Part 5 (1/2)

”Yes,” interrupted Archie, dreamily, ”once. At Capri. She was fifteen.

Her feet were pink, like a sh.e.l.l. She was walking along the sh.o.r.e in the early evening.”

”With the dirt of the soil on them!” exclaimed Mr. Gouger, in disgust.

”No, she had just emerged from her bath. The sand there was clean as a carpet, cleaner, in fact. G.o.ds! They were exquisite!”

The critic uttered an exclamation.

”I waste time talking to you,” he said, sharply. ”You are like the rest of the imaginative crowd. It is a pity you were not gifted with the divine afflatus, that you could have added your volumes to the nonsense they print.”

”And which you are always glad to get,” interpolated Mr. Weil.

”Because it will sell. Cutt & Slashem are in this business to make money, and my thoughts must be directed to the saleable quality of the ma.n.u.scripts submitted. If _I_ was running the concern, though, I would touch the mooney, maundering mess. It makes my flesh creep, sometimes, to read it.”

Archie Weil uttered another of his winsome laughs.

”How would you like to be a serpent,” he asked, ”and have your flesh creep all the time? But before we dismiss this matter of Miss Fern, I want you to clear your mind, if you can, of the haunting suspicions you always have when a woman is concerned. You know there are concerns in the city who would print her book, with a proper amount paid down, if it had neither sense, syntax nor orthography. If she wants it fixed up, I can find tailors to help her out; and if her papa wants it on the market, why shouldn't he be able to get it there? Now, let us talk a little about Roseleaf.”

Mr. Gouger brightened at the change of subject. His interest in Mr.

Roseleaf was genuine, and he had already learned that Archie had formed a sort of copartners.h.i.+p with the novelist, in the hope of making his future work a success. While the critic could not be said to have any real faith in the arrangement, it certainly interested him.

”What strange freak will you take to next?” he asked. ”And do you really expect to make a novelist out of that young man?”

Mr. Weil's eyes had a twinkle in them.

”Didn't you say, yourself, that it could be done?” he inquired. ”If I have made any mistake in my investment, I shall charge the loss to you.”

The critic reflected a minute.

”I'm not so certain it _can't_ be done,” he said. ”But that's quite different from investing money in it, as you are doing. A man wants pretty near a certainty before he puts up the stuff.”

”You greedy fellow!” exclaimed Weil. ”Will you never think of anything but gain? I have to spend about so much money every year, in a continual attempt to amuse myself, and it might as well be this way as another. I have a doc.u.ment, signed and solemnly sealed, by which I am to back him against the field in the interest of romantic and realistic literature, and in return he is to give me a third of the net profits of his writings. I don't know that I have done so badly. Perhaps you may live to see Cutt & Slashem pay us a handsome sum in royalties.”

Mr. Gouger looked oddly at his friend, whose face was perfectly serious.

”What are you going to begin with?” he asked.

”Love, of course. It is the A B C, as well as the X Y Z of the whole business.”

”What kind of love?”

”The best that can be got,” replied Weil, now laughing in spite of himself. ”The very finest quality in the market. Oh, we shall do this up brown, I tell you.”

”What have you done so far?” asked Gouger.

”You want to know it all, eh?” responded Mr. Weil. ”I don't think I am justified in letting you too deeply into our secrets. However, you are too honorable to betray us, and so here goes: I have instructed my protege that he must fall violently under the tender pa.s.sion before next Sat.u.r.day night.”

”With a lady whom you have selected, of course?”

”By no means. He must catch his own sweethearts.”