But just as he was on the point of resigning his position in the store, after six months of glorious triumph, the business began to pick 211 up so tremendously that he wondered what had got into people.
His uncle chucked him in the ribs and called him a gay dog! Men came in and ordered sundaes who had never tasted one before, and they all looked at him in a strangely respectful way. Women smirked and giggled and called him a naughty fellow, and said they really ought not to let him wait on them.
All of a sudden it dawned on him that he was “somebody.” He was a rake!
The New York paper devoted two full columns to his perfidious behaviour in the Tenderloin. For the first time in his life he stood in the limelight. Nellie charged him with other trifling things, such as failure to provide, desertion, cruelty; but none of these was sufficiently blighting to take the edge off the delicious clause which lifted him into the seventh heaven of a new found self-esteem! His first impulse had been to cry out against the diabolical falsehood, to deny the allegation, to fight the case to the bitter end. But on second thought he concluded to maintain a dignified silence, especially as he came to realise that he now possessed a definite entity not only in Blakeville, but in the world 212 at large. He was a recognised human being! People who had never heard of him before were now saying, “What a jolly scamp he is! What a scalawag!” Oh, it was good to come into his own, even though he reached it by a crooked and heretofore undesirable thoroughfare. Path was not the word—it was a thoroughfare, lined by countless staring, admiring fellow creatures, all of whom pointed him out and called him by his own name.
Mothers cautioned their daughters, commanding them to have nothing to do with him, and then went with them to Davis’ to see that the commands were obeyed. Fathers held him up to their sons as a dreadful warning, and then made it a point to drop in and tell him what they thought of him with a sly wink that pleased and never offended him.
He mildly protested against the sensational charge when questioned about it, saying that Nellie was mistaken, that her jealousy led her to believe a lot of things that were not true, and that he felt dreadfully cut up about the whole business, as it was likely to create a wrong impression in New York. Of course, he went on, no one in Blakeville believed the foolish 213 thing! But in New York—well, they were likely to believe anything of a fellow there!
He moved in the very centre of a great white light. Reporters came in every day and asked him if there was anything new, hoping, of course, for fresh developments in the great divorce case. Lawyers dropped in to hint that they would like to take care of his interests. But there never was anything new, and his New York lawyers were perfectly capable of handling his affairs, particularly as he had decided to enter no general denial to the charges. He would let her get her divorce if she wanted it so badly as all that!
“I’d fight it,” said the editor of the Patriot, counselling him one afternoon.
“You wouldn’t if you had a child to consider,” said Harvey, resignedly, quite overlooking the fact that there were nine growing children in the editor’s household.
“She’s too young to know anything about it,” argued the other, earnestly.