly, "asking me +to come in--" + +The girl's voice interrupted him. Standing beside the little +typewriter-table, exactly where her caller had surprised her, she had +watched with a mortifying dumbness the second meeting between the +pleasure-dog and the little Doctor that was. But now pride sprang to her +aid, stinging her into speech. For it was an unendurable thing that she +should thus tamely surrender to him the mastery of her situation, and +suffer her own fault to be glossed over so ingloriously. + +"Won't you let me tell you," she began hurriedly, "how sorry I am--how +ashamed--that I misjudged--" + +"No! No! I beg you to stop. There is not the smallest occasion for +anything of that sort--" + +"Don't you see my dreadful position? I suspect you, misjudge you--wrong +you at every step--and all the time you are doing a thing so fine--so +generous and splendid--that I am humiliated--to--" + +Once again she saw that painful transformation in his face: a difficult +dull-red flood sweeping over it, only to recede instantly, leaving him +white from neck to brow. + +"What is the use of talking in this way?" he asked peremptorily. "What +is the good of it, I say? The matter is over and done with. Everything +is all right--his telling you wipes it all from the slate, just as I +said. Don't you see that? Well, can't you dismiss the whole incident +from your mind and forget that it ever happened?" + +"I will try--if that is what you wish." + +She turned away, utterly disappointed and disconcerted by his summary +disposal of the burning topic over which she had planned such a long and +satisfying discussion. He started to say something, checked himself, and +said something entirely different. + +"I have received your note," he began directly, "asking me to come in +and see you about the matter of difference between the estates. That is +why I have called. I trust that this means that you are going to be +sensible and take your money." + +"In a way--yes. I will tell you--what I have thought." + +"Well, sit down to tell me please. You look tired; not well at all. Not +in the least. Take this comfortable chair." + +Obediently she sat down in Mr. Dayne's high-backed swivel-chair, which, +when she leaned back, let her neat-shod little feet swing clear of the +floor. The chair was a happy thought; it steadied her; so did his +unexampled solicitousness, which showed, she thought, that her emotion +had not escaped him. + +"I have decided that I would take it," said she, "with a--a--sort of +condition." + +Sitting in the chair placed for Mr. Dayne's callers, the young man +showed instant signs of disapprobation. + +"No, no! You are big enough to accept your own without conditions." + +"Oh--you won't argue with me about that, will you? Perhaps it is +unreasonable, but I could never be satisfied to take it--and spend it +for myself. I could never have any pleasure in it--never feel that it +was really mine. So," she hurried on, "I thought that it would be nice +to take it--and give it away." + +"Give it away!" he echoed, astonished and displeased. + +"Yes--give it to the State. I thought I should like to give it +to--establish a reformatory." + +Their eyes met. Upon his candid face she could watch the subtler +meanings of her idea slowly sinking into and taking hold of his +consciousness. + +"No--no!" came from him, explosively. "No! You must not think of such a +thing." + +"Yes--I have quite made up my mind. When the idea came to me it was like +an inspiration. It seemed to me the perfect use to make of this money. +Don't you see?... And--" + +"No, I don't see," he said sharply. "Why will you persist in thinking +that there is something peculiar and unclean about this money?--some +imagined taint upon your title to it? Don't you understand that it is +yours in precisely the same definite and honest way that the money this +office pays you--" + +"Oh--surely it is all a question of feeling. And if I feel--" + +"It is a question of fact," said Mr. Surface. "Listen to me. Suppose +your father had put this money away for you somewhere, so that you knew +nothing about it, hidden it, say, in a secret drawer somewhere about +your house"--didn't he know exactly the sort of places which fathers +used to hide away money?--"and that now, after all these years, you had +suddenly found it, together with a note from him saying that it was for +you. You follow me perfectly? Well? Would it ever occur to you to give +that money to the State--for a _reformatory_?" + +"Oh--perhaps not. How can I tell? But that case would--" + +"Would be exactly like this one," he finished for her crisply. "The sole +difference is that it happens to be my father who hid the money away +instead of yours." + +There was a silence. + +"I am sorry," said she, constrainedly, "that you take this--this view. I +had hoped so much that you might agree with me. Nevertheless, I think +my mind is quite made up. I--" + +"Then why on earth have you gone through the formality of consulting me, +only to tell me--" + +"Oh--because I thought it would be so nice if you would agree with me!" + +"But I do not agree with you," he said, looking at her with frowning +steadiness. "I do not. Nobody on earth would agree with you. Have you +talked with your friends about this mad proposal? Have you--" + +"None of them but you. I did not care to." + +The little speech affected him beyond all expectation; in full flight as +he was, it stopped him dead. He lost first the thread of his argument; +then his steadiness of eye and manner; and when he spoke, it was to +follow up, not his own thought, but her implication, with those +evidences of embarrassment which he could never hide. + +"So we are friends again," he stated, in rather a strained voice. + +"If you are willing--to take me back." + +He sat silent, drumming a tattoo on his chair-arm with long, strong +fingers; and when he resumed his argument, it was with an entire absence +of his usual air of authority. + +"On every score, you ought to keep your money--to make yourself +comfortable--to stop working--to bring yourself more pleasures, trips, +whatever you want--all exactly as your father intended." + +"Oh! don't argue with me, please! I asked you not. I must either take it +for that or not at all." + +"It--it is not my part," he said reluctantly, "to dictate what you shall +do with your own. I cannot sympathize in the least with your--your mad +proposal. Not in the least. However, I must assume that you know your +own mind. If it is quite made up--" + +"Oh, it is! I have thought it all over so carefully--and with so much +pleasure." + +He rose decisively. "Very well, I will go to my lawyers at once--this +morning. They will arrange it as you wish." + +"Oh--will you? How can I thank you? And oh," she added hastily, "there +was--another point that I--I wished to speak to you about." + +He gazed down at her, looking so small and sorrowful-eyed in her great +chair, and all at once his knees ran to water, and the terrible fear +clutched at him that his manhood would not last him out of the room. +This was the reason, perhaps, that his voice was the little Doctor's at +its brusquest as he said:-- + +"Well? What is it?" + +"The question," she said nervously, "of a--a name for this reformatory +that I want to found. I have thought a great deal about that. It is +a--large part of my idea. And I have decided that my reformatory shall +be called--that is, that I should like to call it--the Henry G. Surface +Home." + +He stared at her through a flash like a man stupefied; and then, +wheeling abruptly, walked away from her to the windows which overlooked +the park. For some time he stood there, back determinedly toward her, +staring with great fixity at nothing. But when he returned to her, she +had never seen his face so stern. + +"You must be mad to suggest such a thing. Mad! Of course I shall not +allow you to do it. I shall not give you the money for any such +purpose." + +"But if it is mine, as you wrote?" said Sharlee, looking up at him from +the back of her big chair. + +Her point manifestly was unanswerable. With characteristic swiftness, he +abandoned it, and fell back to far stronger ground. + +"Yes, the money is yours," he said stormily. "But that is all. My +father's name is mine." + +That silenced her, for the moment at least, and he swept rapidly on. + +"I do not in the least approve of your giving your money to establish a +foundation at all. That, however, is a matter with which, unfortunately, +I have nothing to do. But with my father's name I have everything to do. +I shall not permit you to--" + +"Surely--oh, surely, you will not refuse me so small a thing which would +give me so much happiness." + +"Happiness?" He flung the word back at her impatiently, but his +intention of demolishing it was suddenly checked by a flashing +remembrance of Fifi's definition of it. "Will you kindly explain how you +would get happiness from that?" + +"Oh--if you don't see, I am afraid I--could never explain--" + +"It is a display of just the same sort of unthinking Quixotism which has +led you hitherto to refuse to accept your own money. What you propose is +utterly irrational in every way. Can you deny it? Can you defend your +proposal by any reasonable argument? I cannot imagine how so--so mad an +idea ever came into your mind." + +She sat still, her fingers playing with the frayed edges of Mr. Dayne's +blotting-pad, and allowed the silence to enfold them once more. + +"Your foundation," he went on, with still further loss of motive power, +"would--gain nothing by bearing the name of my father. He was not +worthy.... No one knows that better than you. Will you tell me what +impulse put it into your mind to--to do this?" + +"I--had many reasons," said she, speaking with some difficulty. "I will +tell you one. My father loved him once. I know he would like me to do +something--to make the name honorable again." + +"That," he said, in a hard voice, "is beyond your power." + +She showed no disposition to contradict him, or even to maintain the +conversation. Presently he went on:-- + +"I cannot let you injure your foundation by--branding it with his +notoriety, in an impulsive and--and fruitless generosity. For it would +be fruitless. You, of all people, must understand that the burden on +the other side is--impossibly heavy. You know that, don't you?" + +She raised her head and looked at him. + +Again, her pride had been plucking at her heartstrings, burning her with +the remembrance that he, when he gave her everything that a man could +give, had done it in a manner perfect and without flaw. And now she, +with her infinitely smaller offering, sat tongue-tied and ineffectual, +unable to give with a show of the purple, too poor-spirited even to +yield him the truth for his truth which alone made the gift worth the +offering. + +Her blood, her spirit, and all her inheritance rallied at the call of +her pride. She looked at him, and made her gaze be steady: though this +seemed to her the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. + +"I must not let you think that I wanted to do this only for your +father's sake. That would not be honest. Part of my pleasure in planning +it--most of it, perhaps--was because I--I should so much like to do +something for your father's son." + +She rose, trying to give the movement a casual air, and went over to her +little desk, pretending to busy herself straightening out the litter of +papers upon it. From this safe distance, her back toward him, she forced +herself to add:-- + +"This reformatory will take the place of the one you--would have won for +us. Don't you see? Half-my happiness in giving it is gone, unless you +will lend me the name." + +Behind her the silence was impenetrable. + +She stood at her desk, methodically sorting papers which she did not +see, and wildly guessing at the meaning of that look of turbulent +consciousness which she had seen break startled into his eyes. More even +than in their last meeting, she had found that the sight of his face, +wonderfully changed yet even more wonderfully the same, deeply affected +her to-day. Its new sadness and premature age moved her strangely; with +a peculiar stab of compassion and pain she had seen for the first time +the gray in the nondescript hair about his temples. For his face, she +had seen that the smooth sheath of satisfied self-absorption, which had +once overlain it like the hard veneer on a table-top, had been scorched +away as in a baptism by fire; from which all that was best in it had +come out at once strengthened and chastened. And she thought that the +shining quality of honesty in his face must be such as to strike +strangers on the street. + +And now, behind her on the office floor, she heard his footsteps, and in +one breath was suddenly cold with the fear that her hour had come, and +hot with the fear that it had not. + +Engrossed with her papers, she moved so as to keep her back toward him; +but he, with a directness which would not flinch even in this untried +emergency, deliberately intruded himself between her and the table; and +so once more they stood face to face. + +"I don't understand you," he began, his manner at its quietest. "Why do +you want to do this for me?" + +At this close range, she glanced once at him and instantly looked away. +His face was as white as paper; and when she saw that her heart first +stopped beating, and then pounded off in a wild frightened pæan. + +"I--cannot tell you--I don't know--exactly." + +"What do you mean?" + +She hardly recognized his voice; instinctively she began backing away. + +"I don't think I--can explain. You--rather terrify me this morning." + +"Are you in love with ME?" he demanded in a terrible voice, beginning at +the wrong end, as he would be sure to do. + +Finger at her lip, her blue eyes, bright with unshed tears, resting upon +his in a gaze as direct as a child's, Sharlee nodded her head up and +down. + +And that was all the hint required by clever Mr. Surface, the famous +social scientist. He advanced somehow, and took her in his arms. On the +whole, it was rather surprising how satisfactorily he did it, +considering that she was the first woman he had ever touched in all his +days. + +So they stood through a time that might have been a minute and might +have been an age, since all of them that mattered had soared away to the +sunlit spaces where no time is. After awhile, driven by a strange fierce +desire to see her face in the light of this new glory, he made a gentle +effort to hold her off from him, but she clung to him, crying, "No, no! +I don't want you to see me yet." + +After another interval of uncertain length, she said:-- + +"All along my heart has cried out that you couldn't have done that, and +hurt me so. _You couldn't_. I will never doubt my heart again. And you +were so fine--so fine--to forgive me so easily." + +In the midst of his dizzying exaltation, he marveled at the ease with +which she spoke her inmost feeling; he, the great apostle of reason and +self-mastery, was much slower in recovering lost voice and control. It +was some time before he would trust himself to speak, and even then the +voice that he used was not recognizable as his. + +"So you are willing to do as much for my father's son as to--to--take +his name for your own." + +"No, this is something that I am doing for myself. Your father was not +perfect, but he was the only father that ever had a son whose name I +would take for mine." + +A silence. + +"We can keep my father's house," he said, in time, "for--for--us to live +in. You must give up the office. And I will find light remunerative +work, which will leave at least part of my time free for my book." + +She gave a little laugh that was half a sob. "Perhaps--you could +persuade that wealthy old lady--to get out a second edition of her +_thesaurus!_" + +"I wish I could, though!" + +"You talk just like my little Doctor," she gasped--"my--own little +Doctor.... I've got a little surprise for you--about remunerative +work," she went on, "only I can't tell you now, because it's a secret. +Promise that you won't make me tell you." + +He promised. + +Suddenly, without knowing why, she began to cry, her cheek against his +breast. "You've had a sad life, little Doctor--a sad life. But I am +going to make it all up to you--if you will show me the way." + +Presently she became aware that her telephone was ringing, and ringing +as though it had been at it for some time. + +"Oh bother! They won't let us have even a little minute together after +all these years. I suppose you must let me go--" + +She turned from the desk with the most beautiful smile he had ever seen +upon a face. + +"It's for you!" + +"For me?" he echoed like a man in a dream. "That is--very strange." + +Strange, indeed! Outside, the dull world was wagging on as before, +unaware that there had taken place in this enchanted room the most +momentous event in history. + +He took the receiver from her with a left hand which trembled, and with +his untrained right somehow caught and imprisoned both of hers. "Stand +right by me," he begged hurriedly. + +Now he hoisted the receiver in the general direction of his ear, and +said in what he doubtless thought was quite a businesslike manner: +"Well?" + +"Mr. Queed? This is Mr. Hickok," said the incisive voice over the wire. +"Well, what in the mischief are you doing up there?" + +"I'm--I'm--transacting some important business--with the Department," +said Mr. Surface, and gave Sharlee's hands a desperate squeeze. "But +my--" + +"Well, we're transacting some important business down here. Never should +have found you but for Mr. Dayne's happening along. Did you know that +West had resigned?" + +"No, has he? But I started--" + +"Peace to his ashes. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. The directors are +meeting now to elect his successor. Only one name has been mentioned. +There's only one editor we'll hear of for the paper. Won't you come back +to us, my boy?" + +The young man cleared his throat. "Come? I'd--think it the greatest +honor--there's nothing I'd rather have. You are all too--too kind to +me--I can't tell you--but--" + +"Oh, no buts! But us no buts now! I'll go tell them--" + +"No--wait," called the young man, hastily. "If I come, I don't come as +Queed, you know. My name is Henry G. Surface. That may make a +difference--" + +"Come as Beelzebub!" said the old man, testily. "We've had enough of +hiring a _name_ for the _Post_. This time we're after a man, and by the +Lord, we've got one!" + +Henry Surface turned away from the telephone, struggling with less than +his usual success to show an unmoved face. + +"You--know?" + +She nodded: in her blue-spar eyes, there was the look of a winged +victory. "That was the little secret--don't you think it was a nice one? +It is your magnificent boast come true.... And you don't even say 'I +told you so'!" + +He looked past her out into the park. Over the budding trees, already +bursting and spreading their fans of green, far off over the jagged +stretch of roofs, his gaze sought the battered gray _Post_ building and +the row of windows behind which he had so often sat and worked. A mist +came before his eyes; the trees curveted and swam; and his visible world +swung upside down and went out in a singing and spark-shot blackness. + +She came to his side again: in silence slipped her hand into his; and +following both his look and his thought, she felt her own eyes smart +with a sudden bright dimness. + +"This is the best city in the world," said Henry Surface. "The kindest +people--the _kindest people_--" + +"Yes, little Doctor." + +He turned abruptly and caught her to him again; and now, hearing even +above the hammering of his own blood the wild fluttering of her heart +against his, his tongue unlocked and he began to speak his heart. It was +not speech as he had always known speech. In all his wonderful array of +terminology there were no words fitted to this undreamed need; he had to +discover them somehow, by main strength make them up for himself; and +they came out stammering, hard-wrung, bearing new upon their rough faces +the mint-mark of his own heart. Perhaps she did not prize them any the +less on that account. + +"I'm glad that you love me that way--Henry. I must call you Henry +now--mustn't I, Henry?" + +"Do you know," she said, after a time, "I am--_almost_ weakening about +giving our money for a Home. Somehow, I'd so like for you to have it, so +that--" + +She felt a little shiver run through him. + +"No, no! I could not bear to touch it. We shall be far happier--" + +"You could stop work, buy yourself comforts, pleasures, trips. It is a +mad thing," she teased, "to give away money.... Oh, little Doctor--I +can't breathe if you hold me--so tight." + +"About the name," he said presently, "I--dislike to oppose you, but I +cannot--I cannot--" + +"Well, I've decided to change it, Henry, in deference to your wishes." + +"I am extremely glad. I myself know a name--" + +"Instead of calling it the Henry G. Surface Home--" + +Suddenly she drew away from him, leaving behind both her hands for a +keepsake, and raised to him a look so luminous and radiant that he felt +himself awed before it, like one who with impious feet has blundered +upon holy ground. + +"I am going to call it the Henry G. Surface _Junior_ Home. Do you know +any name for a Home so pretty as that?" + +"No, no, I--can't let you--" + +But she cried him down passionately, saying: "Yes, that is _our_ name +now, and we are going to make it honorable." + +From his place beside the sociological bookcase--perhaps faunal +naturalists can tell us why--the great pleasure-dog Behemoth, whose +presence they had both forgotten, raised his leonine head and gave a +sharp, joyous bark. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Queed, by Henry Sydnor Harrison + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14303 *** |