bedroom the deposed Prince was whistling "Dixie" and packing the royal
pajamas into a suitcase.
CHAPTER X
MRS. OAKLEY
Betty, when she stepped on board the boat for Marseilles, had had no
definite plan of action. She had been caught up and swept away by an
over-mastering desire for escape that left no room in her mind for
thoughts of the morrow. It was not till the train was roaring its way
across southern France that she found herself sufficiently composed to
review her position and make plans.
She would not go back. She could not. The words she had used in her
letter to Mr. Scobell were no melodramatic rhetoric. They were a plain
and literal statement of the truth. Death would be infinitely
preferable to life at Mervo on her stepfather's conditions.
But, that settled, what then? What was she to do? The gods are
businesslike. They sell; they do not give. And for what they sell they
demand a heavy price. We may buy life of them in many ways: with our
honor, our health, our independence, our happiness, with our brains or
with our hands. But somehow or other, in whatever currency we may
choose to pay it, the price must be paid.
Betty faced the problem. What had she? What could she give? Her
independence? That, certainly. She saw now what a mockery that fancied
independence had been. She had come and gone as she pleased, her path
smoothed by her stepfather's money, and she had been accustomed to
consider herself free. She had learned wisdom now, and could understand
that it was only by sacrificing such artificial independence that she
could win through to freedom. The world was a market, and the only
independent people in it were those who had a market value.
What was her market value? What could she do? She looked back at her
life, and saw that she had dabbled. She had a little of most
things - enough of nothing. She could sketch a little, play a little,
sing a little, write a little. Also - and, as she remembered it, she
felt for the first time a tremor of hope - she could use a typewriter
reasonably well. That one accomplishment stood out in the welter of her
thoughts, solid and comforting, like a rock in a quicksand. It was
something definite, something marketable, something of value for which
persons paid.
The tremor of hope did not comfort her long. Her mood was critical, and
she saw that in this, her one accomplishment, she was, as in everything
else, an amateur. She could not compete against professionals. She
closed her eyes, and had a momentary vision of those professionals,
keen of face, leathern of finger, rattling out myriads of words at a
dizzy speed. And, at that, all her courage suddenly broke; she drooped
forlornly, and, hiding her face on the cushioned arm-rest, she began to
cry.
Tears are the Turkish bath of the soul. Nature never intended woman to
pass dry-eyed through crises of emotion. A casual stranger, meeting
Betty on her way to the boat, might have thought that she looked a
little worried, - nothing more. The same stranger, if he had happened to
enter the compartment at this juncture, would have set her down at
sight as broken-hearted beyond recovery. Yet such is the magic of tears
that it was at this very moment that Betty was beginning to be
conscious of a distinct change for the better. Her heart still ached,
and to think of John even for an instant was to feel the knife turning
in the wound, but her brain was clear; the panic fear had gone, and she
faced the future resolutely once more. For she had just remembered the
existence of Mrs. Oakley.
* * * * *
Only once in her life had Betty met her stepfather's celebrated aunt,
and the meeting had taken place nearly twelve years ago. The figure
that remained in her memory was of a pale-eyed, grenadier-like old
lady, almost entirely surrounded by clocks. It was these clocks that
had impressed her most. She was too young to be awed by the knowledge
that the tall old woman who stared at her just like a sandy cat she had
once possessed was one of the three richest women in the whole wide
world. She only remembered thinking that the finger which emerged from
the plaid shawl and prodded her cheek was unpleasantly bony. But the
clocks had absorbed her. It was as if all the clocks in the world had
been gathered together into that one room. There had been big clocks,
with almost human faces; small, perky clocks; clocks of strange shape;
and one dingy, medium-sized clock in particular which had made her cry
out with delight. Her visit had chanced to begin shortly before eleven
in the morning, and she had not been in the room ten minutes before
there was a whirring, and the majority of the clocks began to announce
the hour, each after its own fashion - some with a slow bloom, some with
a rapid, bell-like sound. But the medium-sized clock, unexpectedly
belying its appearance of being nothing of particular importance, had
performed its task in a way quite distinct from the others. It had
suddenly produced from its interior a shabby little gold man with a
trumpet, who had blown eleven little blasts before sliding backward
into his house and shutting the door after him. Betty had waited in
rapt silence till he finished, and had then shouted eagerly for more.
Just as the beginner at golf may effect a drive surpassing that of the
expert, so may a child unconsciously eclipse the practised courtier.
There was no soft side to Mrs. Oakley's character, as thousands of
suave would-be borrowers had discovered in their time, but there was a
soft spot. To general praise of her collection of clocks she was
impervious; it was unique, and she did not require you to tell her so,
but exhibit admiration for the clock with the little trumpeter, and she
melted. It was the one oasis of sentiment in the Sahara of her mental
outlook, the grain of radium in the pitchblende. Years ago it had stood
in a little New England farmhouse, and a child had clapped her hands
and shouted, even as Betty had done, when the golden man slid from his
hiding-place. Much water had flowed beneath the bridge since those
days. Many things had happened to the child. But she still kept her old
love for the trumpeter. The world knew nothing of this. The world, if
it had known, would have been delighted to stand before the clock and
admire it volubly, by the day. But it had no inkling of the trumpeter's
importance, and, when it came to visit Mrs. Oakley, was apt to waste
its time showering compliments on the obvious beauties of the queens of
the collection.
But Betty, ignoring these, jumped up and down before the dingy clock,
demanding further trumpetings, and, turning to Mrs. Oakley, as one
possessing influence, she was aware of a curious, intent look in the
old lady's eyes.
"Do you like that clock, my dear?" said Mrs. Oakley.
"Yes! Oh, yes!"
"Perhaps you shall have it some day, honey."
Betty was probably the only person who had been admitted to that room
who would not, on the strength of this remark, have steered the
conversation gently to the subject of a small loan. Instead, she ran to
the old lady, and kissed her. And, as to what had happened after that,
memory was vague. There had been some talk, she remembered, of a dollar
to buy candy, but it had come to nothing, and now that she had grown
older and had read the frequent paragraphs and anecdotes that appeared
in the papers about her stepfather's aunt, she could understand why.
She knew now what everybody knew of Mrs. Oakley - her history, her
eccentricities, and the miserliness of which the papers spoke with a
satirical lightness that seemed somehow but a thin disguise for what
was almost admiration.
Mrs. Oakley was one of two children, a son and a daughter, of a Vermont
farmer. Of her early life no records remain. Her public history begins
when she was twenty-two and came to New York. After two years'
struggling, she found a position in the firm of one Redgrave. Those who
knew her then speak of her as a tall, handsome girl, hard and intensely
ambitious. From contemporary accounts she seems to have out-Nietzsched
Nietzsche. Nietzsche's vision stopped short at the superman. Jane
Scobell was a superwoman. She had all the titanic selfishness and
indifference to the comfort of others which marks the superman, and, in
addition, undeniable good looks and a knowledge of the weaknesses of
men. Poor Mr. Redgrave had not had a chance from the start. She married
him within a year. Two years later, catching the bulls in an unguarded
moment, Mr. Redgrave despoiled them of a trifle over three million
dollars, and died the same day of an apoplectic stroke caused by the
excitement of victory. His widow, after a tour in Europe, returned to
the United States and visited Pittsburg. Any sociologist will support
the statement that it is difficult, almost impossible, for an
attractive widow, visiting Pittsburg, not to marry a millionaire, even
if she is not particularly anxious to do so. If such an act is the
primary object of her visit, the thing becomes a certainty. Groping
through the smoke, Jane Redgrave seized and carried off no less a
quarry than Alexander Baynes Oakley, a widower, whose income was one of
the seven wonders of the world. In the fullness of time he, too, died,
and Jane Oakley was left with the sole control of two vast fortunes.
She did not marry again, though it was rumored that it took three
secretaries, working nine hours a day, to cope with the written
proposals, and that butler after butler contracted clergyman's sore
throat through denying admittance to amorous callers. In the ten years
after Alexander Baynes' death, every impecunious aristocrat in the
civilized world must have made his dash for the matrimonial pole. But
her pale eyes looked them over, and dismissed them.
During those early years she was tempted once or twice to speculation.
A failure in a cotton deal not only cured her of this taste, but seems
to have marked the point in her career when her thoughts began to turn
to parsimony. Until then she had lived in some state, but now,
gradually at first, then swiftly, she began to cut down her expenses.
Now we find her in an apartment in West Central Park, next in a
Washington Square hotel, then in a Harlem flat, and finally - her last,
fixed abiding-place - in a small cottage on Staten Island.
It was a curious life that she led, this woman who could have bought
kingdoms if she had willed it. A Swedish maid-of-all-work was her only
companion. By day she would walk in her little garden, or dust, arrange
and wind up her clocks. At night, she would knit, or read one of the
frequent reports that arrived at the cottage from charity workers on
the East Side. Those were her two hobbies, and her only
extravagances - clocks and charity.
Her charity had its limitations. In actual money she expended little.
She was a theoretical philanthropist. She lent her influence, her time,
and her advice, but seldom her bank balance. Arrange an entertainment
for the delectation of the poor, and you would find her on the
platform, but her name would not be on the list of subscribers to the
funds. She would deliver a lecture on thrift to an audience of factory
girls, and she would give them a practical example of what she
preached.
Yet, with all its limitations, her charity was partly genuine. Her mind
was like a country in the grip of civil war. One-half of her sincerely
pitied the poor, burned at any story of oppression, and cried "Give!"
but the other cried "Halt!" and held her back, and between the two she
fell.
* * * * *
It was to this somewhat unpromising haven of refuge that Betty's mind
now turned in her trouble. She did not expect great things. She could
not have said exactly what she did expect. But, at least, the cottage
on Staten Island offered a resting-place on her journey, even if it
could not be the journey's end. Her mad dash from Mervo ceased to be
objectless. It led somewhere.
CHAPTER XI
A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION
New York, revisited, had much the same effect on Betty as it had had on
John during his first morning of independence. As the liner came up the
bay, and the great buildings stood out against the clear blue of the
sky, she felt afraid and lonely. That terror which is said to attack
immigrants on their first sight of the New York sky-line came to her,
as she leaned on the rail, and with it a feeling of utter misery. By a
continual effort during the voyage she had kept her thoughts from
turning to John, but now he rose up insistently before her, and she
realized all that had gone out of her life.
She rebelled against the mad cruelty of the fate which had brought them
together again. It seemed to her now that she must always have loved
him, but it had been such a vague, gentle thing, this love, before that
last meeting - hardly more than a pleasant accompaniment to her life,
something to think about in idle moments, a help and a support when
things were running crosswise. She had been so satisfied with it, so
content to keep him a mere memory. It seemed so needless and wanton to
destroy her illusion.
Of love as a wild-beast passion, tearing and torturing quite ordinary
persons like herself, she had always been a little sceptical. The great
love poems of the world, when she read them, had always left her with
the feeling that their authors were of different clay from herself and
had no common meeting ground with her. She had seen her friends fall in
love, as they called it, and it had been very pretty and charming, but
as far removed from the frenzies of the poets as an amateur's snapshot
of Niagara from the cataract itself. Elsa Keith, for instance, was
obviously very fond and proud of Marvin, but she seemed perfectly
placid about it. She loved, but she could still spare half an hour for
the discussion of a new frock. Her soul did not appear to have been
revolutionized in any way.
Gradually Betty had come to the conclusion that love, in the full sense
of the word, was one of the things that did not happen. And now, as if
to punish her presumption, it had leaped from hiding and seized her.
There was nothing exaggerated or unintelligible in the poets now. They
ceased to be inhabitants of another world, swayed by curiously complex
emotions. They were her brothers - ordinary men with ordinary feelings
and a strange gift for expressing them. She knew now that it was
possible to hate the man you loved and to love the man you hated, to
ache for the sight of someone even while you fled from him.
It did not take her long to pass the Customs. A small grip constituted
her entire baggage. Having left this in the keeping of the amiable
proprietor of a near-by delicatessen store, she made her way to the
ferry.
Her first enquiry brought her to the cottage. Mrs. Oakley was a
celebrity on Staten Island.
At the door she paused for a moment, then knocked.
The Swede servant, she who had been there at her former visit, twelve
years ago, received her stolidly. Mrs. Oakley was dusting her clocks.
"Ask her if she can see me," said Betty. "I'm - " great step-niece
sounded too ridiculous - "I'm her niece," she said.
The handmaid went and returned, stolid as ever. "Ay tal her vat yu say
about niece, and she say she not knowing any niece," she announced.
Betty amended the description, and presently the Swede returned once
more, and motioned her to enter.
Like so many scenes of childhood, the room of the clocks was sharply
stamped on Betty's memory, and, as she came into it now, it seemed to
her that nothing had changed. There were the clocks, all round the
walls, of every shape and size, the big clocks with the human faces and
the small, perky clocks. There was the dingy, medium-sized clock that
held the trumpeter. And there, looking at her with just the old
sandy-cat expression in her pale eyes, was Mrs. Oakley.
Even the possession of an income of eighteen million dollars and a
unique collection of clocks cannot place a woman above the making of
the obvious remark.
"How you have grown!" said Mrs. Oakley.
The words seemed to melt the chill that had gathered around Betty's
heart. She had been prepared to enter into long explanations, and the
knowledge that these would not be required was very comforting.
"Do you remember me?" she exclaimed.
"You are the little girl who clapped her hands at the trumpeter, but
you are not little now."
"I'm not so very big," said Betty, smiling. She felt curiously at home,
and pity for the loneliness of this strange old woman caused her to
forget her own troubles.
"You look pretty when you smile," said Mrs. Oakley thoughtfully. She
continued to look closely at her. "You are in trouble," she said.
Betty met her eyes frankly.
"Yes," she said.
The old woman bent her head over a Sevres china clock, and stroked it
tenderly with her feather duster.
"Why did you run away?" she asked without looking up.
Betty had a feeling that the ground was being cut from beneath her
feet. She had expected to have to explain who she was and why she had
come, and behold, both were unnecessary. It was uncanny. And then the
obvious explanation occurred to her.
"Did my stepfather cable?" she asked.
Mrs. Oakley laid down the feather duster and, opening a drawer,
produced some sheets of paper - to the initiated eye plainly one of Mr.
Scobell's lengthy messages.
"A wickedly extravagant cable," she said, frowning at it. "He could
have expressed himself perfectly well at a quarter of the expense."
Betty began to read. The dimple on her chin appeared for a moment as
she did so. The tone of the message was so obsequious. There was no
trace of the old peremptory note in it. The words "dearest aunt"
occurred no fewer than six times in the course of the essay, its author
being apparently reckless of the fact that it was costing him half a
dollar a time. Mrs. Oakley had been quite right in her criticism. The
gist of the cable was, "_Betty has run away to America dearest aunt
ridiculous is sure to visit you please dearest aunt do not encourage
her_." The rest was pure padding.
Mrs. Oakley watched her with a glowering eye. "If Bennie Scobell," she
soliloquized, "imagines that he can dictate to me - " She ceased,
leaving an impressive hiatus. Unhappy Mr. Scobell, convicted of
dictation even after three dollars' worth of "dearest aunt!"
Betty handed back the cable. Her chin, emblem of war, was tilted and
advanced.
"I'll tell you why I ran away, Aunt," she said.
Mrs. Oakley listened to her story in silence. Betty did not relate it
at great length, for with every word she spoke, the thought of John
stabbed her afresh. She omitted much that has been told in this
chronicle. But she disclosed the essential fact, that Napoleonic Mr.
Scobell had tried to force her into a marriage with a man she did
not - she hesitated at the word - did not respect, she concluded.
Mrs. Oakley regarded her inscrutably for a while before replying.
"Respect!" she said at last. "I have never met a man in my life whom I
could respect. Harpies! Every one of them! Every one of them! Every one
of them!"
She was muttering to herself. It is possible that her thoughts were
back with those persevering young aristocrats of her second widowhood.
Certainly, if she had sometimes displayed a touch of the pirate in her
dealings with man, man, it must be said in fairness, had not always
shown his best side to her.
"Respect!" she muttered again. "Did you like him, this Prince of
yours?"
Betty's eyes filled. She made no reply.
"Well, never mind," said Mrs. Oakley. "Don't cry, child! I'm not going
to press you. You must have hated him or else loved him very much, or
you would never have run away.... Dictate to me!" she broke off,
half-aloud, her mind evidently once more on Mr. Scobell's unfortunate
cable.
Betty could bear it no longer.
"I loved him!" she cried. "I loved him!"
She was shaking with dry sobs. She felt the old woman's eyes upon her,
but she could not stop.
A sudden whirr cut through the silence. One of the large clocks near
the door was beginning to strike the hour. Instantly the rest began to
do the same, till the room was full of the noise. And above the din
there sounded sharp and clear the note of the little trumpet.
The noise died away with metallic echoings.
"Honey!"
It was a changed voice that spoke. Betty looked up, and saw that the
eyes that met hers were very soft. She moved quickly to the old woman's
side.
"Honey, I'm going to tell you something about myself that nobody dreams
of. Betty, when I was your age, _I_ ran away from a man because I
loved him. It was just a little village tragedy, my dear. I think he
was fond of me, but father was poor and her folks were the great people
of the place, and he married her. And I ran away, like you, and went to
New York."
Betty pressed her hand. It was trembling.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"I went to New York because I wanted to kill my heart. And I killed it.
There's only one way. Work! Work! Work!" She was sitting bolt upright,
and the soft look had gone out of her eyes. They were hard and fiery
under the drawn brows. "Work! Ah, I worked! I never rested. For two
years. Two whole years. It fought back at me. It tore me to bits. But I
wouldn't stop. I worked on, I killed it."
She stopped, quivering. Betty was cold with a nameless dismay. She felt
as if she were standing in the dark on the brink of an abyss.
The old woman began to speak again.
"Child, it's the same with you. Your heart's tearing you. Don't let it!
It will get worse and worse if you are afraid of it. Fight it! Kill it!
Work!"
She stopped again, clenching and unclenching her fingers, as if she
were strangling some living thing. There was silence for a long moment.
"What can you do?" she asked suddenly.
Her voice was calm and unemotional again. The abruptness of the
transition from passion to the practical took Betty aback. She could
not speak.
"There must be something," continued Mrs. Oakley. "When I was your age
I had taught myself bookkeeping, shorthand, and typewriting. What can
you do? Can you use a typewriter?"
Blessed word!
"Yes," said Betty promptly.
"Well?"
"Not very well?"
"H'm. Well, I expect you will do it well enough for Mr. Renshaw - on my
recommendation. I'll give you a letter to him. He is the editor of a
small weekly paper. I don't know how much he will offer you, but take
it and _work!_ You'll find him pleasant. I have met him at charity
organization meetings on the East Side. He's useful at the
entertainments - does conjuring tricks - stupid, but they seem to amuse
people. You'll find him pleasant. There."
She had been writing the letter of introduction during the course of
these remarks. At the last word she blotted it, and placed it in an
envelope.
"That's the address," she said. "J. Brabazon Renshaw, Office of
_Peaceful Moments_. Take it to him now. Good-by."
It was as if she were ashamed of her late display of emotion. She spoke
abruptly, and her pale eyes were expressionless. Betty thanked her and
turned to go.
"Tell me how you get on," said Mrs. Oakley.
"Yes," said Betty.
"And _work_. Keep on working!"
There was a momentary return of her former manner as she spoke the
words, and Betty wavered. She longed to say something comforting,
something that would show that she understood.
Mrs. Oakley had taken up the feather duster again.
"Steena will show you out," she said curtly. And Betty was aware of the
stolid Swede in the doorway. The interview was plainly at an end.
"Good-by, Aunt," she said, "and thank you ever so much - for
everything."
CHAPTER XII
"PEACEFUL MOMENTS"
The man in the street did not appear to know it, but a great crisis was
imminent in New York journalism.
Everything seemed much as usual in the city. The cars ran blithely on
Broadway. Newsboys shouted their mystic slogan, "Wuxtry!" with
undiminished vim. Society thronged Fifth Avenue without a furrow on its
brow. At a thousand street corners a thousand policemen preserved their
air of massive superiority to the things of this world. Of all the four
million not one showed the least sign of perturbation.
Nevertheless, the crisis was at hand. Mr. J. Brabazon Renshaw,
Editor-in-chief of _Peaceful Moments_, was about to leave his post
and start on a three-months' vacation.
_Peaceful Moments_, as its name (an inspiration of Mr. Renshaw's
own) was designed to imply, was a journal of the home. It was the sort
of paper which the father of the family is expected to take back with
him from the office and read aloud to the chicks before bedtime under
the shade of the rubber plant.
Circumstances had left the development of the paper almost entirely to
Mr. Renshaw. Its contents were varied. There was a "Moments in the
Nursery" page, conducted by Luella Granville Waterman and devoted
mainly to anecdotes of the family canary, by Jane (aged six), and
similar works of the younger set. There was a "Moments of Meditation"
page, conducted by the Reverend Edwin T. Philpotts; a "Moments among
the Masters" page, consisting of assorted chunks looted from the
literature of the past, when foreheads were bulged and thoughts
profound, by Mr. Renshaw himself; one or two other special pages; a
short story; answers to correspondents on domestic matters; and a
"Moments of Mirth" page, conducted by one B. Henderson Asher - a very
painful affair.
The proprietor of this admirable journal was that Napoleon of finance,
Mr. Benjamin Scobell.
That this should have been so is but one proof of the many-sidedness of
that great man.
Mr. Scobell had founded _Peaceful Moments_ at an early stage in
his career, and it was only at very rare intervals nowadays that he
recollected that he still owned it. He had so many irons in the fire
now that he had no time to waste his brain tissues thinking about a
paper like _Peaceful Moments_. It was one of his failures. It
certainly paid its way and brought him a small sum each year, but to
him it was a failure, a bombshell that had fizzled.
He had intended to do big things with _Peaceful Moments_. He had
meant to start a new epoch in the literature of Manhattan.
"I gottan idea," he had said to Miss Scobell. "All this yellow
journalism - red blood and all that - folks are tired of it. They want
something milder. Wholesome, see what I mean? There's money in it. Guys
make a roll too big to lift by selling soft drinks, don't they? Well,
I'm going to run a soft-drink paper. See?"
The enterprise had started well. To begin with, he had found the ideal
editor. He had met Mr. Renshaw at a down-East gathering presided over
by Mrs. Oakley, and his Napoleonic eye had seen in J. Brabazon the
seeds of domestic greatness. Before they parted, he had come to terms
with him. Nor had the latter failed to justify his intuition. He made
an admirable editor. It was not Mr. Renshaw's fault that the new paper
had failed to electrify America. It was the public on whom the
responsibility for the failure must be laid. They spoiled the whole
thing. Certain of the faithful subscribed, it is true, and continued to
subscribe, but the great heart of the public remained untouched. The
great heart of the public declined to be interested in the meditations
of Mr. Philpotts and the humor of Mr. B. Henderson Asher, and continued
to spend its money along the bad old channels. The thing began to bore
Mr. Scobell. He left the conduct of the journal more and more to Mr.
Renshaw, until finally - it was just after the idea for extracting gold
from sea water had struck him - he put the whole business definitely out
of his mind. (His actual words were that he never wanted to see or hear
of the darned thing again, inasmuch as it gave him a pain in the neck.)
Mr. Renshaw was given a free hand as to the editing, and all matters of
finance connected with the enterprise were placed in the hands of Mr.
Scobell's solicitors, who had instructions to sell the journal, if, as
its owner crisply put it, they could find any chump who was enough of a
darned chump to give real money for it. Up to the present the great
army of chumps had fallen short of this ideal standard of darned
chumphood.
Ever since this parting of the ways, Mr. Renshaw had been in his
element. Under his guidance _Peaceful Moments_ had reached a level
of domesticity which made other so-called domestic journals look like
sporting supplements. But at last the work had told upon him. Whether
it was the effort of digging into the literature of the past every
week, or the strain of reading B. Henderson Asher's "Moments of Mirth"
is uncertain. At any rate, his labors had ended in wrecking his health
to such an extent that the doctor had ordered him three months'
complete rest, in the woods or mountains, whichever he preferred; and,
being a farseeing man, who went to the root of things, had absolutely
declined to consent to Mr. Renshaw's suggestion that he keep in touch
with the paper during his vacation. He was adamant. He had seen copies
of _Peaceful Moments_ once or twice, and refused to permit a man
in Mr. Renshaw's state of health to come in contact with Luella
Granville Waterman's "Moments in the Nursery" and B. Henderson Asher's
"Moments of Mirth."
"You must forget that such a paper exists," he said. "You must dismiss
the whole thing from your mind, live in the open, and develop some
flesh and muscle."
Mr. Renshaw had bowed before the sentence, howbeit gloomily, and now,
on the morning of Betty's departure from Mrs. Oakley's house with the
letter of introduction, was giving his final instructions to his
temporary successor.
This temporary successor in the editorship was none other than John's
friend, Rupert Smith, late of the _News_.
Smith, on leaving Harvard, had been attracted by newspaper work, and
had found his first billet on a Western journal of the type whose
society column consists of such items as "Jim Thompson was to town
yesterday with a bunch of other cheap skates. We take this opportunity
of once more informing Jim that he is a liar and a skunk," and whose
editor works with a pistol on his desk and another in his hip-pocket.
Graduating from this, he had proceeded to a reporter's post on a daily
paper in Kentucky, where there were blood feuds and other Southern
devices for preventing life from becoming dull. All this was good, but
even while he enjoyed these experiences, New York, the magnet, had been
tugging at him, and at last, after two eventful years on the Kentucky
paper, he had come East, and eventually won through to the staff of the
_News_.
His presence in the office of _Peaceful Moments_ was due to the
uncomfortable habit of most of the New York daily papers of cutting
down their staff of reporters during the summer. The dismissed had, to
sustain them, the knowledge that they would return, like the swallows,
anon, and be received back into their old places; but in the meantime
they suffered the inconvenience of having to support themselves as best
they could. Smith, when, in the company of half-a-dozen others, he had
had to leave the _News_, had heard of the vacant post of assistant
editor on _Peaceful Moments_, and had applied for and received it.
Whereby he was more fortunate than some of his late colleagues; though,
as the character of his new work unrolled itself before him, he was
frequently doubtful on that point. For the atmosphere of _Peaceful
Moments_, however wholesome, was certainly not exciting, and his
happened to be essentially a nature that needed the stimulus of
excitement. Even in Park Row, the denizens of which street are rarely
slaves to the conventional and safe, he had a well-established
reputation in this matter. Others of his acquaintances welcomed
excitement when it came to them in the course of the day's work, but it
was Smith's practise to go in search of it. He was a young man of
spirit and resource.
His appearance, to those who did not know him, hardly suggested this.
He was very tall and thin, with a dark, solemn face. He was a purist in
the matter of clothes, and even in times of storm and stress presented
an immaculate appearance to the world. In his left eye, attached to a
cord, he wore a monocle.
Through this, at the present moment, he was gazing benevolently at Mr.
Renshaw, as the latter fussed about the office in the throes of
departure. To the editor's rapid fire of advice and warning he listened
with the pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son frisks
before him. Mr. Renshaw interested him. To Smith's mind Mr. Renshaw,
put him in any show you pleased, would alone have been worth the price
of admission.
"Well," chirruped the holiday-maker - he was a little man with a long
neck, and he always chirruped - "Well, I think that is all, Mr. Smith.
Oh, ah, yes! The stenographer. You will need a new stenographer."
The _Peaceful Moments_ stenographer had resigned her position
three days before, in order to get married.
"Unquestionably, Comrade Renshaw," said Smith. "A blonde."
Mr. Renshaw looked annoyed.
"I have told you before, Mr. Smith, I object to your addressing me as
Comrade. It is not - it is not - er - fitting."
Smith waved a deprecating hand.
"Say no more," he said. "I will correct the habit. I have been studying
the principles of Socialism somewhat deeply of late, and I came to the
conclusion that I must join the cause. It looked good to me. You work
for the equal distribution of property, and start in by swiping all you
can and sitting on it. A noble scheme. Me for it. But I am interrupting
you."
Mr. Renshaw had to pause for a moment to reorganize his ideas.
"I think - ah, yes. I think it would be best perhaps to wait for a day
or two in case Mrs. Oakley should recommend someone. I mentioned the
vacancy in the office to her, and she said she would give the matter
her attention. I should prefer, if possible, to give the place to her
nominee. She - "
" - has eighteen million a year," said Smith. "I understand. Scatter
seeds of kindness."
Mr. Renshaw looked at him sharply. Smith's face was solemn and
thoughtful.
"Nothing of the kind," the editor said, after a pause. "I should prefer
Mrs. Oakley's nominee because Mrs. Oakley is a shrewd, practical woman
who - er - who - who, in fact - "
"Just so," said Smith, eying him gravely through the monocle.
"Entirely."
The scrutiny irritated Mr. Renshaw.
"Do put that thing away, Mr. Smith," he said.
"That thing?"
"Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
"Instantly," said Smith, replacing the monocle in his vest-pocket. "You
object to it? Well, well, many people do. We all have these curious
likes and dislikes. It is these clashings of personal taste which
constitute what we call life. Yes. You were saying?"
Mr. Renshaw wrinkled his forehead.
"I have forgotten what I intended to say," he said querulously. "You
have driven it out of my head."
Smith clicked his tongue sympathetically. Mr. Renshaw looked at his
watch.
"Dear me," he said, "I must be going. I shall miss my train. But I
think I have covered the ground quite thoroughly. You understand
everything?"
"Absolutely," said Smith. "I look on myself as some engineer
controlling a machine with a light hand on the throttle. Or like some
faithful hound whose master - "
"Ah! There is just one thing. Mrs. Julia Burdett Parslow is a little
inclined to be unpunctual with her 'Moments with Budding Girlhood.' If
this should happen while I am away, just write her a letter, quite a
pleasant letter, you understand, pointing out the necessity of being in
good time. She must realize that we are a machine."
"Exactly," murmured Smith.
"The machinery of the paper cannot run smoothly unless contributors are
in good time with their copy."
"Precisely," said Smith. "They are the janitors of the literary world.
Let them turn off the steam heat, and where are we? If Mrs. Julia
Burdett Parslow is not up to time with the hot air, how shall our
'Girlhood' escape being nipped in the bud?"
"And there is just one other thing. I wish you would correct a slight
tendency I have noticed lately in Mr. Asher to be just a trifle - well,
not precisely risky, but perhaps a shade broad in his humor."
"Young blood!" sighed Smith. "Young blood!"
"Mr. Asher is a very sensible man, and he will understand. Well, that
is all, I think. Now, I really must be going. Good-by, Mr. Smith."
"Good-by."
At the door Mr. Renshaw paused with the air of an exile bidding
farewell to his native land, sighed and trotted out.
Smith put his feet upon the table, flicked a speck of dust from his
coat-sleeve, and resumed his task of reading the proofs of Luella
Granville Waterman's "Moments in the Nursery."
* * * * *
He had not been working long, when Pugsy Maloney, the office boy,
entered.
"Say!" said Pugsy.
"Say on, Comrade Maloney."
"Dere's a loidy out dere wit a letter for Mr. Renshaw."
"Have you acquainted her with the fact that Mr. Renshaw has passed to
other climes?"
"Huh?"
"Have you, in the course of your conversation with this lady, mentioned
that Mr. Renshaw has beaten it?"
"Sure, I did. And she says can she see you?"
Smith removed his feet from the table.
"Certainly," he said. "Who am I that I should deny people these little
treats? Ask her to come in, Comrade Maloney."
CHAPTER XIII
BETTY MAKES A FRIEND
Betty had appealed to Master Maloney's esthetic sense of beauty
directly she appeared before him. It was with regret, therefore, rather
than with the usual calm triumph of the office boy, that he informed
her that the editor was not in. Also, seeing that she was evidently
perturbed by the information, he had gone out of his way to suggest
that she lay her business, whatever it might be, before Mr. Renshaw's
temporary successor.
Smith received her with Old-World courtesy.
"Will you sit down?" he said. "Not to wait for Comrade Renshaw, of
course. He will not be back for another three months. Perhaps I can
help you. I am acting editor. The work is not light," he added
gratuitously. "Sometimes the cry goes round New York, 'Can Smith get
through it all? Will his strength support his unquenchable spirit?' But
I stagger on. I do not repine. What was it that you wished to see
Comrade Renshaw about?"
He swung his monocle lightly by its cord. For the first time since she
had entered the office Betty was rather glad that Mr. Renshaw was away.
Conscious of her defects as a stenographer she had been looking forward
somewhat apprehensively to the interview with her prospective employer.
But this long, solemn youth put her at her ease. His manner suggested
in some indefinable way that the whole thing was a sort of round game.
"I came about the typewriting," she said.
Smith looked at her with interest.
"Are you the nominee?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Do you come from Mrs. Oakley?"
"Yes."
"Then all is well. The decks have been cleared against your coming.
Consider yourself engaged as our official typist. By the way,
_can_ you type?"
Betty laughed. This was certainly not the awkward interview she had
been picturing in her mind.
"Yes," she said, "but I'm afraid I'm not very good at it."
"Never mind," said Smith. "I'm not very good at editing. Yet here I am.