John Marvel, Assistant Part 11

Among the boarders one of those I found most interesting was a young man named Kalender, by whom I sat at the first meal after my arrival, and with whom I struck up an acquaintance. He was a reporter for a morning paper of very advanced methods, and he was pre-eminently a person fitted for his position: a c.o.c.ky youth with a long, keen nose and a bullet head covered with rather wiry, black hair, heavy black brows over keen black eyes, and an ugly mouth with rather small yellowish teeth. He had as absolute confidence in himself as any youth I ever met, and he either had, or made a good pretence of having, an intimate knowledge of not only all the public affairs of the city, but of the private affairs of every one in the city. Before we had finished smoking our cigarettes he had given me what he termed "the lay out" of the entire community, and by his account it was "the rottenest ---- town in the universe"--a view I subsequently had reason to rectify--and he proposed to get out of it as soon as he could and go to New York, which, to his mind, was the only town worth living in in the country (he having, as I learned later, lived there just three weeks).

His paper, he said frankly, paid only for sensational articles, and was just then "jumping on a lot of the high-flyers, because that paid," but "they" gave him a lat.i.tude to write up whatever he pleased, because they knew he could dress up anything--from a murder to a missionary meeting.

"Oh! it don't matter what you write about," said he airily, "so you know how to do it"--a bit of criticism suggestive of a better-known critic.

I was much impressed by his extraordinary and extensive experience. In the course of our conversation I mentioned casually the episode of the delayed train and the private car.

"The Argands' car, you say?"

I told him that that was what some one had said.

"That would make a good story," he declared. "I think I'll write that up--I'd have all the babies dying and the mothers fainting and an accident just barely averted by a little girl waving a red shawl, see--while the Argand car dashed by with a party eating and drinking and throwing champagne-bottles out of the window. But I've got to go and see the Mayor to ascertain why he appointed the new city comptroller, and then I've got to drop by the theatre and give the new play a roast--so I'll hardly have time to roast those Argands and Leighs, though I'd like to do it to teach them not to refuse me round-trip pa.s.ses next time I ask for them. I tell you what you do," he added, modestly, "you write it up--you say you have written for the press?"

"Oh! yes, very often--and for the magazines. I have had stories published in----"

"Well, that's all right." (Kalender was not a good listener.) "I'll look it over and touch it up--put the fire in it and polish it off. You write it up, say--about a column. I can cut it down all right--and I'll call by here for it about eleven, after the theatre."

It was a cool request--coolly made; but I was fool enough to accede to it. I felt much aggrieved over the treatment of us by the railway company, and was not sorry to air my grievance at the same time that I secured a possible opening. I accordingly spent all the afternoon writing my account of the inconvenience and distress occasioned the travelling public by the inconsiderateness of the railway management, discussing, by the way, the fundamental principle of owners.h.i.+p in quasi-public corporations, and showing that all rights which they claimed were derived from the people. I mentioned no names and veiled my allusions; but I paid a tribute to the kind heart of the Angel of Mercy who succored the children. I spent some hours at my composition and took much pride in it when completed. Then, as I had not been out at all to see the town, I addressed the envelope in which I had placed my story to Mr. Kalender, and leaving it for him, walked out into the wilderness.

On my return the paper was gone.

Next morning I picked up one paper after another, but did not at first find my contribution. An account of a grand ball the night before, at which an extraordinary display of wealth must have been made, was given the prominent place in most of them. But as I did not know the persons whose costumes were described with such Byzantine richness of vocabulary, I pa.s.sed it by. The only thing referring to a railway journey was a column article, in a sensational sheet called _The Trumpet_, headed, BRUTALITY OF MILLIONAIRE BANKER. RAILWAY PRESIDENT STARVES POOR Pa.s.sENGERS. There under these glaring headlines, I at last discovered my article, so distorted and mutilated as to be scarcely recognizable. The main facts of the delay and its cause were there as I wrote them. My discussion of derivative rights was retained. But the motive was boldly declared to be brutal hatred of the poor. And to make it worse, the names of both Mr. Leigh and Mrs. Argand were given as having been present in person, gloating over the misery they had caused, while a young lady, whose name was not given, had thrown sc.r.a.ps out of the window for starving children and dogs to scramble for.

To say that I was angry expresses but a small part of the truth. The allusion to the young lady had made my blood boil. What would she think if she should know I had had a hand in that paper? I waited at red heat for my young man, and had he appeared before I cooled down, he would have paid for the liberty he took with me. When he did appear, however, he was so innocent of having offended me that I could scarcely bear to attack him.

"Well, did you see our story?" he asked gayly.

"Yes--your story--I saw----"

"Well, I had to do a little to it to make it go," he said condescendingly, "but you did very well--you'll learn."

"Thank you. I don't want to learn that," I said hotly, "I never saw anything so butchered. There was not the slightest foundation for all that rot--it was made up out of whole cloth." I was boiling about Miss Leigh.

"Pooh-pooh! My dear boy, you'll never make an editor. I never fake an interview," he said virtuously. "Lots of fellows do; but I don't. But if a man will give me two lines, I can give him two columns--and good ones, too. Why, we had two extras--what with that and the grand ball last night. The newsboys are crying it all over town."

"I don't care if they are. I don't want to be an editor if one has to tell such atrocious lies as that. But I don't believe editors have to do that, and I know reputable editors don't. Why, you have named a man who was a hundred miles away."

He simply laughed.

"Well, I'm quite willing to get the credit of that paper. That's business. We're trying to break down the Leigh interests, and the Argands are mixed up with 'em. Coll McSheen was in the office last night. He's counsel for the Argands, but--you don't know Coll McSheen?"

"I do not," I said shortly.

"He's deep. You know you write better than you talk," he added patronizingly. "I tell you what I'll do--if you'll write me every day on some live topic----"

"I'll never write you a line again on any topic, alive or dead, unless you die yourself, when I'll write that you are the biggest liar I ever saw except my Jeams."

I had expected he would resent my words, but he did not. He only laughed, and said, "That's a good line. Write on that."

I learned later that he had had a slight raise of salary on the paper he palmed off as his. I could only console myself with the hope that Miss Leigh would not see the article.

But Miss Leigh did see the appreciation of her father in the writing of which I had had a hand, and it cost me many a dark hour of sad repining.

X

A NEW GIRL

This is how the young lady heard of it. Miss Leigh had been at home but an hour or two and had only had time to change her travelling costume for a suit of light blue with a blue hat to match, which was very becoming to her, and order the carriage to drive down and get her father, when a visitor was announced: Miss Milly McSheen, an old schoolmate--and next moment a rather large, flamboyante girl of about Miss Leigh's own age or possibly a year or two older, bounced into the room as if she had been shot in out of one of those mediaeval engines which flung men into walled towns.

She began to talk volubly even before she was actually in the room; she talked all through her energetic if hasty embrace of her friend, and all the time she was loosening the somewhat complicated fastening of a dotted veil which, while it obscured, added a certain charm to a round, florid, commonplace, but good-humored face in which smiled two round, shallow blue eyes.

"Well, my dear," she began while yet outside the door, "I thought you never were coming back! Never! And I believe if I hadn't finally made up my mind to get you back you would have stayed forever in that nasty, stuck-up city of Brotherly Love."

Miss Leigh a little airily observed that that t.i.tle applied to Philadelphia, and she had only pa.s.sed through Philadelphia on a train one night.

"Oh! well, it was some kind of love, I'll be bound, and some one's else brother, too, that kept you away so long."

"No, it was not--not even some one else's brother," replied Miss Leigh.

"Oh! for Heaven's sake, don't tell me that's wrong. Why, I've been practising that all summer. It sounds so grammatical--so New Yorkish."

"I can't help it. It may be New Yorkish, but it isn't grammatical," said Miss Leigh. "But I never expected to get back earlier. My Aunt had to look into some of her affairs in the East and had to settle some matters with a lawyer down South, a friend of my father's--an old gentleman who used to be one of her husband's partners and is her trustee or something, and I had to wait till they got matters settled."

"Well, I'm glad you are here in time. I was so afraid you wouldn't be, that I got Pa to telegraph and have your car put on the president's special train that was coming through and had the right-of-way. I told him that I didn't see that because your father had resigned from the directory was any reason why you shouldn't be brought on the train."

"Were we indebted to you for that attention?" Eleanor Leigh's voice had a tone of half incredulity.

"Yep--I am the power behind the throne just at present. Pa and old Mr.

Canter have buried the hatchet and are as thick as thieves since their new deal, and Jim Canter told me his car was coming through on a special. Oh! you ought to hear him the way he says, _My car_, and throws his chest out! So I said I wanted him to find out where you were on the road--on what train, I mean--and pick you up, and he said he would."

"Oh! I see," said Miss Leigh, looking somewhat annoyed.

"He did, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Well, you know Jim Canter is a very promising young man, much more so than he is a fulfiller. What are you so serious about? You look as----"

"Nothing--only I don't wish to be beholden to--I was just wondering what right we have to stop trains full of people who have paid for their tickets and----"

"What!" exclaimed the other girl in astonishment, "what right? Why, our fathers are directors, aren't they--at least, my father is--and own a block of the stock that controls----?"

"Yes; but all these people--who pay--and who had no breakfast?"

"Oh! don't you worry about them--they'll get along somehow--and if they pay they'll look out for themselves without your doing it. My way is to make all I can out of them and enjoy it while I can--that's what Pa says."