say about me?’ asked Henry, over the pie.
‘She says,’ remarked Humphrey, the wrinkles multiplying about his eyes, ‘that you have temperament. She thinks it’s a shame.’
‘What’s a shame?’ muttered Henry.
‘Whatever has happened to you. I told her you were the steadiest boy I ever knew. Don’t drink, smoke, or flirt. I didn’t add that you enter every cent you spend in that little red book; but I’ve seen you doing it and been impressed. But I mentioned that you’re the most conscientious reporter I ever saw. That started her. It seems that you’re nothing of the sort. My boy, she set you before me in a new light. You begin to appear complex and interesting.’
Still muttering, Henry said, ‘Nothing so very interesting about me.’
‘It seems that you put on an opera here – directed it, or sang it, or something. Before my time.’
‘That was Iolanthe,’ said Henry, with a momentarily complacent memory.
‘And you sang – all over the place, apparently. Why don’t you sing now?’
‘It’s too,’ – Henry was mumbling, flushing, and groping for a word – ‘too physical.’
Then, with a sudden movement that gave Humphrey a little start, the boy leaned over the table, pulled at his moustache, and asked, gloomily: ‘Listen! Do you think a man can change his nature?’
Humphrey considered this without a smile. ‘I don’t see exactly how, Hen.’
‘I mean if he’s been heedless and reckless – oh, you know, girls, debts, everything. Just crazy, sorta.’
‘Well, I suppose a man can reform. Were you a very bad lot?’ The wrinkled smile was reassuring.
‘That depends on what you – I wasn’t exactly sporty, but – oh, you don’t know the trouble I’ve had, Humphrey. Then my mother died, and I hadn’t been half-decent to her, and I was left alone, and my uncle had to pay my debts out of the principal – it was hundreds of dollars – ’
His voice died out.
There was an element of pathos in the picture before him that Humphrey recognised with some sympathy – the gloomy lad of twenty, with that absurd little moustache that he couldn’t let alone. After all, he had been rather put to it. It began to appear that he had suppressed himself without mercy. There would doubtless be reactions. Perhaps explosions.
Henry went on: —
‘I don’t know what’s happened to me. I don’t feel right about things. I’ – he hesitated, glanced up, then down, and his ears reddened – ‘I’ve been going with Martha Caldwell, you know. For a long time.’
Humphrey nodded.
‘Mondays and Thursdays I go over there, and other times. I don’t seem to want to go any more. But I get mixed up about it. I – I don’t want them to say I’m fickle. They used to say it.’
‘You’ve evidently got gifts,’ observed Humphrey, as if thinking aloud. ‘You’ve got some fire in you. The trouble with you now, of course, is that you’re stale.’ Humphrey deliberately considered the situation, then remarked: ‘You asked me if a man can change his nature. I begin to see now. You’ve been trying to do that to yourself, for quite a while.’
Henry nodded.
‘Well, I suppose you’ll find that you can’t do it. Not quite that. The fire that’s in you isn’t going to stop burning just because you tell it to.’
‘But what’s a fellow to do?’
‘I don’t know. Just stick along, I suppose, gradually build up experience until you find work you can let yourself go in. Some way, of course, you’ve got to let yourself go, sooner or later.’
Henry, his eyes nervously alert now, his slim young body tense, was drawing jerkily with his fork on the coarse table-cloth.
‘Yes,’ he broke out, with the huskiness in his voice that came when his emotions pressed – ‘yes, but what if you can’t let yourself go without letting everything go? What if the fire bums you!’
Humphrey found it difficult to frame a reply. He got no further, this as they were leaving the restaurant, than to say, ‘Of course, one man can’t advise another.’
5
As they were turning into the Voice office, Henry caught sight of Mamie Wilcox, in a cheap pink dress and flapping pink-and-white hat, loitering by the hotel. He fell back behind Humphrey. Mamie beckoned with her head. He nodded, and entered the office; and she moved slowly on around the corner of the avenue.
He mumbled a rather unnecessary excuse to Humphrey, and slipped out, catching up with her on the avenue. She was unpleasantly attractive. She excited him.
‘What is it?’ he asked, walking with her. ‘Did you want to speak to me?’
‘Stuck up, aren’t we!’
‘Well?’
She pouted. ‘Take a little walk with me. I do want to talk with you.’
‘Haven’t time. Got to get right back to the office.’
‘Well – listen, meet me to-night. I can get out by eight. It’s pretty important. Maybe serious.’
‘Is it – did anybody – ’
She nodded. ‘Mrs MacPherson. She was right in her door when I came out of your room.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘She looked a lot.’
‘Well, say – I’ll see you for a few minutes to-night. Say about eight.’ This was best. It would be dark, or near it. He simply mustn’t be seen strolling with Mamie Wilcox along Filbert Avenue in broad daylight. ‘What do you say to Douglass Street and the Lake Shore Drive?’
‘All right. Tell you what – bring a tandem along and take me for a ride.’
‘Oh, I can’t.’ But his will was weak. ‘Got to report a concert. I don’t know, though. I s’pose I could get around at half-past nine’ or ten and hear the last numbers.’
He had often done this. Besides, he could probably manage it earlier. He knew he could rent a tandem at Murphy’s cigar store down by the tracks. A quite wild, wholly fascinating stir of adventure was warming his breast and bringing that huskiness into his voice. He was letting go. He felt daring and a little mad. He hadn’t realised, before to-day, that Mamie had such a lure about her.
Before returning to the office he got his bank-book and brazenly drew from the bank, savings department, his entire account, amounting to ten dollars forty-six cents. He also bespoke the tandem.
These were the great days of bicycling. The first highwheeled, rattling horseless carriage was not to appear in the streets of Sunbury for a year or two yet. Bicycle clubs flourished. Memorial Day each year (they called it Decoration Day) was a mad rush of excursion and road races. Every Sunday witnessed a haggard-eyed humpbacked horde of ‘Scorchers’ in knickerbockers or
