Part 18 (2/2)

”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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.d 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, suns.h.i.+ny 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 _pate 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.”

”I regret to say,” I put in, ”that I can see perfectly how my mind would have worked. It would have persuaded me that I had a duty to myself.”

Orrington laughed quietly. ”Don't you believe it. Your conscience or your softness-whatever you choose to call it-would have played the deuce with your peace of mind. Mine did. I tore up my note and went out for a walk. Naturally I saw nothing but beggars and poverty: misery stalked me from street to street. I wriggled and squirmed for half a day or more, but I couldn't get away from the d.a.m.nable necessities of the story-writer.

”In the end I wrote him, of course-the flattering note I had intended, and something more. I told him about my fat job and said I was recommending him for it. By the same mail I wrote to the people who'd offered me the chance, refusing it. I said I regretted that I couldn't undertake the commission as I had expected, but that I found my other engagements made it impossible. I thought I might as well do the thing in grand style and chuck a bluff while I was about it. I added that I was sending a friend to them who would do the articles better than I could hope to. I didn't give the fellow's name, but I told them he'd turn up shortly.”

”What happened then?” I asked, for Orrington lighted another cigarette and seemed inclined to rest on his oars.

He turned his dull eyes on me and smiled a little sadly. ”What happened?

Why, nothing much, as far as I know. I suppose the other fellow got my job and saved his body alive. I never inquired. I somehow expected that he'd write to me or come to see me-he had my address, you know-but he never did. I was a little annoyed, I remember, at his not doing so after I'd cut off my nose for him, which is probably why I never tried to follow him up. I never even looked up the articles when they were published. But I've often wished I might meet the man and learn how he got on.”

”You've never seen his name?” I inquired. ”He can't have done much, or you'd have spotted him.”

”I suspect,” said Orrington, ”that he sent in that story of his under a pseudonym and that he may have done very well for himself since. What do you think, Reynolds? I suppose you consider me a fool for my pains, on the theory that no man ought to be helped out.”

Reynolds had been silent for some time. As I looked at him now I could see that he was a good deal impressed by Orrington's narrative. I wasn't surprised, for I knew him to be a generous fellow in spite of his foibles.

”Yes, how about it, Reynolds?” I said.

”It is a very affecting story,” he answered. ”You acted most generously, Orrington, though you make light of it. I can't believe that the young man realized the sacrifice you made for him; otherwise his failure to thank you, bad enough in any case, would be unspeakable. He can't have known.”

”But you insist that I'd better have let him alone,” persisted Orrington, clearly with the intention of teasing our magnificent acquaintance.

”That depends altogether on how it turned out, doesn't it? You can't tell us whether the young man was worth saving or not.”

Orrington laughed contentedly. ”No. That's the missing conclusion, but I'm not sorry to have given him a show. Besides, what I did wasn't such a n.o.ble sacrifice, after all. Having basked in your admiration for a moment, I can afford to tell you. I'm not an accomplished hypocrite, and I'd hate to begin at my age. Let me tell you what happened.”

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