I did not mention my occupation at the start because I was afraid that readers would say, “Oh, dear, this is a story by a literary man, and nothing will happen in it.” You see now-a-days when men in all walks of life write of what they have done, and make books of their writings, the people who read books have gotten to the point when they look with suspicion on a story that is written by a mere professional writer. They say, “Oh, he has done nothing but write. Let us read the book of the man who has first done and has then written.”
But you who have read thus far may feel in a way friendly to Minerva, and the rest, and so I take you into my confidence and make the pun to you that won for me a rebuke from Ethel. Letters spell livelihood for me.
The Congregational Minister, Egbert Hughson, and his wife returned to us in a few minutes and after the moving accident had been discussed for a certain length of time, he came to the matter that had brought him up.
He was a smooth shaven alert, Western man of about thirty, I should say, and I marked him out as a type of the modern muscular Christian, and this guess proved to have been correct. He was an Iowan who had come East to study, had graduated from Williams and after a year in a small Iowa church had been called to Egerton through the good offices of a former class-mate.
I hope I may not be accused of egotism if I set down plainly what Mr. Hughson said. The denouement is not what an egotist would roll under his tongue. During the narration of the episode let me treat Philip Vernon quite as if he did not press the keys with which I am writing this.
“Mr. Vernon, I did not know until Deacon Fotherby told me, that we had so distinguished a man amongst us. I have read your sketches in the Antarctic Monthly with a great deal of pleasure, and although you use a pen name, still I happened to know that you were the author. I also understand that you sometimes recite.”
I bowed assent. I could have told him the rest. He was going to say: “Now the Y. P. S. C. E. are about to give a little literary entertainment for the benefit of the library and it would add interest to the proceedings if you would do us the great honor of reciting one or more pieces for us, or perhaps read something of your own.”
I guessed right. He said it, allowing for certain unimportant verbal variations. I think it was the Y. M. S. C., instead of the Y. P. S. C. E., and instead of saying “it would add interest to the proceedings,” he said it would “give the affair a literary flavour”—words of the same import.
I told him that Mrs. Vernon had come up to rest, but that did not head him off. I really didn’t suppose it would. I was merely making his task a little difficult, so that he would appreciate me the more. We writers all do things like that. If I had fallen into his arms and had said, “Recite; why I’ll do the whole programme,” while he would have thanked me, he would have felt that he had gotten me so easily that I could not be worth much.
“Well, surely,” said he, “it won’t tire Mrs. Vernon for you to come and talk to us. You’ll be doing a favour to your fellows.”