of him – plenty of ‘personal mention’ for all the advertisers, giving space for space. Each day that he put it off would make the task harder. If he didn’t have the complete story in by Thursday night, Humphrey would skin him alive; yet here it was Wednesday morning, and he was planning to spend as much of the day as possible with the increasingly unresponsive Corinne. Life was difficult!
He was aware of a morbid craving in his digestive tract. He decided to get an ice-cream soda on the way back to the office. He would have liked about half a pound of chocolate creams. The Italian kind, with all the sweet in the white part. But here character intervened.
A corner of his mind dwelt unceasingly on queer difficult feelings that came. These had flared out in the unpleasant incident of Mamie Wilcox and the tandem; and again in the present flirtation with Corinne. In a way that he found perplexing, this stir of emotion was related to his gifts. He couldn’t let one go without the other. There had been moments – in the old days – when a feeling of power had surged through him. It was a wonderful, irresistible feeling. Riding that wave, he was equal to anything. But it had frightened him. The memory of it frightened him now. He had put Iolanthe through, it was true, but he had also nearly eloped with Ernestine Lambert. He had completely lost his head – debts, everything!
Yes, it was as well that Miss Wombast couldn’t read his thoughts. She wouldn’t have known how to interpret them. She hadn’t the capacity to understand the wide swift stream of feeling down which an imaginative boy floats all but rudderless into manhood. She couldn’t know of his pitifully inadequate little attempts to shape a course, to catch this breeze and that, even to square around and breast the current of life.
Henry said politely: —
‘Good-morning, Miss Wombast. I just looked in for the notes of new books.’
‘Oh,’ she replied quickly. ‘I’m sorry you troubled. Mr Boice asked me to mail it to the office at the end of the month. I just sent it – this morning.’
She saw his face fall. He mumbled something that sounded like, ‘Oh – all right! Doesn’t matter.’ For a moment he stood waving his stick in jerky, aimless little circles. Then went off down the stairs.
2
Emerging from Donovan’s drug store Henry encountered the ponderous person of old Boice – six feet an inch and a half, head sunk a little between the shoulders, thick yellowish-white whiskers waving down over a black bow tie and a spotted, roundly protruding vest, a heavy old watch chain with insignia of a fraternal order hanging as a charm; inscrutable, washed-out blue eyes in a deeply lined but nearly expressionless face.
Henry stopped short; stared at his employer.
Mr Boice did not stop. But as he moved deliberately by, his faded eyes took in every detail of Henry’s not unremarkable personal appearance.
Henry was thinking: ‘Old crook. Wish I had a paper of my own here and I’d get back at him. Run him out of town, that’s what!’ And after he had nodded and rushed by, his colouring mounting: ‘Like to know why I should work my head off just to make money for him. No sense in that!’
Henry came moodily into the Voice office, dropped down at his inkstained, littered table behind the railing, and sighed twice. He picked up a pencil and fell to outlining ink spots.
The sighs were directed at Humphrey, who sat bent over his desk, cob pipe in mouth, writing very rapidly. ‘He’s got wonderful concentration,’ thought Henry, his mind wandering a brief moment from his unhappy self.
Humphrey spoke without looking up. ‘Don’t let that Business Men’s Picnic get away from you, Hen. Really ought to be getting it in type now. Two compositors loafing out there.’
Henry sighed again; let his pencil fall on the table; gazed heavily, helplessly at the wall…
‘Old man say anything to you about the “Library Notes”?’
Humphrey glanced up and removed his pipe. His swarthy long face wrinkled thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Just now. He’s going to have Miss Wombast send ‘em in direct every month.’
‘And I don’t have ‘em any more.’
Humphrey considered this fact. ‘It doesn’t amount to very much, Hen.’
‘Oh, no – works out about sixty cents to a dollar. It ain’t that altogether – it’s the principle. I’m getting tired of it!’
The press-room door was ajar, Humphrey reached out and closed it.
Henry raised his voice; got out of his chair and sat on the edge of the table. His eyes brightened sharply. Emotion crept into his voice and shook it a little.
‘Do you know what’s he done to me – that old doubleface? Took me in here two years ago at eight a week with a promise of nine if I suited. Well, I did suit. But did I get the nine? Not until I’d rowed and begged for seven months. A year of that, a lot more work – You know! “Club Notes,” this library stuff, “Real Estate Happenings,” “Along Simpson Street,” reading proof – ’
Humphrey slowly nodded as he smoked.
‘ – And I asked for ten a week. Would he give it? No! I knew I was worth more than that, so I offered to take space rates instead. Then what does he do? You know, Hump. Been clipping me off, one thing after another, and piling on the proof and the office work. Here’s one thing more gone to-day. Last week my string was exactly seven dollars and forty-six cents. Dam it, it ain’t fair! I can’t live! I won’t stand it. Gotta be ten a week or I – I’ll find out why. Show-down.’
He rushed to the door. Then, as if his little flare of indignation had burnt out, fingered there, knitting his brows and looking up and down the street and across at the long veranda of the Sunbury House, where people sat in a row in yellow rocking chairs.
Humphrey smoked and considered him. After a little he remarked quietly: —
‘Look here, Hen, I don’t like it any more than you do. I’ve seen what he was doing. I’ve tried to forestall him once or twice – ’
‘I know it, Hump.’ Henry turned. He was quite listless now. ‘He’s a tricky old fox. If I only knew of something else I could do – or that we could do together – ’
‘But – this was what I was going to say – no matter how we feel, I’m going to be really in trouble if I don’t get that picnic story pretty soon. Mr Boice asked about it this morning.’
Henry leaned against Mr Boice’s desk, up by the window; dropped his chin into one hand.
‘I’ll do it, Hump. This afternoon. Or to-night. We’re going down to Mildred’s this noon, of course.’
‘That’s part of what’s bothering me. God knows how soon after that you’ll break away from Corinne.’
‘Pretty dam soon,’ remarked Henry sullenly, ‘the way things are going now… I’ll get at it, Hump. Honest I will. But right now’ – he moved a hand weakly through the air – ‘I just couldn’t. You don’t know how I feel. I couldn’t!’
‘Where you going now?’
‘I don’t know.’ The hand moved again. ‘Walk around. Gotta be by myself. Sorta think it out. This is one of the days… I’ve been thinking – be twenty-one in November. Then
