1
Elberforce Jenkins was the most accomplished very young man-about-town in Sunbury. He appeared to have, even at twenty-one, the bachelor gift. He danced well. His golf was more than promising. He had lately taken up polo with the Dexter Smith boys and young de Casselles. He owned two polo ponies, a schooled riding horse, and a carriage team which he drove to a high cart. His allowance from his father by far overcame the weakness of his salary (he was with his brother, Jefferson, in a bond house on La Salle Street). His aptitude at small talk amounted to a gift. He liked, inevitably, the play that was popular and (though he read little) the novel that was popular. His taste in girls pointed him unerringly toward the most desirable among the newest.
He and Henry had been together in high school (Sunbury was democratic then). They had played together in the football team. They had—during one hectic month—been rivals for the hand of Ernestine Lambert.
In that instance, in so far as success had come, it had come to Henry. But those were Henry's big days, when he was directing Iolanthe, the town at his feet. Life, these two years, had flowed swiftly on. The long dangling figure of Elbow Jenkins had filled out. His crude boyishness had given way to a smiling reserve. He was a young man of the world—self-assured, never indiscreet of tongue, always well-mannered, never individual or interesting.
While Henry still worked on Simpson Street. He hadn't struck his gait. He was—if you bothered, these days, to think about him—a little queer. He wore that small moustache and a heavy cord hanging from his nose-glasses, and dressed a thought too conspicuously. As if impelled by some inner urge to assert a personality that might otherwise be overlooked.... As I glance back upon the Henry of this period, it seems to me that there was more than a touch of pathos about that moustache. It was such a soft little thing. He fussed with it so much, and kept trying to twist it up at the ends. He didn't seem to know that they weren't twisting moustaches up at the ends that year. In fact, I think he lacked almost utterly the gift of conformity which was the strongest, element in Elbow Jenkins's nature. And he never acquired it. In education, in work and preparation for life, he went it alone, stumbling, blundering, doing apparently stupid things, acting from baffling obscure motives, then suddenly coming through with an unexpected flash of insight and power.
From the period of Ernestine Lambert to the time of the present story Elbow Jenkins had been on Henry's nerves. Whenever they met, that is; or when Henry saw him driving the newest, prettiest, best-dressed girl about in his cart. Two years earlier he would have had two ponies hitched tandem. But now, a little older, less willing to be conspicuous except in strict conformity with the conventions, he drove his carefully matched team side by side. His scat, his hold of the reins, the very turning-back of his tan gloves, all were correct. These, indeed, were details in the problem of living and moving about with success among one's fellows that Elberforce Jenkins regarded as really important. Like one's stance at golf, and cultivating the favour of men who could be influential in a business or social way.
Yes, Elbow was on Henry's nerves.
But Elbow had long since forgotten Henry, except for a chance nod now and then. And occasionally a moment's annoyance that Henry should insist on keeping alive a nickname that had with years and the beginnings of dignity become undesirable.