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_ Mrs. Linyard's knock cut short the importunities of the lady who had
been trying to persuade the Professor to be taken by flashlight at
his study table for the Christmas number of the _Inglenook_. On this
point the Professor had fancied himself impregnable; but the
unwonted smile with which he welcomed his wife's intrusion showed
that his defences were weakening.
The lady from the _Inglenook_ took the hint with professional
promptness, but said brightly, as she snapped the elastic around her
note-book: "I shan't let you forget me, Professor."
The groan with which he followed her retreat was interrupted by his
wife's question: "Do they pay you for these interviews, Samuel?"
The Professor looked at her with sudden attention. "Not directly,"
he said, wondering at her expression.
She sank down with a sigh. "Indirectly, then?"
"What is the matter, my dear? I gave you Harviss's second cheque the
other day--"
Her tears arrested him. "Don't be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really
believe your success has turned his head."
"The boy--what boy? My success--? Explain yourself, Susan!"
"It's only that Jack has--has borrowed some money--which he can't
repay. But you mustn't think him altogether to blame, Samuel. Since
the success of your book he has been asked about so much--it's given
the children quite a different position. Millicent says that
wherever they go the first question asked is, 'Are you any relation
of the author of "The Vital Thing"?' Of course we're all very proud
of the book; but it entails obligations which you may not have
thought of in writing it."
The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on
the study-table which he had just successfully defended from the
camera of the _Inglenook_. He took up an envelope bearing the name
of a popular weekly paper.
"I don't know that the _Inglenook_ would help much," he said, "but I
suppose this might."
Mrs. Linyard's eyes glowed with maternal avidity.
"What is it, Samuel?"
"A series of 'Scientific Sermons' for the Round-the-Gas-Log column
of _The Woman's World_. I believe that journal has a larger
circulation than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion."
He had not even asked the extent of Jack's indebtedness. It had been
so easy to relieve recent domestic difficulties by the timely
production of Harviss's two cheques, that it now seemed natural to
get Mrs. Linyard out of the room by promising further
reinforcements. The Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss's
suggestion that he should follow up his success by a second volume
on the same lines. He had sworn not to lend more than a passive
support to the fraud of "The Vital Thing"; but the temptation to
free himself from Mrs. Linyard prevailed over his last scruples, and
within an hour he was at work on the Scientific Sermons.
The Professor was not an unkind man. He really enjoyed making his
family happy; and it was his own business if his reward for so doing
was that it kept them out of his way. But the success of "The Vital
Thing" gave him more than this negative satisfaction. It enlarged
his own existence and opened new doors into other lives. The
Professor, during fifty virtuous years, had been cognizant of only
two types of women: the fond and foolish, whom one married, and the
earnest and intellectual, whom one did not. Of the two, he
infinitely preferred the former, even for conversational purposes.
But as a social instrument woman was unknown to him; and it was not
till he was drawn into the world on the tide of his literary success
that he discovered the deficiencies in his classification of the
sex. Then he learned with astonishment of the existence of a third
type: the woman who is fond without foolishness and intellectual
without earnestness. Not that the Professor inspired, or sought to
inspire, sentimental emotions; but he expanded in the warm
atmosphere of personal interest which some of his new acquaintances
contrived to create about him. It was delightful to talk of serious
things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal without being
domestic.
Even in this new world, where all subjects were touched on lightly,
and emphasis was the only indelicacy, the Professor found himself
constrained to endure an occasional reference to his book. It was
unpleasant at first; but gradually he slipped into the habit of
hearing it talked of, and grew accustomed to telling pretty women
just how "it had first come to him."
Meanwhile the success of the Scientific Sermons was facilitating his
family relations. His photograph in the _Inglenook_, to which the
lady of the note-book had succeeded in appending a vivid interview,
carried his fame to circles inaccessible even to "The Vital Thing";
and the Professor found himself the man of the hour. He soon grew
used to the functions of the office, and gave out hundred-dollar
interviews on every subject, from labour-strikes to Babism, with a
frequency which reacted agreeably on the domestic exchequer.
Presently his head began to figure in the advertising pages of the
magazines. Admiring readers learned the name of the only
breakfast-food in use at his table, of the ink with which "The Vital
Thing" had been written, the soap with which the author's hands were
washed, and the tissue-builder which fortified him for further
effort. These confidences endeared the Professor to millions of
readers, and his head passed in due course from the magazine and the
newspaper to the biscuit-tin and the chocolate-box. _
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