Part 75 (2/2)
”I know you're in charge of the aesthetic department of the _Flag_,” he said. ”I had no idea you wrote the leaders.”
”Don't be absurd!” murmured Esther.
”I always told Addie Raphael could never write so eloquently; didn't I, Addie? Ah, I see you're blus.h.i.+ng to find it fame, Miss Ansell.”
Esther laughed, though a bit annoyed. ”How can you suspect me of writing orthodox leaders?” she asked.
”Well, who else _is_ there?” urged Sidney, with mock _navete_. ”I went down there once and saw the shanty. The editorial sanctum was crowded.
Poor Raphael was surrounded by the queerest looking set of creatures I ever clapped eyes on. There was a quaint lunatic in a check suit, describing his apocalyptic visions; a dragoman with sore eyes and a grievance against the Board of Guardians; a venerable son of Jerusalem with a most artistic white beard, who had covered the editorial table with carved nick-nacks in olive and sandal-wood; an inventor who had squared the circle and the problem of perpetual motion, but could not support himself; a Roumanian exile with a scheme for fertilizing Palestine; and a wild-eyed hatchet-faced Hebrew poet who told me I was a famous patron of learning, and sent me his book soon after with a Hebrew inscription which I couldn't read, and a request for a cheque which I didn't write. I thought I just capped the company of oddities, when in came a sallow red-haired chap, with the extraordinary name of Karlkammer, and kicked up a deuce of a s.h.i.+ne with Raphael for altering his letter. Raphael mildly hinted that the letter was written in such unintelligible English that he had to grapple with it for an hour before he could reduce it to the coherence demanded of print. But it was no use; it seems Raphael had made him say something heterodox he didn't mean, and he insisted on being allowed to reply to his own letter! He had brought the counter-blast with him; six sheets of foolscap with all the t's uncrossed, and insisted on signing it with his own name. I said, 'Why not? Set a Karlkammer to answer to a Karlkammer.' But Raphael said it would make the paper a laughing-stock, and between the dread of that and the consciousness of having done the man a wrong, he was quite unhappy. He treats all his visitors with angelic consideration, when in another newspaper office the very office-boy would snub them. Of course, n.o.body has a bit of consideration for him or his time or his purse.”
”Poor Raphael!” murmured Esther, smiling sadly at the grotesque images conjured up by Sidney's description.
”I go down there now whenever I want models,” concluded Sidney gravely.
”Well, it is only right to hear what those poor people have to say,”
Addie observed. ”What is a paper for except to right wrongs?”
”Primitive person!” said Sidney. ”A paper exists to make a profit.”
”Raphael's doesn't,” retorted Addie.
”Of course not,” laughed Sidney. ”It never will, so long as there's a conscientious editor at the helm. Raphael flatters n.o.body and reserves his praises for people with no control of the communal advertis.e.m.e.nts.
Why, it quite preys upon his mind to think that he is linked to an advertis.e.m.e.nt canva.s.ser with a gorgeous imagination, who goes about representing to the unwary Christian that the _Flag_ has a circulation of fifteen hundred.”
”Dear me!” said Addie, a smile of humor lighting up her beautiful features.
”Yes,” said Sidney, ”I think he salves his conscience by an extra hour's slumming in the evening. Most religious folks do their moral book-keeping by double entry. Probably that's why he's not here to-night.”
”It's too bad!” said Addie, her face growing grave again. ”He comes home so late and so tired that he always falls asleep over his books.”
”I don't wonder,” laughed Sidney. ”Look what he reads! Once I found him nodding peacefully over Thomas a Kempis.”
”Oh, he often reads that,” said Addie. ”When we wake him up and tell him to go to bed, he says he wasn't sleeping, but thinking, turns over a page and falls asleep again.”
They all laughed.
”Oh, he's a famous sleeper,” Addie continued. ”It's as difficult to get him out of bed as into it. He says himself he's an awful lounger and used to idle away whole days before he invented time-tables. Now, he has every hour cut and dried--he says his salvation lies in regular hours.”
”Addie, Addie, don't tell tales out of school,” said Sidney.
”Why, what tales?” asked Addie, astonished. ”Isn't it rather to his credit that he has conquered his bad habits?”
”Undoubtedly; but it dissipates the poetry in which I am sure Miss Ansell was enshrouding him. It shears a man of his heroic proportions, to hear he has to be dragged out of bed. These things should be kept in the family.”
Esther stared hard at the house. Her cheeks glowed as if the limelight man had turned his red rays on them. Sidney chuckled mentally over his insight. Addie smiled.
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