Chapter 6. "How The Women Stare!"

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_ CHAPTER VI. "HOW THE WOMEN STARE!"

The next day Archie Weil lunched with Lawrence Gouger. He wanted to talk with his friend about the young author and authoress. Gouger listened with interest to the story he had to relate, and nodded approval when it appeared that Archie had behaved admirably thus far in relation to Miss Millicent.

"Do you know anything about Mr. Fern?" he asked, when the other had reached a period.

"Nothing."

"Well, neither did I, a week ago, but I have taken pains to inform myself. He is a highly respectable elderly party, who deals in wool. He married a very beautiful lady, who has now been dead eight or ten years and he lives altogether in the society of his two daughters. If you succeed in getting Millicent's book on the counters you will earn his everlasting gratitude. They say he is not literary enough himself to be a judge of its merits, and if she has fifty copies to present to the family friends it will probably be all he will ask."

Mr. Weil uttered a low whistle.

"I don't know what the family friends will say of it," he replied, "but I call it pretty warm stuff. If the list includes many prudes they will hardly thank the girl for sending such a firebrand into their houses."

"Pshaw!" said Gouger. "The world is getting used to that sort of thing, and they won't mind it a bit. Besides, they will be so lost in admiration of their cousin's name on the cover that they will think of nothing else. What did you make out of her? Is she as innocent as I predicted?"

Archie poured out a glass of Bass' ale and sipped it slowly.

"Quite," he said, as he put it down on the table. "And she's no dunce, either." He went on to tell of the trap he had fallen into. "I'm dying with impatience to get her and Roseleaf together. They'd make an idealic couple."

Mr. Gouger inquired what he was waiting for.

"Oh, I want to do the thing right," said Weil. "I want to learn her as thoroughly as I can, before I bring him upon the stage. It will take three or four evenings more to hear the rest of her novel, and another to discuss it. I shall get around to him in about a fortnight, at the rate things are going. He will keep. What do you suppose he is doing now? Writing poetry! He sent a piece a few days ago to the Century, and they accepted it."

"He will be gray when it appears," said the critic. "It takes a long time for anything to see the light in that publication."

"But in this case an exception will be made," said Weil. "They have assured him that it will come out in their very next issue. He will be so proud to see his name in print that I expect to find difficulty in holding him back. A poet who appears in the Century has certainly stepped a little higher on the ladder."

The critic agreed to this, and remarked that such a man as Roseleaf should give his whole attention to poetry.

"Wait!" cried Archie. "Give him time. See him after he has fallen head over ears in love with charming Millicent Fern. There is something in him, I feel sure, and between that dear girl and myself we will bring it out. By-the-way, there is a character I want you to meet," he added, as Mr. Walker Boggs came into the room. "You have never had the pleasure, I think, though you have heard me speak of him."

Mr. Boggs had his attention attracted by a waiter who was sent for the purpose and came with great willingness to occupy a seat with Mr. Weil and his friend.

"We were talking of a New York merchant just now," said Archie, when the introductions were over, "and it occurs to me that you, who know almost everybody, may have some knowledge of him. He is in the wool business, I hear, and I think you once told me you had done something in that way. His name is Wilton Fern, and he lives at Midlands."

"Do I know anything about him?" echoed Mr. Boggs. "I should say so. He was my partner for seven years, and I still have a little stake left in the concern, on which I am drawing interest."

Mr. Weil showed his astonishment at this statement. What a very small world it was, after all! Then, after pledging his friend not to mention that he had ever discussed the matter with him, he went guardedly into the particulars of Miss Millicent's book, and of his having called at the house for the purpose of passing judgment upon it.

"I didn't know that was in your line," replied Boggs.

"Well, it was this way," answered Archie. "Mr. Gouger's decision didn't exactly suit the young lady, as it was not very favorable. Mine will be quite to her taste, as I view her abilities in a more favorable light. Now tell us all about the family, as the only one of them I have met is Miss Millicent. Why, this is a regular find, old man! You should have told me a week ago that you possessed all this information that I have been aching to get hold of."

Thus adjured, Mr. Boggs entered upon his story. From which it appeared that he knew the Ferns, root and branch, and had dined with them dozens of times.

"What sort of a chap is the pater?" asked Weil.

"A very well-kept man of nearly seventy, with a great deal of what is called 'breeding' in his manner, and a face like the portrait of a French marquis cut out of a seventeenth century frame. He doesn't look like a business man at all, and between ourselves he's not much of a one. All the money he ever made--saving my apparent egotism--was when I was in the concern. I've heard he's got a big mortgage on his residence and is going down hill generally. Too bad; nice fellow; sorry for him; such is life."

Archie asked if Boggs would do him a personal and particular favor, if it would not cause him much trouble; and on being answered in the affirmative, said he would esteem it a great honor if he could be introduced to Mr. Fern by that gentleman's former business associate.

"I suppose I shall run across him at Midlands, some evening," he said, "and get one of those presentations that are the most aggravating things in the world. I don't want that to happen, and the best way, to use an elegant phrase, is to take the bull by the horns, or in this case, the sheep by the tail. Will you make an accidental call on him to-morrow afternoon and let me be of the party?"

Mr. Boggs responded that he would be delighted. And this matter being settled, all parties could give more direct attention to their lunch than they had been doing for the preceding ten minutes.

"You must have heard of my friend Boggs, in the days when he was a figure on the streets of this town," said Weil, presently, returning to what he knew was the favorite subject of that personage. "You've lived here for twenty years, and of course the name of Walker Boggs is familiar to you."

Mr. Gouger looked a good counterfeit of complete mystification for some seconds, and then a gleam as of sudden recollection shot across his face.

"Certainly, certainly!" he said. "Mr. Boggs was what is popularly known as a lady killer, if I am not mistaken. You got married, did you not, Mr. Boggs, some ten or eleven years ago?"

The party addressed acknowledged the practical correctness of the date.

"Why, it comes back as plain as day," said the critic. "The Herald had a page about you, including your portrait and some verses by a well known poet. It said your marriage had cast a gloom over Manhattan Island and some of the up-river counties."

Mr. Boggs gloomily nodded, to show that the statement was true. Then he touched his most rotund portion with a significant look.

"I'm a widower now," he said, "and nothing but this--this--stands in my way. As Shakespeare says, ''Tis not as deep as a well, nor as wide as a church door, but--' The ladies never look at me now, and all on account of this d--d flesh, which hangs like a millstone around my neck."

Cutt & Slashem's critic, ignoring the peculiar character of the metaphor used, remarked politely that he thought no lady of sense would put great stress on such an insignificant matter.

"Insignificant!" echoed Boggs. "I'll bet it's fifty inches around, come! And it's not the 'ladies of sense' I'm after. Quite the contrary."

One of Archie Weil's explosive laughs followed this statement, which caused an expression of mild injury to settle over the countenance of Mr. Boggs.

"You're getting on toward forty, and you ought to quit," said Weil. "Confound the women! Let them go."

"That's well enough to talk about," replied Boggs, gruffly. "How would you like to follow your own advice?"

Weil uttered an exclamation.

"I? I have precious little to do with them, I assure you. For a man of my correct habits I have the worst name of any one I know. Everybody insinuates things about me, and they can prove nothing."

"We'll ask Isaac Leveson about that," sneered Boggs. "By-the-way, that wouldn't be a bad place to take young Roseleaf to, when you get to instructing him in earnest. I met the young fellow on the avenue last night and walked around with him for a couple of hours. He's a darling!"

"Roseleaf?" cried both the other gentlemen, in one breath.

"To be sure. How the women stared at him! I couldn't blame them; his waist isn't over thirty, and he's as handsome as--as I was at his age. I told him he could have all the loveliness in New York at his feet, if he liked."

Weil smiled significantly at Gouger.

"What did he reply to that?" he asked.

"Oh, he had an ideal in his head, and none of those we saw quite came up to it; for I did get him to raise his eyes and look at the prettiest ones. I drew out of him slowly that he would have nothing to do with a girl unless she had red hair; that--"

Mr. Weil uttered a laugh so hearty that it attracted the attention of everybody in the room. Mr. Boggs paused to inquire the cause of this outbreak, but Archie assured him that something entirely out of the present discussion had just occurred to him, which was to blame for his impoliteness.

"A girl must have Titian hair," repeated Mr. Boggs, accepting the explanation, "or he would not consider her. He ruled out all the striking blondes and brunettes, saying that he liked only those of a medium shade. We came across one that answered these descriptions, an exquisite little creature who looked as if she would swallow him could she get the chance. And then there came out another idea. He would not think of this fairy because she was so short. 'I want a woman five feet, four inches tall,' he said, as if the article could be made to order, in case the size did not happen to be in stock. Then, would you believe it, he found a girl embracing every attribute he had mentioned. Her hair was just the right shade, her height must have hit the mark exactly, her complexion was medium. But no. She was too heavy. She would weigh a hundred and forty-five, he said, quite twenty pounds too much. If we had found a girl that filled all his description he would have invented something new to bar her out of the race."

Mr. Weil remarked that he was not so sure of Roseleaf's insincerity. He believed the right woman would yet be discovered, and that a case of the most intense affection would then spontaneously develop.

"In fact," he added, "I have the identical creature in mind. It is clear to us--to myself and Mr. Gouger here--that Shirley will never write a thrilling romance till he has fallen wildly, passionately in love."

Mr. Boggs smiled slightly, and then sobered again.

"Shall you have him marry, also?" he inquired, pointedly.

"Why not?"

"Because it will finish him; that's why. The romance in a modern marriage lasts six weeks. At the end of that time he will be useless for literary purposes, or anything else."

Mr. Weil shook his head in opposition to this rash statement.

"My theory is," said he, "that a novelist should know everything. To write of love he should have been in love; to tell of marriage he should have had a wife--a real one, no mere imitation; to talk of fatherhood intelligently he should become a father. How can he know his subjects otherwise?"

The stout man smiled significantly.

"And if he wishes to write of murder, he must kill some one. And if he wants to depict the sensations of a robber he must take a pistol and ask people to stand, on the highway."

"Now you are becoming absurd," said Archie.

"No more than you," said Boggs. "You go too far, and you will find it out. Let your novelist fall in love. That will do him good. But don't let him marry, or you will lose him, mark my word. Let him contemplate matrimony at a distance. Let him reflect on the glory of seeing his children about his knees. So far, so good. But when you have shelved him with a wife of the present era, when you have kept him up nights for a month with a baby that screams--his literary capacity will be gone. Make no mistake!"

Mr. Weil, half convinced, and much surprised to hear such wisdom from this unexpected source, made an effort to maintain his ground.

"Nearly all the modern novelists are married," he remarked.

"Yes, and nice stuff they write, don't they? Namby-pamby, silly-billy stories, misleading in every line! They are the most unsafe pilots on the shores of human life. They start, without exception, from false premises. Their chart is wrong, their compass unreliable, their reckoning ridiculous from beginning to end. Where did you ever see a bit of real life that resembled these abortions? Do lovers usually fall on their knees when they propose? Is the modern girl an idiot, knowing less of the facts of nature than an oyster? Is the conversation between men and women filled exclusively with twaddle? You would think so, from reading these books; and why? They are written by married people, most of them, people who don't dare step over the line of the commonplace any more than a woman would dare order her dressmaker to put pockets in her gown!"

Archie looked at Mr. Gouger, who nodded a partial approval of these statements. Mr. Boggs betook himself with more interest to his chops. And the other two gentlemen, remarking that time pressed, bade him good-by for the day.

"I see you agree with him that I shouldn't marry Roseleaf?" said Archie, with a rising inflection.

"There is certainly point in what he says," replied Mr. Gouger.

"But--confound it! With the boy's disposition, it will be a delicate business," retorted Weil. "I don't know as I can carry him to the point of passionate love for pretty Miss Fern, and then shut off the steam when it suits me."

This matter was discussed for the next ten minutes, as the friends walked along toward the office of Cutt & Slashem.

"I think you are foolish to delay so long introducing him to her," said Gouger, finally. "I don't see that you are making any progress whatever."

"Ah, but I am," replied Weil. "I am making both of them more and more anxious for the meeting. Shirley walks the street feverishly impatient, and I have no doubt mutters her name in his dreams. Millicent talks about her ideal of manly beauty. When they get together failure will be impossible."

Mr. Gouger laughed at the idea that Roseleaf was "feverishly impatient" to meet any girl, and ventured to predict that the young man would have to be put in irons to get him to the residence of the Ferns when the time came; or at least to keep him there.

"Just the point I am working on," replied Weil. "Under ordinary circumstances I would have to handcuff his wrists to mine, but I am making such a strong impression on his imagination that he is crazy to go. And once she gets him under her influence--I tell you, Lawrence, she is no ordinary girl."

"She certainly does not write like one," smiled the critic, "either in her subject or her English. You may make something of him--I rather think you will--but not of her. Her ideas are wild, and her realism a little too pronounced even for the present age."

"She has truth on her side, you admit," said Archie.

"Yes, to a remarkable degree."

"Well, that ought to be something, if Boggs' estimate of the modern liar is correct. Shirley will help her to style, give her his own, if necessary. I am going to land both of these fish, if only to spite you, Lawrence. You tossed them away with that fine contempt of yours, and you will weep hot tears for it before you die."

At the door of Cutt & Slashem's they met the two members of that firm, who paused to say a word to Mr. Gouger. They were anxious for a new book to bring out as soon as possible, and were regretting with him that nothing worth publishing seemed to present itself.

"You may strain matters, it necessary," said Mr. Cutt. "We can't keep up on reprints forever. I hope you made no mistake in rejecting that book of Mrs. Hotbox. I hear it is selling well."

Mr. Gouger's face was, as ever, immovable before his employers.

"What 'Fire and Brimstone?'" he inquired. "The authorities seized the entire edition this morning."

Mr. Cutt looked at Mr. Slashem, with a startled expression.

"In that case, I am glad we escaped it," he said. "We shouldn't like that sort of an affair, of course."

Mr. Weil, who knew both the gentlemen well, inquired what they thought of Mrs. Hotbox's production.

"I have never seen it," said Mr. Slashem.

"Nor I," said Mr. Cutt.

The partners disappeared into the counting-room, where they had an interview with a binder who had offered to do their work at one-tenth of a cent a hundred copies less than the concern with which they were then dealing. Archie said good-by to Gouger, and went off to find Roseleaf, with whom he had engaged to take, later in the day, a ride through the Park.

"How soon am I to see your paragon?" sighed the young man, as they were making the grand round of that famous drive.

"Within a week, I hope. Are you getting uneasy?"

"I am getting lonesome," was the gloomy reply. "And I want to begin work."

"Well, it will soon pass now. To-morrow evening I am to hear another installment of her novel. Two more sittings after that will finish it, I should say. And the next thing will be--you. But have you seen no one else in all this time that you care for?"

The young man looked aimlessly at the fleecy clouds that hung low on the horizon.

"No," he answered.

"And you think you are ready for a passionate affection, if the right person is found?"

"I will try," he said, simply.

Mr. Weil roused himself and touched his horse with the whip.

"Try!" he echoed. "You will not have to try. She will carry you off your feet, at the first go. Shirley, I have found you a superb woman, that you must love. All I want to feel sure of is, that you can control yourself enough to behave in a reasonable manner."

Roseleaf looked up inquiringly.

"She belongs to an eminently respectable family," explained Archie. "Her father is a gentleman of the most honorable type. She has a young sister, who--"

Roseleaf, slow at all times, had at last begun to comprehend.

"You surely don't think--" he began.

"Ah, that is the question! A novelist must learn so very much--a novelist who is to depict the truth, as you are to do. Where should he stop? What experience should he refuse, provided it may be utilized in his work? A responsibility that is no light one will rest on me, my dear boy, when I have introduced you to this family, and left you to your own devices."

Roseleaf's eyes opened wider at these mysterious suggestions, but he did not like to make any more inquiries. Weil changed the conversation, calling attention to the women they met, who turned their handsome heads to look at the young man, as their equipages almost touched his.

"What an awfully wide swath you are cutting!" was Archie's exclamation, as the throng increased. _

Read next: Chapter 7. A Dinner At Midlands

Read previous: Chapter 5. Studying Miss Millicent

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