Aliens Part 32

She pondered this an instant, looking at me sombrely the while and then illumination came, and she flashed a glance of vivid answering intelligence and nodded.

"Yes," she said, turning to the door, and lifting the latch. "Yes," she repeated, opening the door and looking out into the night. "It is very easy."

And the next moment they were gone and we were alone once more.

"Gee!" said my friend, yawning. "If I'm not all in!"

"You've both got to go straight to bed," said his wife briskly. "You won't be worthy thirty cents in the morning, and you'll just loaf round and ..."

The telephone bell whirred and Mac closed his mouth abruptly on his third consecutive yawn and sprang to the instrument. We sat and watched.

There was some little trouble on the line at first, common in party lines where outside bells sometimes ring and the owners have to be pacified. Then "Oh yes"----"Yes, I hear you----Yes" and a long unintelligible series of affirmatives in different keys. My friend's face and figure gradually lost all appearance of fatigue. His eyes sharpened and glared at us over the receiver as he listened and said "yes" with exasperating reiteration. His wife signalled dolefully to me that it was probably a bird's-eye view, and she'd never get him up in the morning to catch the seven o'clock. It occurred to me at the time that bird's-eye views are not usually ordered at ten o'clock at night; but I was too absorbed in watching my friend's expression of bewilderment, doubt, delight and antic.i.p.ation in rapid succession, and I did no more than shrug. At length he smiled broadly, remarked, "Right.

I'll get busy. See you later, Jimmy. G'bye," and rang off. And then, to my amazement and his wife's indignation, he threw his heels in the air and walked across the room on his hands!

"What's the matter with you?" she asked severely. a.s.suming a conventional position again, and walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, he told us the cause of his excitement.

"It's Jimmy Larkin in the _News_ Building. He's got a big job on. Got to go south and wait for orders. He's got a pal in the Navy at Norfolk, and he's phoned that they'd just received a wireless from a cruiser in the West Indies somewhere to say she'd spoken an aeroplane going north-west.

They think it's that chap--you know?--and Lord Cholme of the _Morning's_ springing something on us. Anyhow, Jimmy's got the a.s.signment and he's put me in too, to do some hurry-up sketches on the spot if we're lucky."

"Not to-night!" said Bill, aghast.

"Sure, to-night. I'll have to take the trolley into Newark and join Jimmy on the New Orleans Limited there."

"Then," I said, "this is a wild-goose chase after our neighbour's brother?"

Mac is an extremely practical man, and he merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe, old man. Whether it's him or somebody else, the story has to be covered, and we're away to cover it. It might mean a staff job later for the _News_, eh?"

"It's quite a romance," I remarked.

"Romance nothing--it's bread and b.u.t.ter, man! Where's my grip? Oh yes, I remember." And he pranced away upstairs to the studio to pack the tools of his craft. His wife, who was looking out linen and hosiery and all the things a woman firmly believes a man can never remember for himself, and without which he is a mere shivering forked radish, found time to order me to bed, but was drawn away immediately into an argument concerning the climate in the south. My friend, evidently viewing underwear, remarked that he was going south, not north to Labrador, and where was his seersucker suit. He was informed that his seersucker suit had been in the rag-basket for years, and, anyway, her husband wasn't going on a trip without adequate clothing. I reached for my boots and put them on. It seemed to me it was my duty to see him safely into his berth on the Limited. After some ten minutes of vigorous packing and debate, they came down, and found me ready.

"You aren't going too?" cried Bill.

"To the train," I said. "He might fall asleep on the road."

If I had hoped to get much more information out of him by going into Newark, I was disappointed. The question of the Carvilles and their adventures had been wiped clean from his mind by the more immediate and personal affair of an a.s.signment. I am afraid that even if I had had a part in this amusing attempt to forestall the other papers I would still have been more interested in the airman than in the astonishing enterprise on which he was engaged. I could not bring myself to gape at scientific marvels. As I have said before, let Science do her worst: humanity remains the same fascinating enigma.

And yet, as we sat in the empty, rattling car, our feet crunching the pea-nut sh.e.l.ls and chicle coverings of some Pa.s.saic joy-riders, and my friend discussed with enthusiasm the probable outcome of the expedition, I realized that, after all, I could not expect him to share my burden.

For good or ill the writer must carry with him for ever the problem of the human soul. The plastic artist has his own problems of light, and ma.s.s, and the like. And from this I came back circuitously to Mr.

Carville. I was puzzled to find a name for the deliberate rejection of his responsibilities as an artist. One could not call him a renegade or a coward, for he was neither. And yet his acceptance of an obscure destiny had in it nothing of the sacredness of renunciation. It was almost as though he were h.o.a.rding his soul's wealth, and adroitly avoiding any of the pangs and labours of the spiritual life. Because it seemed to me that, for a man of his receptivity, the normal bovine existence of the humble folk among whom he lived was out of the question. He knew too much, was too alive to the shifting lights and shadows of life, to sit, like grey-haired Saturn, "quiet as a stone."

Perhaps he had some unknown ulterior ambition on which he was brooding through the years. I had read of such cases, though I confess I always suspect the biographer of a picturesque imagination. He sees too clearly. He is wise after the event. It seems that the roots of a man's virtue are hidden, after all.

We had not long to wait when we reached the station. The long, black, heavy train rolled in and we climbed into a Pullman. A broad, red face, with upstanding Irish hair above it, was thrust through a pair of lower berth curtains. Mr. Larkin was known to me slightly as a "live-wire." I explained why I had come to the opposite berth which was reserved. While my friend was settling with the conductor, I took the opportunity to sound Mr. Larkin, who was offering me a cigar. He nodded vigorously.

"Sure. It's that whats-his-name guy--Frank Lord he calls himself. I've been covering all that flyin' dope in England since 'way back, and I knew Lord Cholme had some stunt coming. Ah, that's it--Carville. Yep.

His stage name's Lord. No, he can't come all the way at one lap. You must be crazy. He'd want a ship load of gasoline. We had it all planned years ago. North or south he must go. Barometer's been steady now all over the Atlantic, so he's gone south--Madeira, Azores, Barbados and so on. Hits America in Florida maybe, where it's easy landin' among all them bayous and swamps. Oh we'll get him all right, don't you worry."

"And where do you stop?" I asked.

"Rocky Mount, if we get no news beforehand."

I got out, and the train moved off on the ninety-mile spin to Philadelphia. I wondered if I had displayed a genuine sporting interest.

I was very tired, and the four-mile journey in the trolley-car was tedious. As I pa.s.sed the dark house next door, Mrs. Carville's voice came back to me as she caught the meaning of my words that evening. I had said it was easy to love without responsibility, and she had answered with an eagerness of a.s.sent that I could not forget. I had at times experienced the evanescent and perilous temptations of that love that needs no understanding, the love that lights no torch, and is but a vagrom fancy crossing the beaten tracks of life ... for an instant I stood, with the key in my hand, and pondered the next house and the sombre secret of which it was the symbol. On the horizon the great light on the Metropolitan Tower flashed the hour of midnight.

As I let myself in, it occurred to me that Mr. Carville would be walking to and fro, smoking a meditative pipe beneath the stars, his thoughts, no doubt, flying westward like enigmatic night-birds, and hovering above the home towards which he was speeding.

CHAPTER XIV

DISCUSSION

One of the immemorial customs of New York, whenever a stranger arrives from across the sea, should he by any chance have ever done anything, anywhere, is to give him a show. When you understand the root-principle of this practice, you are on the way to understanding New York, and incidentally, America. For in spite of many cynical arguments to the contrary, I remain satisfied that New York is, after all, part of the United States. Just as Broadway is a rather over-illuminated Main Street, so the metropolitan press is a highly concentrated Local Interest. You arrive on an ocean liner instead of on the Limited, but the principle is the same. You come from foreign parts, from effete Europe; you are a distinguished stranger, and everybody, in the person of their press, turns out to stare and cheer and find out your opinion of our glorious country. It is true that, after a few days of embarra.s.sing publicity, your photograph vanishes from the daily sheets, your hotel ceases to be besieged by public emissaries asking your opinion of Mr. Roosevelt, Baked Beans or Twilight Sleep; you discover (with a pang) that you are forgotten, and a French Scientist or an Italian Futurist, or a Russian Nihilist has taken your place. But that, after all, may be the extent of your merits. You have had your show.

New York has given your hand a jovial, welcome squeeze. The most hospitable hosts cannot forever regard you as a new arrival. You pa.s.s on, and others take the floor in the spot-light and register surprise, pleasure, indignation, criticism or whatever their peculiar talent may dictate. And this custom of the town is not at all comparable with the reception accorded St. Paul when he arrived at Athens and found the citizens of that republic hankering after some new thing. It is at the other end of the scale of human motives. It is the curiosity and enthusiasm of youth rather than the prurience of age. It is, in its way, a test of character. You may have weathered adversity with credit. New York will see how you behave in prosperity. I often suspect the headline which says that So-and-So won't talk, to cover a good deal of moral cowardice. So-and-So has probably become afraid of the intoxicating fumes of publicity. Fame, he discovers, blended with the unfamiliar high-tension atmosphere of Manhattan Island, is heady stuff. He finds many of his old notions burst asunder amid so much noise and light and swift movement. He will, if he be British, feel constrained to run down England, just as later on, when he returns to London, he will write a book running down America. So-and-So flies from temptation and "refuses to talk."

All this is more or less _apropos_ of Mr. Francis Lord's arrival in New York after having crossed the Atlantic in a sea-plane. As a matter of fact Mr. Francis Lord was making for Key West, when what is called engine-trouble caused him to descend to the surface of a perfectly smooth sea. The weekly mail-boat from Belize to New York was speeding up the Florida Channel when the officer of the watch made out a large triplane ahead of him. It was apparently trying to rise, but without success. The course of the steamer was altered to bring her more in the way of the machine. Just as they were approaching, the triplane rushed across their bows, rose out of the water, and instead of "banking," slid down side-ways, completely submerging the right-hand planes. The ship was stopped and a boat lowered. According to the laconic report of the commander, who seemed more anxious to claim a record for his boat-crew than to share the glory of salving an eminent airman's life, they had the boat up and were under way again inside of eighteen minutes. And so Mr. Francis Lord arrived in New York in the usual prosaic way, and our enterprising friends, accompanied by a score of other hunters of "scoops," had to return hastily. It does not appear, however, that they would have gained anything had they remained, because the astute Lord Cholme had provided a press-agent. This gentleman, we heard long afterwards, was in Savannah superintending the first rehearsals of a gigantic film-drama depicting the Conquest of the Atlantic. On hearing of his princ.i.p.al's arrival on a steamer he took the next train north, and from the moment he reached Mr. Francis Lord's hotel on Fifth Avenue, Mr. Francis Lord seemed lost to view. We found in the papers no interviews with Mr. Lord. He "refused to talk." The press-agent, however, handed out type-written statements about the trip, the islands where landings were made, the readings of the instruments, the difficulties which ended in capsizing the machine almost in sight of land, the time taken, the speed in miles per hour, the distance travelled, the records made and broken. He handed out accounts of the lives of M. D'Aubigne, the inventor, Lord Cholme, the promoter, and Mr.

Francis Lord, the airman. He handed out photographs of the three. He handed out plans of the triplane. The reporters grew tired of seeing the press-agent, for he invariably handed out some deadly-dull doc.u.ment without the ghost of a story attached to it. The kindly human side of the great adventure seemed non-existent. The public wanted to know what the great man really looked like, what he had for breakfast, where he went in the evening, what he thought of Fifth Avenue, of the Woolworth Building, of our glorious country. And it followed naturally that since Mr. Francis Lord maintained his silence and invisibility, it devolved upon the Press to provide imaginative replies to all these burning questions. They described Mr. Francis Lord, they drew pictures of him in original att.i.tudes, they reported rumours of his movements, they conjectured and arranged his future plans, they concocted compet.i.tions between him and ill.u.s.trious American airmen, they professed to have heard that a Swiss was already preparing to beat Mr. Francis Lord's record by a flight from Lake Geneva to Lake Erie, they used all their genius to make a public success of Mr. Francis Lord and his achievement.

And then they dropped him.

To us, reading the news day by day after breakfast, it was, of course, inevitable. I think my friend felt it more than I, for he has a profound faith in publicity. It is the secret of his success as a publicist, I suppose. His theory is, that no matter how good your article may be, you cannot sell it unless you advertise. You must boom, you must shout and show yourself and talk to people. You must "get next." He calls it "making an appeal." He thinks Mr. Francis Lord and his wonderful press-agent had not played up to the great traditions of American newspaper life. He sketched lightly for me a plan which he and Larkin agreed would have "put him across."

"But," I argued mildly, "what could he do? Do you propose he should hire a theatre and exhibit himself? Why should he _want_ to be advertised?"

My friend made a movement of impatience.

"You miss the whole point," he retorted. "Why did Whistler wear that white lock of hair of his? Why did Wilde start that Green Carnation stunt? Why did Chamberlain wear a monocle, or Gladstone those big collars?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," I said feebly, "unless it was...."

"It was simply to fix their personalities in the public mind. If you've done a big, wise thing, the public won't take any notice of you unless you do some little, silly thing."

"I wish you'd tell the public this, old man," I said.

"The public don't give a darn," he returned grimly.

"Evidently they don't in this case. And I don't see why they should, if you ask me. Even suppose he _had_ crossed the Atlantic, which he hasn't, for he fell into the sea--even suppose he had, what of it? Would his walking up Fifth Avenue in pink tights with an arum lily in his hand...."

But my friend was gone upstairs to his studio and my subtle sarcasm was lost. We look at this question of public performances from different angles. When we heard of a neighbour's son earning ten dollars every Sat.u.r.day by going up in a balloon and descending in a parachute (very often alighting upon some embarra.s.singly private roof) Mac thought it very creditable of him and mighty poor pay. I contended that it was a good deal more than the job was worth, because it was worth exactly nothing. It was not worth doing. This, of course, laid me open on the flank. My friend suggested that this might be said of a good deal of literary work, and I admitted with a sigh that he was right. "There you are," said he, and we both laughed.

"Well," I said, at lunch, "I grant your premises. Why should this chap wish to fix his personality on the public mind?"

"Can't you see? To put his value up, of course."

"Doing ... why, of course, he's doing it for money. Who ever does anything in this infernal world except for money?"

"But since he failed--as he did, you remember--he hasn't any value to speak of."