7

Humphrey found him, a little before one, at the rooms, and thought he looked ill. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at a small newspaper clipping. He looked up, through his doorway, saw his friend standing in the living-room, mumbled a colourless greeting, and let his heavy eyes fall again.

'What's all this?' asked Humphrey, with a rather weary, wrinkly smile.

Henry got up then and came slowly into the living-room.

'It's this,' he explained, in a voice that was husky and light, without its usual body. 'This thing. I've had it quite a while.'

Humphrey read:—

Positively No Commission HEIRS CAN BORROW On or sell their individual estate, income or future inheritance; lowest rates; strictly confidential Heirs' Loan Office.

And an address.

'What on earth are you doing with this, Hen?'

'Well, Hump, there's still a little more'n three thousand dollars in my legacy. I got a thousand this summer, you know, and lent it to McGibbon for my interest in the paper. But my uncle said he wouldn't give me a cent more until I'm twenty-one, in November. And so I was wondering... Look here! How much do you suppose I could get out of it from these people. They're all right, you see?

They've got a regular office and——'

'You'd just about get out with your underwear and shoes, Hen. They might leave you a necktie. What do you want it for—throw it in after the thousand?'

'Well, McGibbon's broke——'

'Yes, I know. They're saying on the street that Boice has got the Gleaner already. Two compositors and your foreman were in our place half an hour ago asking for work. Boice went right down there. I saw him start climbing the stairs.'

'That's his second trip this morning, then, Hump. He offered Bob five hundred.'

'But it ought to be worth a few thousand.'

'Sure. And except for there not being any money it's going great. You'd be surprised! You know it's often that way. Bob says many a promising business has gone under just because they didn't have the money to tide it over a tight place. But he's getting the circulation. You've no idea! And when you get that you're bound to get the advertisers. Sooner or later. Bob says they just have to fall in line.'

Humphrey appeared to be only half listening to this eager little torrent of words. He deliberately filled his pipe; then moved over to a window and gazed soberly out at the back yard of the parsonage.

Henry, moody again, was staring at the advertisement, fairly hypnotising himself with it.

'Great to think of the Old Man having to climb those stairs twice,' Humphrey remarked, without turning. Then: 'Even with all the trouble you're going through, Hen, you're lucky not to be working for Boice. He does wear on one.'

He smoked the pipe out. Then, brow's knit, his long swarthy face wrinkled deeply with thought, he walked slowly over to the door of his own bedroom and leaned there, studying the interior.

'There's three thousand dollars' worth of books in here,' he remarked. 'Or close to it. Even at second hand they'd fetch something. You see, it's really a well built, pretty complete little scientific library. Now come downstairs.'

He had to say it again: 'Come on downstairs.'

Henry followed, then; hardly aware of the oddity of Humphrey's actions.

In the half-light that sifted dustily in through the high windows, the metal lathes, large and small, the tool benches, the two large reels of piano wire, the rows of wall boxes filled with machine jars, the round objects that might have been electric motors hanging by twisted strings or wires from the ceiling joists, the heavy steel wheels of various sizes mounted in frames, some with wooden handles at one side, the big box kites and the wood-and-silk planes stacked at one end of the room, the gas engine mounted at the other end, the water motor in a corner, the wheels, shafts and belting overhead—all were indistinct, ghostly. And all were covered with dust.

'See!' Humphrey waved his pipe. 'I've done no work here for six weeks. And I shan't do any for a good while. I can't. It takes leisure—long-evenings—Sundays when you aren't disturbed by a soul. And at that it means years and years, working as I've had to. You know, getting out the Voice every week. You know how it's been with me, Hen. People are going to fly some day, Hen. As sure as we're walking now. Pretty soon. Chanute—Langley—they know! Those are Chanute gliders over there. By the kites. I've never told you; I've worked with 'em, moonlight nights, from the sand-dunes away up the beach. I've got some locked in an old boat-house up there, Hen'—he stood, very tall, a reminiscent, almost eager light in eyes that had been dull of late, a gaunt strong hand resting affectionately on a gyroscope—'I've flown over six hundred feet! Myself! Gliding, of course. Got an awful ducking, but I did it.

'But it takes money, Hen. I've thought I could be an inventor and do my job besides. Maybe I could. Maybe some day I'll succeed at it. But I've just come to see what it needs. Material, workmen, time—Hen, you've got to have a real shop and a real pay-roll to do it right. And...

'Oh, I'm not telling you the truth, Hen! Not the real truth!'

He took to walking around now, making angular gestures. Henry, watching him, coming slowly alive now to the complex life that was flowing around him, found himself confronted by a new, disturbed Humphrey. He had, during the year and more of their friendship, taken him for granted as an older, steadier influence, had leaned on him more than he knew. He had been a rock for the erratic Henry to cling to in the confusing, unstable swirl of life.

'Hen'—Humphrey turned on him—'you don't know, but I'm going to be married.'

Henry's jaw sagged.

'It's Mildred, of course.

'It's going to be hard on the little woman, Hen. She's got to get her divorce. She can't take money from her husband, of course; and she's only got a little. She'll need me.' His voice grew a thought unsteady; he waved his pipe, as if to indicate and explain the machinery. 'We've got to strike out—take the plunge—you know, make a little money. It's occurred to me... This machinery's worth more than the library, in a pinch. And I've got two bonds left. Just two. They're money, of course...... Hen, you said you lent that thousand to McGibbon?'

Henry nodded. 'He gave me his note.'

'Let's see it.'

Henry ran up the stairs, and returned with a pasteboard box file, which, not without a momentary touch of pride in his quite new business sense, he handed to his friend.

Humphrey glanced at the carefully printed-out phrase on the back—'Henry Calverly, 3rd. Business Affairs'—but did not smile. He opened it and ran through the indexed leaves. It appeared to be empty.

'Look under “Me,”' said Henry.

The note was there. 'For three months,' Humphrey mused aloud.

Then he smiled. There was a whimsical touch in Humphrey that his few friends knew and loved. Even in this serious crisis it did not desert him. I believe it was even stronger then.

'Hen,' he said, 'got a quarter?'

The smile seemed to restore the rock that Henry had lately clung to. He found himself returning the smile, faintly but with a growing warmth. He replied, 'Just about.'

'Match me!' cried Humphrey.

'What for?'

'To settle a very important point. Somebody's name has got to come first. Best two out of three.'

'But I don't——'

'Match me! No—it's mine!... Now I'll match you—mine again! I win. Well—that's settled!'

'What's settled? I don't——-'

Humphrey sat on a tool bench; swung his legs; grinned. 'Life moves on, Hen,' he said. 'It's a dramatic old world.'

And Henry, puzzled, looking at him, laughed excitedly.