But Harrington indulged in an unexplained digression at this point. He discovered literature and became acquainted with the works of one Charles Dickens, of whose genius he made himself the sounding trumpet-call for the ears of an indifferent world.
"The's a book called David Coppe'field," he confided to Maxwell one night when he had lingered for a chat with his benefactor. "It's great, suh. You should read it sometime, Mistah Maxwell; you would appreciate its wo'th." He outlined the plot then and there, and Maxwell good-naturedly listened, finding his compensation in the enthusiast's original comments on character and situation. This, however, established a bad precedent, and Maxwell was subsequently obliged to hear a careful synopsis of Little Dorrit, Old Curiosity Shop, and Oliver Twist, in quick succession, followed by the somewhat painful recitation of most of Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard—for Harrington was now entering the daisied field of poetry.
It was at this point that Maxwell felt himself constrained to give his protege a few words of advice, the city editor having objected to an enforced hearing of the plot of Ivanhoe, and Mollie Merk having admitted that she had climbed six flights of stairs twice a day for a week in preference to hearing the final eighteen stanzas of Paradise Lost.
Maxwell explained the situation to his friend as gently as he could one morning when Harrington had interrupted a talk between himself and a distinguished Western editor who was spending a few days in New York.
"You see, old man," he ended, kindly, "this is a big, new world to you, but the rest of us have been living in it all our lives. We've taken in these things you're discovering—or we've had them driven into us at school. So—er—they're not new, and while we appreciate them we haven't got time to go over them all again. When you get up to modern fiction—the things people are reading to-day—"
With one expressive gesture of the hand Mr. Harrington demolished modern fiction.
"I 'ain't got time foh that, Mistah Maxwell," he said, respectfully. "I read one, and I regret to say, suh, that it was too much. I have looked into othe's, but I go no fu'thah. I have tried to open to you gentlemen the great wo'ks I have discove'ed, an' youah reply is that you-all have read them, suh. I am surprised. Do you give one glance at a picture an' nevah look again? Do you listen once to music, o' must it be something new and mode'n ev'ry time? Last night I heard the composition of a musician named Beethoven, who, I have learned, has been dead foh yeahs. Yet people still listen to his notes. Why don't they read these books of Mistah Dickens and Mistah Scott and Mistah Shakespeah?"
Maxwell murmured feebly that a few did. A fitting response to Harrington's arraignment somehow eluded him, and before he had found the words he wanted an unexpected interruption came from the Western editor, who had been listening to the conversation with almost painful interest.
"Mr. Harrington," he asked, abruptly, "can you write?"
Harrington looked surprised and boyishly injured.