A Great Man Part 11

'Well, you seem a fairly nice sort of boy--I shall be kind to you,' her eyes appeared to say. Her voice, however, said nothing except, 'Will you take a seat a moment?' and not even that until Henry had asked if Mr.

Snyder was in.

The prospective client examined the room. It had a carpet, and lovely almanacs on the walls, and in one corner, on a j.a.panese table, was a tea-service in blue and white. Tables more ma.s.sive bore enormous piles of all shapes and sizes of ma.n.u.scripts, scores and hundreds or unprinted literary works, and they all carried labels, 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent.' _Love in Babylon_ shrank so small that Henry could scarcely detect its presence under his arm.

Then Goldenhair, who had vanished, came back, and, with the most enchanting smile that Henry had ever seen on the face of a pretty woman, lured him by delicious gestures into Mr. Mark Snyder's private office.

'Well,' exclaimed Mr. Snyder, full of good-humour, 'here we are again.'

He was a fair, handsome man of about forty, and he sat at a broad table playing with a revolver. 'What do you think of that, Mr. Knight?' he asked sharply, holding out the revolver for inspection.

'It seems all right,' said Henry lamely.

Mr. Snyder laughed heartily. 'I'm going to America to-morrow. I told you, didn't I? Never been there before. So I thought I'd get a revolver.

Never know, you know. Eh?' He laughed again.

Then he suddenly ceased laughing, and sniffed the air.

'Is this a business office?' Henry asked himself. 'Or is it a club?'

His feet were on a Turkey carpet. He was seated in a Chippendale chair.

A glorious fire blazed behind a bra.s.s fender, and the receptacle for coal was of burnished copper. Photogravures in rich oaken frames adorned the roseate walls. The ceiling was an expanse of ornament, with an electric chandelier for centre.

'Have a cigarette?' said Mr. Snyder, pus.h.i.+ng across towards Henry a tin of Egyptians.

'Thanks,' said Henry, who did not usually smoke, and he put _Love in Babylon_ on the table.

Mr. Snyder sniffed the air again.

'Now, what can I do for you?' said he abruptly.

Henry explained the genesis, exodus, and vicissitudes of _Love in Babylon_, and Mr. Snyder stretched out an arm and idly turned over a few leaves of the ma.n.u.script as it lay before its author.

'Who's your amanuensis?' he demanded, smiling.

'My aunt,' said Henry.

'Ah yes!' said Mr. Snyder, smiling still, 'It's too short, you know,' he added, grave. 'Too short. What length is it?'

'Nearly three hundred folios.'

'None of your legal jargon here,' Mr. Snyder laughed again. 'What's a folio?'

'Seventy-two words.'

'About twenty thousand words then, eh? Too short!'

'Does that matter?' Henry demanded. 'I should have thought----'

'Of course it matters,' Mr. Snyder snapped. 'If you went to a concert, and it began at eight and finished at half-past, would you go out satisfied with the performers' a.s.surance that quality and not quant.i.ty was the thing? Ha, ha!'

Mr. Snyder sniffed the air yet again, and looked at the fire inquisitively, still sniffing.

'There's only one price for novels, six-s.h.i.+llings,' Mr. Snyder proceeded. 'The public likes six s.h.i.+llings' worth of quality. But it absolutely insists on six s.h.i.+llings' worth of quant.i.ty, and doesn't object to more. What can I do with this?' he went on, picking up _Love in Babylon_ and weighing it as in a balance. 'What _can_ I do with a thing like this?'

'If Carlyle came to Kenilworth Mansions!' Henry speculated. At the same time Mr. Snyder's epigrammatic remarks impressed him. He saw the art of Richardson and Balzac in an entirely new aspect. It was as though he had walked round the house of literature, and peeped in at the backdoor.

Mr. Snyder suddenly put _Love in Babylon_ to his nose.

'Oh, it's _that_!' he murmured, enlightened.

Henry had to narrate the disaster of the onion-cart, at which Mr. Snyder was immensely amused.

'Good!' he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. 'Good! By the way, might send it to Onions Winter. Know Onions Winter? No? He's always called Spring Onions in the trade. Pus.h.i.+ng man. What a joke it would be!' Mr. Snyder roared with laughter. 'But seriously, Winter might----'

Just then Goldenhair entered the room with a slip of paper, and Mr.

Snyder begged to be excused a moment. During his absence Henry reflected upon the singularly unbusinesslike nature of the conversation, and decided that it would be well to import a little business into it.

'I'm called away,' said Mr. Snyder, re-entering.

'I must go, too,' said Henry. 'May I ask, Mr. Snyder, what are your terms for arranging publication?'

'Ten per cent.,' said Mr. Snyder succinctly. 'On gross receipts.

Generally, to unknown men, I charge a preliminary fee, but, of course, with you----'

'Ten per cent.?' Henry inquired.

'Ten per cent.,' repeated Mr. Snyder.

'Does that mean--ten per cent.?' Henry demanded, dazed.

Mr. Snyder nodded.

'But do you mean to say,' said the author of _Love in Babylon_ impressively, 'that if a book of mine makes a profit of ten thousand pounds, you'll take a thousand pounds just for getting it published?'

'It comes to that,' Mr. Snyder admitted.

'Oh!' cried Henry, aghast, astounded. 'A thousand pounds!'

And he kept saying: 'A thousand pounds! A thousand pounds!'

He saw now where the Turkey carpets and the photogravures and the Teofani cigarettes came from.

'A thousand pounds!'

Mr. Snyder stuck the revolver into a drawer.

'I'll think it over,' said Henry discreetly. 'How long shall you be in America?'

'Oh, about a couple of months!' And Mr. Snyder smiled brightly. Henry could not find a satisfactory explanation of the man's eternal jollity.