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_ The Professor, on presenting his card, had imagined that it would
command prompt access to the publisher's sanctuary; but the young
man who read his name was not moved to immediate action. It was
clear that Professor Linyard of Hillbridge University was not a
specific figure to the purveyors of popular literature. But the
publisher was an old friend; and when the card had finally drifted
to his office on the languid tide of routine he came forth at once
to greet his visitor.
The warmth of his welcome convinced the Professor that he had been
right in bringing his manuscript to Ned Harviss. He and Harviss had
been at Hillbridge together, and the future publisher had been one
of the wildest spirits in that band of college outlaws which yearly
turns out so many inoffensive citizens and kind husbands and
fathers. The Professor knew the taming qualities of life. He was
aware that many of his most reckless comrades had been transformed
into prudent capitalists or cowed wage-earners; but he was almost
sure that he could count on Harviss. So rare a sense of irony, so
keen a perception of relative values, could hardly have been blunted
even by twenty years' intercourse with the obvious.
The publisher's appearance was a little disconcerting. He looked as
if he had been fattened on popular fiction; and his fat was full of
optimistic creases. The Professor seemed to see him bowing into his
office a long train of spotless heroines laden with the maiden
tribute of the hundredth thousand volume.
Nevertheless, his welcome was reassuring. He did not disown his
early enormities, and capped his visitor's tentative allusions by
such flagrant references to the past that the Professor produced his
manuscript without a scruple.
"What--you don't mean to say you've been doing something in our
line?"
The Professor smiled. "You publish scientific books sometimes, don't
you?"
The publisher's optimistic creases relaxed a little. "H'm--it all
depends--I'm afraid you're a little _too_ scientific for us. We have
a big sale for scientific breakfast foods, but not for the
concentrated essences. In your case, of course, I should be
delighted to stretch a point; but in your own interest I ought to
tell you that perhaps one of the educational houses would do you
better."
The Professor leaned back, still smiling luxuriously.
"Well, look it over--I rather think you'll take it."
"Oh, we'll _take_ it, as I say; but the terms might not--"
"No matter about the terms--"
The publisher threw his head back with a laugh. "I had no idea that
science was so profitable; we find our popular novelists are the
hardest hands at a bargain."
"Science is disinterested," the Professor corrected him. "And I have
a fancy to have you publish this thing."
"That's immensely good of you, my dear fellow. Of course your name
goes with a certain public--and I rather like the originality of our
bringing out a work so out of our line. I daresay it may boom us
both." His creases deepened at the thought, and he shone
encouragingly on the Professor's leave-taking.
Within a fortnight, a line from Harviss recalled the Professor to
town. He had been looking forward with immense zest to this second
meeting; Harviss's college roar was in his tympanum, and he pictured
himself following up the protracted chuckle which would follow his
friend's progress through the manuscript. He was proud of the
adroitness with which he had kept his secret from Harviss, had
maintained to the last the pretense of a serious work, in order to
give the keener edge to his reader's enjoyment. Not since
under-graduate days had the Professor tasted such a draught of pure
fun as his anticipations now poured for him.
This time his card brought instant admission. He was bowed into the
office like a successful novelist, and Harviss grasped him with both
hands.
"Well--do you mean to take it?" he asked, with a lingering coquetry.
"Take it? Take it, my dear fellow? It's in press already--you'll
excuse my not waiting to consult you? There will be no difficulty
about terms, I assure you, and we had barely time to catch the
autumn market. My dear Linyard, why didn't you _tell_ me?" His voice
sank to a reproachful solemnity, and he pushed forward his own
arm-chair.
The Professor dropped into it with a chuckle. "And miss the joy of
letting you find out?"
"Well--it _was_ a joy." Harviss held out a box of his best cigars.
"I don't know when I've had a bigger sensation. It was so deucedly
unexpected--and, my dear fellow, you've brought it so exactly to the
right shop."
"I'm glad to hear you say so," said the Professor modestly.
Harviss laughed in rich appreciation. "I don't suppose you had a
doubt of it; but of course I was quite unprepared. And it's so
extraordinarily out of your line--"
The Professor took off his glasses and rubbed them with a slow
smile.
"Would you have thought it so--at college?"
Harviss stared. "At college?--Why, you were the most iconoclastic
devil--"
There was a perceptible pause. The Professor restored his glasses
and looked at his friend. "Well--?" he said simply.
"Well--?" echoed the other, still staring. "Ah--I see; you mean that
that's what explains it. The swing of the pendulum, and so forth.
Well, I admit it's not an uncommon phenomenon. I've conformed
myself, for example; most of our crowd have, I believe; but somehow
I hadn't expected it of you."
The close observer might have detected a faint sadness under the
official congratulation of his tone; but the Professor was too
amazed to have an ear for such fine shades.
"Expected it of me? Expected what of me?" he gasped. "What in heaven
do you think this thing is?" And he struck his fist on the
manuscript which lay between them.
Harviss had recovered his optimistic creases. He rested a benevolent
eye on the document.
"Why, your apologia--your confession of faith, I should call it. You
surely must have seen which way you were going? You can't have
written it in your sleep?"
"Oh, no, I was wide awake enough," said the Professor faintly.
"Well, then, why are you staring at me as if I were _not?"_ Harviss
leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on his visitor's worn
coat-sleeve. "Don't mistake me, my dear Linyard. Don't fancy there
was the least unkindness in my allusion to your change of front.
What is growth but the shifting of the stand-point? Why should a man
be expected to look at life with the same eyes at twenty and at--our
age? It never occurred to me that you could feel the least delicacy
in admitting that you have come round a little--have fallen into
line, so to speak."
But the Professor had sprung up as if to give his lungs more room to
expand; and from them there issued a laugh which shook the editorial
rafters.
"Oh, Lord, oh Lord--is it really as good as that?" he gasped.
Harviss had glanced instinctively toward the electric bell on his
desk; it was evident that he was prepared for an emergency.
"My dear fellow--" he began in a soothing tone.
"Oh, let me have my laugh out, do," implored the Professor.
"I'll--I'll quiet down in a minute; you needn't ring for the young
man." He dropped into his chair again, and grasped its arms to
steady his shaking. "This is the best laugh I've had since college,"
he brought out between his paroxysms. And then, suddenly, he sat up
with a groan. "But if it's as good as that it's a failure!" he
exclaimed.
Harviss, stiffening a little, examined the tip of his cigar. "My
dear Linyard," he said at length, "I don't understand a word you're
saying."
The Professor succumbed to a fresh access, from the vortex of which
he managed to fling out--"But that's the very core of the joke!"
Harviss looked at him resignedly. "What is?"
"Why, your not seeing--your not understanding--"
"Not understanding _what?"_
"Why, what the book is meant to be." His laughter subsided again and
he sat gazing thoughtfully at the publisher. "Unless it means," he
wound up, "that I've over-shot the mark."
"If I am the mark, you certainly have," said Harviss, with a glance
at the clock.
The Professor caught the glance and interpreted it. "The book is a
skit," he said, rising.
The other stared. "A skit? It's not serious, you mean?"
"Not to me--but it seems you've taken it so."
"You never told me--" began the publisher in a ruffled tone.
"No, I never told you," said the Professor.
Harviss sat staring at the manuscript between them. "I don't pretend
to be up in such recondite forms of humour," he said, still stiffly.
"Of course you address yourself to a very small class of readers."
"Oh, infinitely small," admitted the Professor, extending his hand
toward the manuscript.
Harviss appeared to be pursuing his own train of thought. "That is,"
he continued, "if you insist on an ironical interpretation."
"If I insist on it--what do you mean?"
The publisher smiled faintly. "Well--isn't the book susceptible of
another? If _I_ read it without seeing--"
"Well?" murmured the other, fascinated.--"why shouldn't the rest
of the world?" declared Harviss boldly. "I represent the Average
Reader--that's my business, that's what I've been training myself to
do for the last twenty years. It's a mission like another--the thing
is to do it thoroughly; not to cheat and compromise. I know fellows
who are publishers in business hours and dilettantes the rest of the
time. Well, they never succeed: convictions are just as necessary in
business as in religion. But that's not the point--I was going to
say that if you'll let me handle this book as a genuine thing I'll
guarantee to make it go."
The Professor stood motionless, his hand still on the manuscript.
"A genuine thing?" he echoed.
"A serious piece of work--the expression of your convictions. I tell
you there's nothing the public likes as much as convictions--they'll
always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is
just on the line of popular interest. You've got hold of a big
thing. It's full of hope and enthusiasm: it's written in the
religious key. There are passages in it that would do splendidly in
a Birthday Book--things that popular preachers would quote in their
sermons. If you'd wanted to catch a big public you couldn't have
gone about it in a better way. The thing's perfect for my purpose--I
wouldn't let you alter a word of it. It'll sell like a popular novel
if you'll let me handle it in the right way." _
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