Part 5 (2/2)

Mr. Gouger played with his watchchain.

”And this is Tuesday,” he commented. ”Do you think he will succeed?”

”He must,” laughed Weil. ”It's like the case of the boy who was digging out the woodchuck. 'The minister's coming to dinner.'”

”You might at least have got an introduction for him,” said Gouger, reflectively.

”Not I. There's nothing in our agreement that puts such a task on me.

Besides, there's no romance in an introduction. He would write a story as prosy as one of Henry James' if he started off like that.”

Mr. Gouger nodded his head slowly.

”That would be something to avoid at all hazards,” he a.s.sented.

And at this juncture, to the surprise of both the parties to this conversation, the young man of whom they were speaking entered the room.

”I was telling Mr. Gouger of our agreement,” said Mr. Weil, as soon as the greetings were over. ”How do you get along? Have you discovered your heroine yet?”

Mr. Roseleaf answered, with an air of timidity, in the negative.

”I don't quite know where to find one,” he said.

Mr. Weil spread out his arms to their fullest capacity.

”There are thirty millions of them in the United States alone,” he exclaimed. ”Out of that number you ought to find a few whom you can study. What a pity that _I_ cannot write! I would go out of that door and in ten minutes I would have a subject ready for vivisection.”

The younger man raised his eyebrows slightly.

”But, that kind of a woman--would be what you would want--the kind that would let you talk to her on a mere street acquaintance!”

Mr. Weil leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs.

”Oh, yes,” he said. ”She would do for a beginning. Don't imagine that none of these easy going girls are worth the attention of a novelist.

Sometimes they are vastly more interesting than the bread and b.u.t.ter product of the drawing rooms. It won't do, in your profession, to ignore any sort of human being.”

Roseleaf breathed a sigh as soft as his name.

”You were right, Mr. Gouger,” he said, turning to that gentleman. ”I do not know anything. I have judged by appearances, and I now see that truth cannot be learned in that way.”

”All the better!” broke in Archie. ”The surest progress is made by the man who has learned his deficiencies. You remember the hare and the tortoise. I have read somewhere that the race is not always to the swift. You must treat your fellow men and women as if you had just arrived on this earth from the planet Mars. You must dig through the strata of conventionality to the virgin soil beneath. The great human pa.s.sions are l.u.s.t and avarice, though they take a thousand forms, in many of which they have more polite names. For instance, the former, when kept within polite boundaries, is usually known as Love. As Avarice makes but a sorry theme for the romantic writer, Love is the subject that must princ.i.p.ally claim your attention. All the world loves a lover, while the miser is despised even by those who cringe beneath the power of his gold. Study the women, my lad, and when you know them thoroughly begin your great novel in earnest.”

Roseleaf listened with rapt attention.

”And the men?” he asked.

”The men,” was the quick reply, ”are too transparent to require study.

It is the women, with their ten million tricks to cajole and wheedle us, that afford the best field for your efforts.”

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