Henry Is Twenty: A Further Episodic History of Henry Calverly, 3rd

by Samuel Merwin

THE SUNBURY WEEKLY GLEANER

By Weaver and Calverly

'How late you going to stay, Hump?' he asked.

Humphrey raised his eyes, listlessly thrust his pencil back of his ear, and looked rather thoughtfully at the youth in the doorway; a dapper youth, in an obviously new 'Fedora' hat, a conspicuous cord of black silk hanging from his glasses, his little bamboo cane, caught by its crook in the angle of his elbow.

Humphrey's gaze wandered to the window; settled on the roof of the Sunbury National Bank opposite. He suppressed a sigh.

'I may want to talk with you, Hen. I've been figuring——'

The youth in the doorway shifted his position with a touch of impatience.

'See here, Hump, you know I can't make head or tail out of figures!'

Humphrey looked down at the desk.

'Anyway I'll see you at supper,' Henry added defensively.

'Mildred expects me down there for supper,' said Humphrey. The sigh came now. He pushed up the eyeshade and slowly rubbed his eyes. 'But I may not be able to get away. There are times, Hen, when you have to look figures in the face.'

The youth flushed at this, and replied, rather explosively;—

'A fellow has to do the sorta thing he can do, Hump!'

'Well—will you be at the rooms this evening?' Humphrey's eyes were again taking in the natty costume. And surveying him, Humphrey answered his own question; dryly. 'I imagine not.'

'Well—I was going over to the Watts.'

There was a long silence:

Finally Henry let himself slowly out and closed the door.

Outside, on the landing, he paused again; but this time to button his coat and pull up the blue-bordered handkerchief in his breast pocket until a corner showed.

He looked too, by the fading light—it was mid-September, and the sun would be setting shortly, out over the prairie—at the tin legend on the door.

The sight seemed to reassure him somewhat. As did the other, similar tin legends that were tacked up between the treads of the long flight of stairs that led to Simpson Street, at each of which he turned to look.

Humphrey had before him a pile of canvas-bound account books, a spindle of unpaid bills, a little heap of business letters, and a pad covered with pencilled columns. He rested an elbow among the papers, turned his chair, and looked through the window down into the street.

A moment passed, then he saw Henry walking diagonally across toward Donovan's drug store.

For an ice-cream soda, of course; or one of those thick, 'frosted' fluids of chocolate or coffee flavour that he affected. And it was now within an hour of supper time.

Humphrey leaned forward. Yes, there he stood, on the kerb before Donovan's, looking, with a quick nervous jerking of the head, now up Simpson Street, now down. Yes, that was his hurry—the usual thing. Madame Watt made a point of driving down to meet the five-twenty-nine from town. Senator Watt always came out then. And usually Cicely Hamlin came along with her.

Humphrey sighed, rose, stood looking down at the bills and letters and canvas books; pressed a hand again against his eyes; wandered to the press-room door and looked, pursing his lips, knitting his brows, at the row of job presses, at the big cylinder press that extended nearly across the rear end of the long room, at the row of type cases on their high stands, at imposing-stones on heavy tables. He sniffed the odour of ink, damp paper, and long, respected dust that hung over the whole establishment. He smiled, moodily, as his eye rested on the gray and black roller towel that hung above the iron sink, recalling Bob Burdette's verses. He returned to the office, and stood for a few moments before the file of the Gleaner on the wall desk by the door, turning the pages of recent issues. From each number a story by Henry Calverly, 3rd, seemed to leap out at his eyes and his brain. The Caliph of Simpson Street, Sinbad the Treasurer, A Kerbstone Barmecide, The Cauliflowers of the Caliph, The Printer and the Pearls, Ali Anderson and the Four Policemen—the very titles singing aloud of the boy's extraordinary gift.

'And it's all we've got here,' mused Humphrey, moving back to his own desk. 'That mad child makes us, or we break. I've got to humour him, protect him. Can't even show him these bills. Like getting all your light and heat from a candle that may get blown out any minute.' And before dropping heavily into his chair, glancing at his watch, drawing his eye-shade down, and plunging again at the heavy problem of keeping a country weekly alive without sufficient advertising revenue, he added, aloud, with a wry, wrinkly smile that yet gave him a momentary whimsical attractiveness: 'That's the devil of it!'

There was a step on' the stairs.

The door opened slowly. A red face appeared, under a tipped-down Derby hat; a face decorated with a bristling red moustache and a richly carmine nose.

Humphrey peered; then considered. It was Tim Niernan, one-time fire chief, now village constable.

'Young Calverly here?' asked the official in a husky voice.

Humphrey shook his head. His thoughts, momentarily disarranged, were darting this way and that.

'What is it, Tim? What do you want of him?'

Tim seemed embarrassed.

'Why——' he began, 'why——'

'Some trouble?'

'Why, you see Charlie Waterhouse's suing him.'

Humphrey tried to consider this.

'What for?'

'Well—libel. One o' them stories o' his. I liked 'em myself. My folks all say he's a great kid. But Charlie's pretty sore.'

'Suing for a lot, I suppose?'

'Why yes. Well—ten thousand.'

'Hm!'

'He lives with you, don't he—back of the Parmenter place?'

'Yes.' Humphrey's answer was short. At the moment he was not inclined to make Tim's task easy.

The constable went out. Humphrey watched him from the window. He passed Donovan's on the other side of the street and kept on toward the lake.

Humphrey returned to the wall file, and, standing there, read Sinbad the Treasurer through.

There was an extraordinarily fresh, naive power in the story. Simpson Street was mentioned by name. There was but the one town treasurer, whether you called him 'Sinbad' or Waterhouse.

'He certainly did cut loose,' mused Humphrey. 'Charlie's got a case. Got his nerve, too.'

Then he dropped into his chair and sat, for a long time, very quiet, tapping out little tunes on his hollowed cheek with a pencil.