Harvey Grimm leaned down and whispered in his ear. The little man's hand shot into his pocket. He produced sixpence and two coppers, snatched at the book and hurried off. The victor in this little rencontre turned to his companions with an air of triumph and handed the eightpence to the poet, who immediately pocketed it.
"The whole problem is solved," he declared.
"You are a great man, sir," the poet exclaimed, grasping him by the hand, "but what was it you whispered in his ear?"
"I simply told him," Harvey Grimm said blandly, "that I should biff him one. The cost of a new hat is ten and sixpence; the price of your poems is eightpence."
"You are a great man, sir," the poet repeated heartily. "Watch the newspapers."
*****
With a bunch of early violets in his buttonhole, neatly and correctly dressed from the crown of his hat to his patent boots, Mr. Harvey Grimm, one morning about a fortnight later, turned down the narrow street which led to his friend Aaron Rodd's office. He took a few steps and paused in surprise. A little crowd encumbered the pavement in front of him. There were at least half a dozen taxicabs waiting by the side of the pavement. A printer's van was busy unloading. A constant procession, consisting chiefly of elderly and middle-aged men, were entering and leaving the little book-shop. Waiting his turn, Harvey Grimm stepped in. The whole of the central table was taken up by great piles of a little paper-covered volume, recognisable at once as the Poetical Works of Stephen Cresswell, and as fast as the flow of customers could be served, they departed with one or more copies in their pockets. The young lady whose hair was more untidy than ever, and who wore a stupefied air, doled them out in doll-like and mechanical fashion. She had lost her air of superiority. She pointed no longer to the sketches upon the walls or the pottery beyond. She behaved like a dazed automaton. Now and then Harvey Grimm could hear her reply to enquiries.
"There will be a cloth edition of Mr. Cresswell's works out in a few days," she said. "The printers have promised them by the end of the week."
In the background were two very obvious newspaper men, waiting so far unsuccessfully to get in a word with her. Mr. Harvey Grimm elbowed his way by some means or other into the line, paid his eightpence and retired into the recesses of the little suite of rooms beyond for a moment's breathing-space. A rush of at least a dozen old gentlemen had made exit temporarily impossible. As he stood and watched the scene, he was conscious of a fashionably dressed young man lounging in an easy chair a few yards away. The young man suddenly arose.
"My benefactor!" he cried.