Frenzied Fiction Part 16

"Unfortunately our a.n.a.lysis, perfect though it is, stops short. We have no synthesis."

The Professor spoke as in deep sorrow.

"No synthesis," we moaned. We felt it was a cruel blow. But in any case our notes were now elaborate enough. We felt that our readers could do without a synthesis. We rose to go.

"Synthetic dynamics," said the Professor, taking us by the coat, "is only beginning--"

"In that case--" we murmured, disengaging his hand.

"But, wait, wait," he pleaded "wait for another fifty years--"

"We will," we said very earnestly. "But meantime as our paper goes to press this afternoon we must go now. In fifty years we will come back."

"Oh, I see, I see," said the Professor, "you are writing all this for a newspaper. I see."

"Yes," we said, "we mentioned that at the beginning."

"Ah," said the Professor, "did you? Very possibly. Yes."

"We propose," we said, "to feature the article for next Sat.u.r.day."

"Will it be long?" he asked.

"About two columns," we answered.

"And how much," said the Professor in a hesitating way, "do I have to pay you to put it in?"

"How much which?" we asked.

"How much do I have to pay?"

"Why, Professor--" we began quickly. Then we checked ourselves. After all was it right to undeceive him, this quiet, absorbed man of science with his ideals, his atoms and his emanations. No, a hundred times no.

Let him pay a hundred times.

"It will cost you," we said very firmly, "ten dollars."

The Professor began groping among his apparatus. We knew that he was looking for his purse.

"We should like also very much," we said, "to insert your picture along with the article--"

"Would that cost much?" he asked.

"No, that is only five dollars."

The Professor had meantime found his purse.

"Would it be all right," he began, "that is, would you mind if I pay you the money now? I am apt to forget."

"Quite all right," we answered. We said good-bye very gently and pa.s.sed out. We felt somehow as if we had touched a higher life. "Such,"

we murmured, as we looked about the ancient campus, "are the men of science: are there, perhaps, any others of them round this morning that we might interview?"

IV. WITH OUR TYPICAL NOVELISTS

Edwin and Ethelinda Afterthought--Husband and Wife--In their Delightful Home Life.

It was at their beautiful country place on the Woonagansett that we had the pleasure of interviewing the Afterthoughts. At their own cordial invitation, we had walked over from the nearest railway station, a distance of some fourteen miles. Indeed, as soon as they heard of our intention they invited us to walk. "We are so sorry not to bring you in the motor," they wrote, "but the roads are so frightfully dusty that we might get dust on our chauffeur." This little touch of thoughtfulness is the keynote of their character.

The house itself is a delightful old mansion giving on a wide garden, which gives in turn on a broad terrace giving on the river.

The Eminent Novelist met us at the gate. We had expected to find the author of _Angela Rivers_ and _The Garden of Desire_ a pale aesthetic type (we have a way of expecting the wrong thing in our interviews). We could not resist a shock of surprise (indeed we seldom do) at finding him a burly out-of-door man weighting, as he himself told us, a hundred stone in his stockinged feet (we think he said stone).

He shook hands cordially.

"Come and see my pigs," he said.

"We wanted to ask you," we began, as we went down the walk, "something about your books."

"Let's look at the pigs first," he said. "Are you anything of a pig man?"

We are always anxious in our interviews to be all things to all men. But we were compelled to admit that we were not much of a pig man.

"Ah," said the Great Novelist, "perhaps you are more of a dog man?"

"Not altogether a dog man," we answered.

"Anything of a bee man?" he asked.

"Something," we said (we were once stung by a bee).

"Ah," he said, "you shall have a go at the beehives, then, right away?"

We a.s.sured him that we were willing to postpone a go at the beehives till later.

"Come along, then, to the styes," said the Great Novelist, and he added, "Perhaps you're not much of a breeder."

We blushed. We thought of the five little faces around the table for which we provide food by writing our interviews.

"No," we said, "we were not much of a breeder."

"Now then," said the Great Novelist as we reached our goal, "how do you like this stye?"

"Very much indeed," we said.

"I've put in a new tile draining--my own plan. You notice how sweet it keeps the stye."