8

Humphrey let himself into Mrs Henderson's front hall, closed the screen door gently behind him, and looked about the dim interior. There seemed to be no one in the living-room. The girls were in the kitchen, doubtless, getting supper. Mildred had faithfully promised not to bother cooking anything hot. He hung up his hat.

Then he saw a feminine figure up the stairs, curled on the top-step, against the wall.

It was Corinne. She was pressing her finger to her lips and shaking her head.

She motioned him out toward the kitchen. There he found his hostess.

'Seen Henry?' he asked. 'Old Boice fired him to-day, and he's disappeared. Not at the rooms. And I looked in at the Y.M.C.A.'

'He's here,' said Mildred. 'A very interesting thing is happening, Humphrey. I've always told you he was a genius.'

'But what's up?'

'We've got him upstairs at my desk. He's writing something.

I think it's a poem for Corinne.'

'A poem! But——'

'It's really quite wonderful. Now don't you go and throw cold water on it, Humphrey.' She came over, very trim and pretty in her long apron, her face flushed with the heat of the stove, slipped her hand through his arm, and looked up at him. 'It's really very exciting. I haven't seen the boy act this way for two years. He came in here, all out of breath, and said he had to write. He didn't seem to know what. He's quite wild I never in my life saw such concentration. It seems that he's promised Corinne a poem.'

'Wonder what's got into him,' Humphrey mused.

Mildred returned to her salad dressing. 'Genius has got into him,' she said, a bright little snap in her eyes. 'And it's coming out. He's been up there nearly two hours now. Corinne's guarding. She'd kill you if you disturbed him. She peeked in a little while ago. She says there's a lot of it—all over the floor—and he was writing like mad. She couldn't see any of it. As soon as he saw her he yelled at her and waved her out.'

'Hm!' said Humphrey.

'Humphrey, my dear,' said Mildred then, 'I'm really afraid we've got to watch those two a little. Something's been happening to-day. Corinne has gone perfectly mad over him—to-day—all of a sudden. She fretted every minute he was away. Henry doesn't know it, but Corinne is a pretty self-willed girl. And just now she's got her mind on him.'

She came over again, took his arm, and looked up at Humphrey. She was at once sophisticating and confiding. There was a touch of something that, might have been tenderness, even wistfulness, in her voice as about her eyes.

'I've really been worrying a little about them. About Henry particularly, for some reason.' She gave a soft little laugh, and pressed his arm. 'They're so young, Humphrey—such green little things. Or he is, at least. I've been impatient for you to come.'

'I got down as soon as I could,' said Humphrey, looking down at her.

'Of course, I know.'

'I've been worrying about him, too.'

When the supper was ready, Mildred made Humphrey sit at the table and herself tiptoed up the stairs.

She came back, still on tiptoe, smiling as if at her own thoughts.

'He won't eat,' she explained. 'He's still at it. I wish you could see my room. It's a sight.'

'Corinne coming down?'

'Not she. She won't budge from the stairs. And she flared up when I suggested bringing up a tray. I never thought that Corinne was romantic, but... Well, it gives us a nice little téte-à-tête supper. I've made iced coffee, Humphrey. Just dip into the salad, won't you!' After supper they went out to the hall. Corinne, still on the top step, had switched on the light and was sorting out a pile of loose sheets. She beckoned to them. They came tiptoeing up the stairs.

'I can't make it out,' she whispered. 'It isn't poetry. And he doesn't number his pages.'

'How did you ever get them?' asked Mildred.

'Went in and gathered them up. He didn't hear me. He's still at it.'

Humphrey reached for the sheets; held them to the light; read bits of this sheet and that; found a few that went together and read them in order; finally turned a wrinkled astonished face to the two young women.

'What is it?' they asked.

He chuckled softly. 'Well, it isn't poetry.'

'I saw that much,' Corinne murmured, rather mournfully. 'It's—wait a minute! I couldn't believe it at first. It—no—yes, that's what it is.'

'What!'

Then Humphrey dropped down at Mildred's feet, and laughed, softly at first, then with increasing vigour.

Mildred clapped her hand over his mouth and ran him down the stairs and through into the living-room. There they dropped side by side on the sofa and laughed until tears came.

Corinne, laughing a little herself now, but perplexed, followed them.

'Here,' said Humphrey, when he could speak, 'let's get into this.'

They moved, to the table. Humphrey spread out the pages, and skimmed them over with a practised eye, arranging as he read.

Once he muttered, 'What on earth!' And shortly after: 'Why, the young devil!'

'Please—' said Corinne. 'Please! I want to know what it is.',

Humphrey stacked up the sheets, and laid them on the table.

'Well,' he remarked, 'it is certainly an account of the Business Men's Picnic. And it certainly was not written for The Weekly Voice of Sunbury. I'll start in a minute and read it through. But from what I've seen—— Well, while it may be a little Kiplingesque—naturally—still it comes pretty close to being a work of art.

'Tell you what the boy's done. He's gone at that little community outing just about as an artistic god would have gone at it. As if he'd never seen any of these Simpson Street folks before. Berger, the grocer, and William F. Donovan, and Mr Wombast, and Charlie Waterhouse, and Weston of the bank, and—and, here, the little Dutchman that runs the lunch counter down by the tracks, and Heinie Schultz and Bill Schwartz, and old Boice! It's a crime what he's done to Boice. If this ever appears, Sunbury will be too small for Henry Calverly. But, oh, it's grand writing.... He's got'em all in, their clothes, their little mannerisms—their tricks of speech... Wait, I'll read it.'

Forty minutes later the three sat back in their chairs, weak from laughter, each in his own way excited, aware that a real performance was taking place, right here in the house.

'One thing I don't quite understand,' said Mildred. 'It's a lovely bit of writing—he makes you see it and feel it—where Mr Boice and Charles Waterhouse were around behind the lemonade stand, and Mr Waterhouse is upset because the purse they're going to surprise him with for being the most popular man in town isn't large enough. What is all that, anyway?'

'I know,' said Humphrey. 'I was wondering about that. It's funny as the dickens, those two birds out there behind the lemonade stand quarrelling about it. It's—let's see—oh, yes! And Boice says, “It won't help you to worry, Charlie. We're doing what we can for you. But it'll take time. And it's a chance!”... Funny!'

He lowered the manuscript, and stared at the wall. 'Hm!' he remarked thoughtfully. 'Mildred, got any cigarettes?'

'Yes, I have, but I don't care to be mystified like this. Take one, and tell me exactly what you're thinking.'

'I'm thinking that Bob McGibbon would give a hundred dollars for this story as it stands, right now.'

'Why?'

'Because he's gunning for Charlie. And for Boice.'

'And what's this?'

'Evidence.' Humphrey was grave now. 'Not quite it. But warm. Very warm.'

'He's really stumbled on something. How perfectly lovely!'

'And he doesn't know it. Sees nothing but the story value of it. But it may be serious. They'd duck him in the lake. They'd drown him.'

'But how lovely if Henry, by one stroke of his pencil, should really puncture the frauds in this smug town.'

'There is something in that,' mused Humphrey.

'Ssh!' From Mildred.

They heard a slow step on the stairs.

A moment, and Henry appeared in the doorway. He stopped short when he saw them. His glasses hung dangling against his shirt front. He was coatless, but plainly didn't know it. His straight brown hair was rumpled up on one side and down in a shock over the farther eye. He was pale, and looked tired about the eyes. He carried more of the manuscript.

He stared at them as if he couldn't quite make them out, or as if not sure he had met them. Then he brushed a hand across his forehead and slowly, rather wanly, smiled.

'I had no idea it was so late,' he said.

Mildred and Corinne fed him and petted him while Humphrey drew a big chair into the dining-room, smoked cigarette after cigarette, and studied the brightening, expanding youth before him. He reflected, too, on the curious, instant responsiveness that is roused in the imaginative woman at the first evidence of the creative impulse in a man. As if the elemental mother were moved.

'That's probably it,' he thought. 'And it's what the boy has needed. Martha Caldwell couldn't give it to him—never in the world! He was groping to find it in that tough little Wilcox girl. It wouldn't do to tell him—no, I mustn't tell him; got to steady him down all I can—but I rather guess he's been needing a Mildred and a Corinne. These two years.'