Part 18 (1/2)

”Oh, nothing much, in one way. I've been talking with a young chap who has sent us a ma.n.u.script lately. The book's no good, commercially-a pretty crude performance-but it has some striking descriptive pa.s.sages 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 gla.s.s 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 n.o.body 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 s.p.a.ce-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 d.a.m.ned 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 gla.s.s 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 _denouement_ 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.