The Trufflers - Samuel Merwin

Скачать книгу

unoccupied chair. Peter was made acquainted with Miss O'Rourke. “This is the man, Eileen,” said Neuerman, breathing confidences, “Wrote The Trufiler. Big thing! Absolutely a new note on Broadway! Eric here has caught the new bachelor woman, shown her up and put a tag on her. After this she'll be called a truffler everywhere. … By the way, Eric, I sent the contract down to you to-night by messenger. And the check.”

      Miss Eileen O'Rourke smiled indulgently and a thought absently. While Peter lighted, thanks to Neuermnn, a thirty-cent cigar and impulsively told Miss O'Rourke (who continued to smile indulgently and absently) just how he had come to hit on that remarkable tag.

      It was nearly nine o'clock when he left and walked, very erect, from the restaurant, conscious of a hundred eyes on his back. He gave the hat boy a quarter.

      Out on Forty-second Street he paused to clear his exuberant but confused mind. He couldn't go back to the rooms; not as he felt now. Cabarets bored him. It was too early for dancing. Irresolute, he strolled over toward Fifth Avenue, crossed it, turned south. A north-bound automobile bus stopped just ahead of him. He glanced up at the roof. There appeared to be a vacant seat or two. In front was the illuminated sign that meant Riverside Drive. It was warm for February.

      He decided to take the ride.

      Just in front of him, however, also moving toward the bus, was a young couple. There was something familiar about them. The girl—he could see by a corner light—was wearing a boyish coat, a plaid coat. Also she wore a tam o'shanter. She partly turned her head … his pulse started racing, and he felt the colour rushing into his face. It was Sue Wilde, no other!

      But the man? No overcoat. That soft black hat! A glimpse of a flowing tie of black silk! The odd trick of throwing his right leg out and around as he walked and toeing in with the right foot!

      It was the Worm.

      Peter turned sharply away, crossed the street and caught a south-bound bus. Wavering between irritation, elation and chagrin, he walked in and out among the twisted old streets of Greenwich Village. Four distinct times—and for no clear reason—he passed the dingy apartment building where Sue and Betty lived.

      Later he found himself standing motionless on a curb by a battered lamp-post, peering through his large horn-rimmed eye-glasses at a bill-board across the street on which his name did not appear. He studied the twenty-four-sheet poster of a cut plug tobacco that now occupied the space. There was light enough in the street to read it by.

      Suddenly he turned and looked to the right. Then he looked to the left. Fumbling for a pencil, he moved swiftly and resolutely across the street. Very small, down in the right-hand corner of the tobacco advertisement, he wrote his name—his pen name—“Eric Mann.”

      Then, more nearly at peace with himself, he went to the moving pictures.

      Entering the rooms later, he found the Worm settled, in pajamas as usual, with a book in the Morris chair. He also found a big envelope from Neuerman with the contract in it and a check for a thousand dollars, advanced against royalties.

      It was a brown check. He fingered it for a moment, while his spirits recorded their highest mark for the day. Then, outwardly calm, he put it in an inside coat pocket and with a fine air of carelessness tossed the contract to the desk.

      The Worm put down his book and studied Peter rather thoughtfully.

      “Pete,” he finally said, “I've got a message for you, and I've been sitting here debating whether to deliver it or not.”

      “Let's have it!” replied the Eric Mann shortly.

      The Worm produced a folded envelope from the pocket of his pajamas and handed it ever. “I haven't been told what's in it,” he said.

      Peter, with a tremor, unfolded the envelope and peered inside. There were two enclosures—one plainly his scribbled note to Sue; the other (he had to draw it partly out and examine it)—yes—no—yes, his anonymous letter, much crumpled.

      Deliberately, rather white about the mouth, Peter moved to the fireplace, touched a match to the papers and watched them burn. That done, he turned and queried:

      “Well? That all?”

      The Worm shook his head. “Not quite all, Pete.”

      Words suddenly came from Peter. “What do I care for that girl! A creative artist has his reactions, of course. He even does foolish things. Look at Wagner, Burns, Cellini, Michael Angelo—look at the things they used to do! …”

      The words stopped.

      “Her message is,” continued the Worm, “the suggestion that next time you write one of them with your left hand.”

      Peter thought this over. The check glowed next to his heart. It thrilled him. “You tell your friend Sue Wilde,” he replied then, with dignity, “that my message to her—and to you—will be delivered next September across the footlights of the Astoria Theater.” And he strode into the bedroom.

      The Worm looked after him with quizzical eyes, smiled a little and resumed his book.

       Table of Contents

      PETER came stealthily into the rooms on the seventh floor of the old bachelor apartment building in Washington Square. His right hand, deep in a pocket of his spring overcoat, clutched a thin, very new book bound in pasteboard. It was late on a Friday afternoon, near the lamb-like close of March.

      The rooms were empty. Which fact brought relief to Peter.

      He crossed the studio to the decrepit flat-top desk between the two windows. With an expression of gravity, almost of solemnity, on his long face, lie unlocked the middle drawer on the end next the wail. Within, on a heap of manuscripts, letters and contracts, lay five other thin little books in gray, buff and pink. He spread these in a row on the desk and added the new one. On each was the name of a savings bank, printed, and his own name, written. They represented savings aggregating now nearly seven thousand dollars.

      

      Seven thousand dollars, for a bachelor of thirty-three may seem enough to you. It did not seem enough to Peter. In fact he was now studying the six little books through his big horn-rimmed glasses (not spectacles) with more than a suggestion of anxiety. Peter was no financier; and the thought of adventuring his savings on the turbulent uncharted seas of finance filled his mind with terrors. Savings banks appealed to him because they were built solidly, of stone, and had immense iron gratings at windows and doors. And, too, you couldn't draw money without going to some definite personal trouble. … It is only fair to add that the books represented all he had or would ever have unless he could get more. Nobody paid Peter a salary. No banker or attorney had a hand in taxing his income at the source. The Truffler might succeed and make him mildly rich. Or it might die in a night, leaving the thousand-dollar “advance against royalties” as his entire income from more than a year of work. His last two plays had failed, you know. Plays usually failed. Eighty or ninety per cent, of them—yes, a good ninety!

      Theoretically, the seven thousand dollars should carry him two or three years. Practically, they might not carry him one. For he couldn't possibly know in advance what he would do with them. Genius laughs at savings banks.

      Peter sighed, put the six little books away and locked the drawer.

      Locked it with sudden swiftness and caution, for Hy Lowe just then burst in the outer door and dove, humming a one-step, into the bedroom.

Скачать книгу