The Colossus Part 12

"No; and that's the trouble. If somebody were to hurt me, I could relieve myself of embarra.s.sment by taking up revenge."

At the very eleventh hour of preparation he was not only reconciled to the affliction of a reception, but appeared rather to look with favor upon the affair. And it was this peculiar reasoning that brought him round: "I am here in place of another. I am not known. I am as a writer who hides behind a pen-name."

The evening came with a rumble of carriages. An invitation to a reception means, "Come and be pleased. Frowns are to be left at home."

The difference between one society gathering and another is the difference that exists between two white shoes--one may be larger than the other. Witherspoon was lordly, and in his smile a stranger might have seen a life of generosities. And with what a welcoming dignity he took the hand that in its time had cut the throats of a thousand hogs.

Diamonds gleamed in the mellowed light, and there were smiles none the less radiant for having been carefully trained. The evening was warm.

There was a wing-like movement of feathered fans. Scented time was flying away.

The guests were gone, and Henry sat in his room. He had thrown off the garments which convention had prescribed, and now, with his feet on a table, he sat smoking an old black pipe that he had lolled with on the mountains of Costa Rica. The night which was now ending waved back for review. Ellen, beautiful in an empire gown, golden yellow, brocaded satin. "Why did you try to dodge this?" she had asked in a whisper.

"You are the most self-possessed man in the house. Can't you see how proud we all are of you? I have never seen mother so happy."

The perfume of praise was in the air. "Oh, I think your brother is just charming," a young woman had said to Ellen, and Henry had caught the words.

"He is like my mother's people." Mrs. Witherspoon was talking to a woman whose hair had been grayed and who appeared to enjoy the distinction of being an invalid. The Coltons and the Brooks contingent had smeared him with compliments. There was a literary group, and the t.i.tles of a hundred books were mentioned; one writer was charming; another was horrid. There was the group of household government, and the servant-girl question, which has never been found in repose, was tossed from one woman to another and caught as a bag of sweets. In the library was a commercial and real-estate gathering, and the field of speculation was broken up, harrowed and seeded down.

The black-bearded muser put his pipe aside, and from this glowing scene his thoughts flew away into a dark night when he stood in Ulmata, knocking at the door of a deserted house. He got up and stood at the window. Sparrows twittered. Threads of gray dawn streaked the black warp of night.

At morning there was another spread in the newspapers. The wonder of a few days had spent its force, and the Witherspoon sensation was done.

CHAPTER XII.

A DEMOCRACY.

The _Star_ was printed in an old building where more than one newspaper had failed. The interior of the place was so comfortless in arrangement, so subject to unaccountable drafts of cold air in winter and breaths of hot oppression in summer, that it must have been built especially for a newspaper office. Henry found that the working force consisted mainly of a few young reporters and a large force of editorial writers. The weakness of nearly every newspaper is its editorial page, and especially so when the paper is owned by a politician. The new manager straightway began a reorganization. It was an easy matter to form an efficient staff, for in every city some of the best newspaper men are out of employment--the bright and uncertain writers who have been shoved aside by trustworthy plodders. He did not begin as one who knows it all, but he sought the co-operation of practical men. The very man who knew that the paper could not do without him was told that his services were no longer needed. In his day he had spread many an acre of plat.i.tudes; he had hammered the tariff mummy, and at every lick he had knocked out the black dust; he had snorted loud in controversy, and was arrogant in the certainty that his blowhard sentence was the frosty air of satire. He was the representative of a cla.s.s. To him all clearness of expression was shallowness of thought, and brightness was the essence of frivolity.

He soon found another place, for some of the Chicago newspapers still set a premium upon windy dullness.

Among the writers whom Henry decided to retain was Laura Drury. She wrote book reviews and sc.r.a.ps which were supposed to be of interest to women. Her room opened into Henry's, and through a door which was never shut he could see her at work. The brightness and the modesty of her face attracted him. She could not have been more than twenty years of age.

"Have you been long in newspaper work?" he asked, when she had come in to submit something to him.

"Only a short time," she answered, and returned at once to her desk.

Henry looked at her as she proceeded with her work. Her presence seemed to refine the entire office. He fancied that her hair made the room brighter. His curiosity was awakened by one touch of her presence. He sought to know more of her, and when she had come in again to consult him, he said: "Wait a moment, please. How long have you been connected with this paper?"

"About three months, regularly."

"Had you worked on any other paper in the city?"

"No, sir; I have never worked on any other paper."

"Have you lived here long?"

"No, sir, I have been here only a short time. I am from Missouri."

"You didn't come alone, did you?"

She glanced at him quickly and answered: "I came alone, but I live with my aunt."

She returned to her work, and she must have discovered that he was watching her, for the next day he saw that she had moved her desk.

Henry had applied for membership in the Press Club, and one morning a reporter told him that he had been elected.

"Was there any opposition?" the editor asked.

"Not after the boys learned that you had been a reporter. You can go over at any time and sign the const.i.tution."

"I'll go now. Suppose you come with me."

The Press Club of Chicago is a democracy. Money holds but little influence within its precincts, for its ablest members are generally "broke." There are no rules hung on its walls, no cool ceremonies to be observed. Its atmosphere invites a man to be natural, and warns him to conceal his vanities. Among that body of men no pretense is sacred.

Here men of Puritan ancestry find it well to curb a puritanical instinct. A stranger may be shocked by a snort of profanity, but if he listens he will hear a bright and poetic blending of words rippling after it. A great preacher, whose sermons are read by the world, sat one day in the club, uttering the slow and heavy sentences of an oracle. He touched his finger tips together. He was discoursing on some phase of life; and an old night police reporter listened for a moment and said, "Rats!" The great man was startled. Accustomed to deliver his theories to a silent congregation, he was astonished to find that his wisdom could so irreverently be questioned. The reporter meant no disrespect, but he could not restrain his contempt for so presuming a piece of ignorance. He turned to the preacher and showed him where his theories were wrong. With a pin he touched the bubble of the great man's presumption, and it was done kindly, for when the sage arose to go he said: "I must confess that I have learned something. I fear that a preacher's library does not contain all that is worth knowing." And this, more than any of his sermons, proved his wisdom.

In the Press Club the pulse of the town can be felt, and scandals that money and social influence have suppressed are known there. The characters of public men are correctly estimated; sn.o.bs are laughed at; and the society woman who seeks to bribe the press with she cajolery of a smile is a familiar joke. Of course this is not wholly a harmonious body, for keen intelligence is never in smooth accord with itself. To the "kicker" is given the right to "kick," and keen is the enjoyment of this privilege. Every directory is the worst; every officer neglects his duty.

Literary societies know but little of this club, for literary societies despise the affairs of the real worker--they are interested in the bladdery essay written by the fashionable a.s.s.

Henry was shown into a large room, brightly carpeted and hung with portraits. On a leather lounge a man lay asleep; at a round table a man sat, solemnly playing solitaire; and in one corner of the apartment sat several men, discussing an outrageous clause in the const.i.tution that Henry had just signed. The new member was introduced to them. Among the number were John McGlenn, John Richmond and a shrewd little Yankee named Whittlesy. Of McGlenn's character a whole book might be written. An individual almost wholly distinct from his fellow-men; a castigator of human weakness and yet a hero-worshiper--not the hero of burning powder and fluttering flags, but any human being whose brain had blazed and lighted the world. Art was to him the soul of literature. Had he lived two thousand years ago, as the founder of a peculiar school of philosophy, he might still be alive. If frankness be a virtue, he was surely a reward unto himself. He would calmly look into the eyes of a poet and say, "Yes, I read your poem. Do you expect to keep on attempting to write poetry?

But you may think better of it after a while. I wrote poems when I was of your age." He did not hate men because they were wealthy, but he despised the methods that make them rich. His temperament invited a few people to a close friendship with him, and gently warned many to keep a respectful distance. Aggressive and cutting he was, and he often said that death was the best friend of a man who is compelled to write for a living. He wrote a subscription book for a mere pittance, and one of the agents that sold it now lives in a mansion. He regarded present success as nothing to compare with an immortal name in the ages to come. He was born in the country, and his refined nature revolted at his rude surroundings, and ever afterward he held the country in contempt. In later years he had regarded himself simply as a man of talent, and when this decision had been reached he thought less of life. If his intellectual character lacked one touch, that touch would have made him a genius. When applied to him the term "gentleman" found its befitting place.

Careless observers of men often pa.s.sed Richmond without taking particular notice of him. He was rather undersized, and was bald, but his head was shapely. He was so sensitive that he often a.s.sumed a brusqueness in order not to appear effeminate. His judgment of men was as swift as the sweep of a hawk, and sometimes it was as sure. He had taken so many chances, and had so closely noted that something which we call luck, that he might have been touched a little with superst.i.tion, but his soul was as broad as a prairie, and his mind was as penetrating as a drill; and a fact must have selected a close hiding-place to escape his search. Sitting in his room, with his plug of black tobacco, he had explored the world. Stanley was amazed at his knowledge of Africa, and Blaine marveled at his acquaintance with political history.

"We welcome you to our club," McGlenn remarked when Henry had sat down, "but are you sure that this is the club you wanted to join!"

Henry was surprised. "Of course I am. Why do you ask that question?"

"Because you are a rich man, and this is the home of modesty."

Henry reached over and shook hands with him. "I like that," said he, "and let me a.s.sure you that you have in one sentence made me feel that I really belong here, not because I am particularly modest, but because your sentiments are my own. I am not a rich man, but even if I were I should prefer this group to the hyphenated"--

"Fools," McGlenn suggested.

"Yes," Henry agreed, "the hyphenated fools that I am compelled to meet. George Witherspoon is a rich man, but his money does not belong to me. I didn't help him earn any of it; I borrowed money from him, and, so soon as I can, I shall return it with interest."

"John," said Richmond, "you were wrong--as you usually are--in asking Mr. Witherspoon that question, but in view of the fact that you enabled him to put himself so agreeably on record, we will excuse your lack of courtesy."

"I don't permit any man who goes fishing with any sort of ignorant lout, and who spends a whole day in a boat with him, to tell me when I am lacking in courtesy."

Richmond laughed, put his hand to his mouth, threw back his head and replied: "I go fishing, not for society, but for amus.e.m.e.nt; and, by the way, I think it would do you good to go fishing, even with an ignorant lout. You might learn something."

"Ah," McGlenn rejoined, "you have disclosed the source of much of your information. You learn from the ignorant that you may confound the wise."

Richmond put his hand to his mouth. "At some playful time," said he, "I might seek to confound the wise, but I should never so far forget myself as to make an experiment on you."

"Mr. Witherspoon," remarked McGlenn, "we will turn from this rude barbarian and give our attention to Mr. Whittlesy, who knows all about dogs."

"If he knows all about dogs," Henry replied, "he must be well acquainted with some of the most prominent traits of man."