Part 9

“I went out of the tent to escape his staring, pleading eyes—child’s eyes. Even while I was saying the words I knew he didn’t understand. He had done what he thought justifiable, necessary, he wanted to get back to me, and I called him a murderer.

“Once just as I started for the mess to get him something to eat I thought I heard him call my name; but I went on. I needed more time.

“I was gone perhaps ten minutes. When I reëntered the tent it was empty. Esmè was nowhere about, but I didn’t think of looking for him then, for I thought he’d probably joined one of the other men. Later I got worried, and we started a search. He wasn’t in our camp. No one had seen him.

“We waited and wondered. I prayed. Then I found a little scribbled note knocking about among my things.

“We never found any trace even of him or the smallest clue, just the note; that’s all I have left of Esmè. Here it is:

‘You’ve tried to tell me your opinion of the trick I played on an enemy. In any other arm of the service what I did would have gone, been all right, been smart. Isn’t that what you meant, Marston? But with our boys, because we’ve chosen to have a different, a higher standard, because we fight cleanly, what I did was—dirty. Well, I understand. You and the other men _are_ different; I’m not, but I can pay. I’m going back. Don’t try to stop me before I reach their lines. You can’t. I go to render unto Cæsar. A life for a life. To give them at least my death, since I can no longer offer even that proudly to France.’

“There has been bravery and heroism in the war, but Esmè went back; he knew to what—yet he went.

“God grant he is dead! I tried to make words express an inexpressible thing. All my life to live out—remembering, knowing I killed my friend!”

Perhaps Marston went on speaking; I don’t know. I only remember the broken stem of his glass, the stain that was spreading slowly over the white cloth, and the dripping, dripping red of his hands.

IMAGINATION

_By_ GORDON HALL GEROULD From _Scribner’s Magazine_ _Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner’s Sons._ _Copyright, 1919, by Gordon Hall Gerould._

As I gave my coat and hat to the boy, I caught sight of Orrington, waddling into the farther reaches of the club just ahead of me. “Here’s luck!” I thought to myself, and with a few hasty strides overtook him.

It is always good luck to run upon Harvey Orrington during the hour when he is loafing before dinner. In motion he resembles a hippopotamus, and in repose he produces the impression that the day is very hot, even in midwinter. But one forgets his red and raw corpulency when he has settled at ease in a big chair and begun to talk. Then the qualities that make him the valuable man he is, as the literary adviser of the Speedwell Company, come to the surface, and with them those perhaps finer attributes that have given him his reputation as a critic. Possibly the contrast between his Falstaffian body and his nicely discriminating mind gives savor to his comment on art and life; but in any case his talk is as good in its way as his essays are in theirs. Read his “Retrospective Impressions” if you wish to know what I mean—only don’t think that his colloquial diction is like the fine-spun phrasing of his essays. He inclines to be slangy in conversation.

I overtook Orrington, as I say, before he had reached his accustomed corner, and I greeted him with a becoming deference. He is fifteen years my senior, after all.

“Hello,” he said, turning his rather dull eyes full upon me. “Chasing will-o’-the-wisps this afternoon?”

“I’ve been pursuing you. If you call that—”

“Precision forbids! It can’t have been will-o’-the-wisps.” Orrington shook his head with utter solemnity. “I don’t know just what their figure is, but I’m sure it’s not like mine. Come along and save my life, won’t you?”

“With pleasure. I hoped you might be free.”

“Free as the air of a department-store elevator—yes. I’ve got to meet Reynolds here. He’s waiting for me yonder. You know Reynolds?”

“Yes, I know him.”

Every one knows Reynolds, I need hardly say—every one who can compass it. The rest of the world knows his books. Reynolds makes books with divine unconcern and profuseness: almost as a steel magnate makes steel. He makes them in every kind, and puts them out with a fine flourish, so that he is generally regarded as master of all the literary arts. People buy his output, too, which is lucky for Reynolds but perhaps less fortunate for literature; they buy his output—that is the only word to use—by the boxful, apparently. An edition in his sight is but as the twinkling of an eye before it is sold out. One can’t wonder that Reynolds is a little spoiled by all this, though he must have been a good fellow to begin with. He’s really a kind-hearted and brave man now, but he takes himself too seriously. He is sometimes a bore. Only that he would never recognize the portrait I am making of him, I should hardly dare to say what I am saying. Physically, he is undistinguished: he looks like a successful lawyer of a dark athletic type who has kept himself fit with much golf and who has got the habit of wearing his golfing-clothes to town. It is his manner that sets him apart from his fellows.

“I’m glad you know him.” Orrington chuckled as we drew near the corner where Reynolds was already seated. “I’d hate to be the innocent cause of your introduction.”

Reynolds rose and extended gracious hands to the two of us. “You add to my pleasure by bringing our friend,” he said to Orrington.

I fear that I acknowledged the compliment by looking foolish. It was Orrington’s corner that we were invading, if it was any one’s, and, in any case, Reynolds doesn’t own the club.

“I need tea to support my anæmia,” said Orrington gruffly. “If the rest of you wish strong drink, however, I’m not unwilling to order it. They’ve got a new lot of extremely old Bourbon, I am informed, that had to be smuggled out of Kentucky at dead of night for fear of a popular uprising. I should like to watch the effect of it on one or both of you.”

“I’m willing to be the subject of the experiment,” I said. “What about you, Reynolds?”

Reynolds cocked his head slightly to one side. “Though I dislike to deprive our good friend of any æsthetic pleasure, I think I will stick to my own special Scotch. I do not crave the dizzy heights of inebriety.”

“First time I ever knew you to be afraid of soaring, Reynolds,” commented Orrington. “I trust you won’t let caution affect your literary labors. It is one of the biggest things about you, you know, that you aren’t afraid to tackle any job you please. Most of us wait about, wondering whether we could ever learn to manage the Pegasus biplane, but you fly in whatever machine is handy.”

“Perhaps you think I adventure rashly.” It was neither question nor positive statement on the part of Reynolds, but a little compounded of both. He seemed hurt.

“Not at all.” Orrington’s tone was heartily reassuring. “You get away with it, and the rest of us get nowhere in comparison.”

“I have always believed,” said Reynolds, “that a proper self-confidence is a prime requisite for literary success. In all seriousness, I am sure both of you will agree with me that none of us could have reached his present position in the world without some degree of boldness. We have seized the main chance.”

“Then it got away from me,” I felt impelled to say. I could see no reason for accepting the flattery that Reynolds intended.

“You may believe it or not, as you please, Reynolds, but I’m incapable of seizing anything.” Orrington paused to direct the waiter, but went on after a moment, with a teacup in his fat hand. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never collared anything in my life except a few good manuscripts. Some mighty bad ones, too.” He chuckled.

“Ah! You know the difference between the good and the bad better than any one else in the country, I fancy. I always feel diffident when I send copy to you.” Reynolds somehow conveyed the impression, rather by his manner than by his words, of insufferable conceit. He made you certain that he was ready to challenge the assembly of the Immortals in behalf of anything he wrote.

“Oh, you’re in a position to dictate. It’s not for us to criticise,” Orrington answered very quietly. “By the way, I ventured to suggest our meeting here partly because I wished to know when your new book would be ready. Speedwell’s been worrying, and I told him I’d see you. Thought it would bother you less than a letter or coming round to the office.”

“My book!” Reynolds struck an attitude and wrinkled his forehead. “My dear fellow, I wish I knew.”

Orrington set down his cup and looked at Reynolds quizzically. “You must know better than anybody else.”

“It’s a question of the possibilities only.” Reynolds lifted his head proudly. “I will not fail you, Orrington. I have never yet left any one in the lurch, but I have been exceedingly busy of late. You can’t realize the pressure I am under from every side. So many calls—my time, my presence, my words! I must have a fortnight’s clear space to get my copy ready for you. Within the month, I feel sure, you shall have it.”

“That’ll do perfectly well. We don’t wish to bother you,” said Orrington briefly, “but you know as well as I do that the public cries for you. Speedwell gets restive if he can’t administer a dose once in so often.”

“What is the book to be?” I ventured to ask.

Reynolds bridled coquettishly. It was too absurd of a fellow with his physique and general appearance: I had difficulty in maintaining a decent gravity. “My book!” he said again. “It isn’t precisely a novel, and it isn’t precisely anything else. It is a simple story with perhaps a cosmic significance.”

“I see.” I didn’t, of course, but I couldn’t well say less. I knew, besides, pretty well what the book would be like. I had read two or three of Reynolds’s things. The mark of the beast was on them all, though variously imprinted.

“By the way of nothing,” said Orrington suddenly, “I had an odd experience to-day.”

“Ah! do tell us,” urged Reynolds. “Your experiences are always worth hearing. I suppose it is because your impressions are more vivid than those of most men.”

Orrington pursed his mouth deprecatingly and lighted a cigarette. “There’s no stuff for you fellows in this. You couldn’t make a story out of it if you tried. But it gave me a twinge and brought back something that happened twenty years ago.”

“What happened to-day?” I asked, to get the story properly begun.

“Oh, nothing much, in one way. I’ve been talking with a young chap who has sent us a manuscript lately. The book’s no good, commercially—a pretty crude performance—but it has some striking descriptive passages about the effects of hunger on the human body and the human mind. They interested me because I thought they showed some traces of imagination. There isn’t much real imagination lying round loose, you know: nothing but the derived and Burbankized variety. So I sent for the fellow. He came running, of course. Hope in his eye, and all that sort of thing. I felt like a brute beast to have to tell him we couldn’t take his book, though I coated the pill as sweetly as I could.

“He took it like a Trojan, though I could see that he was holding himself in to keep from crying. He was a mere boy, mind you, and a very shabby and lean one. I noticed that while I talked encouragingly to him, and I finally asked what set him going at such a rate about starvation. I might have known, of course! The kid has been up against it and has been living on quarter rations for I don’t know how many months. There wasn’t an ounce of imagination in his tale, after all: he had been describing his own sensations with decent accuracy—nothing more than that.”

“Poor fellow!” I interrupted. “We ought to find him some sort of job. Do you think he’d make good if he had a chance?”

Orrington shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I talked to him like a father and uncle and all his elderly relations, and I asked more questions than was polite. He’s in earnest at the moment, anyhow.”

“But if he’s actually starving—” I began.

Orrington looked at me in his sleepy way. “Oh, he’s had a good feed by this time. You must take me for a cross between a devil-fish and a blood-sucking bat. I could at least afford the luxury of seeing that he shouldn’t try to do the Chatterton act.”

Reynolds took a sip of whiskey, then held up his glass to command attention. “Dear, dear!” he said slowly, with the air of settling the case. “It’s a very great pity that young men without resources and settled employment try to make their way by writing. They ought not to be encouraged to do so. Most of them would be better off in business or on their fathers’ farms, no doubt; and the sooner they find their place, the better.”

“Still, if nobody made the venture,” I objected, “the craft wouldn’t flourish, would it? I think the question is whether something can’t be done to give this particular young man a show.”

“I’ve sent him to Dawbarn,” said Orrington almost sullenly. “He wants a space-filler and general utility man, he happened to tell me yesterday. It’s a rotten job, but it will seem princely to my young acquaintance. I shall watch him. He might make good and pay back my loan, you know.”

“It does credit to your heart, my dear Orrington—grub-staking him and getting him a job at once.” Reynolds frowned judicially. “I doubt the wisdom of it, however. A young man ought to succeed by his own efforts or not at all. Of course I know nothing of this particular case except what you’ve just told us, but I can’t see from your account of him that he has much chance to lift himself out of the ranks of unsuccessful hack writers. You admit that he shows little imagination.”

“Not yet; but he doesn’t write badly.”

“Ah! there are so many who don’t write badly, but who never go beyond that.”

Orrington laughed, shaking even his heavy chair with his heavier mirth. “Excuse me,” he murmured. “You’re very severe on us, Reynolds. You mustn’t forget that most of us aren’t Shakespeares. Indeed, to be strictly impersonal, I don’t know any member of this club—and we’re rather long on eminent pen-pushers—who is. It won’t do any harm to give my young friend his chance. To tell the truth, I think it’s a damned sight better for him than the end of a pier and the morgue.”

I wondered how the mighty Reynolds would take the snub, and I feared a scene. But I knew him less well than Orrington. He merely nursed his glass in silence and looked sulky. After all, Orrington’s argument was unanswerable.

To break the tension, I turned to Orrington with a question. “What happened twenty years ago?” I asked. “You said you were reminded of it.”

Orrington was silent for a minute as if deliberating. He seemed to be reviewing whatever it was he had in mind. “Yes, yes,” he said at last, “that’s more of a story, only it hasn’t any conclusion. It’s as devoid of a _dénouement_ as the life-history of the youth whom Reynolds wishes to starve for his soul’s good.”

“You are very unjust to me,” Reynolds protested. “You speak as if I had a grudge against the young man, whereas I was merely making a general observation. It is no real kindness to encourage a youth to his ultimate hurt.”

Orrington looked at him doubtfully. “I suppose not,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I’ve often wondered what happened in this other case I have in mind.”

“What was it?” asked Reynolds.

“It was a small matter,” Orrington began apologetically; “at least I suppose it would seem so to any outsider. But it was a big thing to me and presumably to the other fellow involved. I never knew anything about him, directly.”

“I thought you said you had dealings with the other man,” I interjected.

“I did,” said Orrington, “but I never met him. It was this way. I was editing a cheap magazine at the time, the kind of thing that intends to be popular and isn’t. The man who published it was on his uppers, the wretched magazine was at death’s door, and I was getting about half of my regular stipend when I got anything at all—something like forty cents a week, if I remember correctly. I was young, of course, so all that didn’t so much matter. I was rather proud of being a real editor, even of a cheap and nasty thing like—but never mind the name. It died many years ago and was forgotten even before the funeral. I suspect now that the publisher took advantage of my youth and inexperience, but I bear him no grudge. I managed to keep afloat, and I liked it.

“Of course I had to live a double life in order to get enough to eat—a blameless double life that meant all work and no play. A fellow can do that in his twenties. After office hours I got jobs of hack writing, and occasionally I sold some little thing to one of the reputable magazines. It was hard sledding, though—a fact I emphasize not because my biography is interesting, but because it has its bearing on the incident in question.

“Well, one fine day I got hold of a job that was the best I’d ever landed. I suspect I apostrophized it, in the language of that era, as a ‘peach.’ It was hack work, of course, but hack work of a superior and exalted kind—the special article sort of thing. I went higher than a kite when I found the chance was coming my way. I dreamed dreams of opulence. Good Lord! I even looked forward to getting put up for this ill-run club which we are now honoring by our gracious presences.”

Orrington stopped and shook with silent laughter till he had to wipe his eyes. The joke seemed less good to me than to him, for I had been only six months a member of the club and had not yet acquired the proper Olympian disdain of it. Reynolds smiled. I fancy that he still regards the club as of importance. In spite of his vast renown, he is never quite easy in his dignity.

“One has no business to laugh at the enthusiasms of youth,” Orrington went on presently. “I suppose it’s bad manners to laugh even at one’s own, for we’re not the same creatures we were back there. It’s a temptation sometimes, all the same. And I was absurdly set up, I assure you, by my chance to do something of no conceivable importance at a quite decent figure. But I never did the job, after all.”

He nodded his head slowly, as if he had been some fat god of the Orient suddenly come to torpid life.

“You don’t mean that you came near starving?” I asked incredulously. The pattern of the story seemed to be getting confused.

“No, no. I wasn’t so poor as that, even though I gave up the rich job I’m telling you about. The point is that I was chronically hard up and needed the money. I couldn’t afford to do without it, but I had to. It was like this, you see. On the very day the plum dropped into my mouth, a story came into the office that bowled me over completely. I hadn’t much experience then; but I felt somehow sure that this thing wasn’t fiction at all, though it had a thin cloak of unreality flung about it. It was a cheerful little tale, the whole point of which was that the impossible hero killed himself rather than starve to death. It was very badly done in every respect, as far as I remember, but it gave me the unpleasant impression that the man who wrote it knew more about going without his dinner than about writing short stories. Of course I couldn’t accept the thing for my magazine, though I could take most kinds of drivel. Our readers didn’t exist, to be sure, but we thought they demanded bright, sunshiny rubbish. I used to fill up our numbers with saccharine mush, and I shouldn’t have dared print a gloomy story even if it had been good.

“This wasn’t good. It was punk. But it bothered me—just as the youngster’s book has been bothering me lately. I suppose I’m too undiscriminating and sentimental for the jobs I’ve had in life.”

“You!” Reynolds objected. “Every one’s afraid of you. Haven’t I said that I tremble, even now, when I send copy to you? It makes no difference that I have the contract signed and every business arrangement concluded.”

Orrington’s mouth twisted into a little grimace. “That’s merely my pose, Reynolds, as you know perfectly well. I’m the terror of the press because I have to be to hold my job. Inside I’m a welter of adipose sentiment. My physical exterior doesn’t belie me. While dining, I quite prefer to think of all the world as well fed; and, in spite of many years’ training, I can’t see anything delightful in the spectacle of a fellow going without his dinner because he’s ambitious. As a rule, I prefer to discourage authors who are millionaires. That’s a pleasant game in itself, but not very good hunting. All of which is beside the point.

“I did hate, as a matter of fact, to turn down the little story I speak of; and while I was writing a gentle note that tried to explain, but didn’t, I had a brilliant idea. I suppose I was the victim of what is known as a generous impulse. I’ve had so little to do with that sort of thing that I can’t be sure of naming it correctly, but I dare say it could be described in that way. I said to myself: ‘That son of a gun could do those special articles just as well as I can, and it’s dollars to doughnuts he’ll go under if he doesn’t get something to do before long.’

“If you’ve ever had anything to do with generous impulses, you know that they’re easier to come by than to put into practice. When I began to think what I should lose by turning over my job to the other fellow, I balked like an overloaded mule. After all, how could I be sure that the man wasn’t fooling me? He might have imagined everything he had written, after eating too much _pâté de foie gras_. I should be a fool to give a leg up to somebody who was already astride his beast. I couldn’t afford to do it. You know how one’s mind would work.”