VII
In which an Assistant Editor, experiencing the Common Desire to thrash a Proof-Reader, makes a Humiliating Discovery; and of how Trainer Klinker gets a Pupil the Same Evening.
The industrial problems of the Bavarians seemed an inoffensive thesis enough, but who can evade Destiny?
Queed never read his own articles when they appeared in print in the Post. In this peculiarity he may be said to have resembled all the rest of the world, with the exception of the Secretary of the Tax Reform League, and the Assistant Secretary of the State Department of Charities. But not by any such device, either, can a man elude his Fate. On the day following his conversation with Mrs. Paynter's agent, Fortune gave Queed to hear a portion of his article on the Bavarians read aloud, and read with derisive laughter.
The incident occurred on a street-car, which he had taken because of the heavy snow-fall: another illustration of the tiny instruments with which Providence works out its momentous designs. Had he not taken the car—he was on the point of not taking it, when one whizzed invitingly up—he would never have heard of the insult that the Post's linotype had put upon him, and the course of his life might have been different. As it was, two men on the next seat in front were reading the Post and making merry.
"... 'A lengthy procession of fleas harassed the diet.' Now what in the name of Bob ..."
Gradually the sentence worked its way into the closed fastness of the young man's mind. It had a horrible familiarity, like a ghastly parody on something known and dear. With a quick movement he leaned forward, peering over the shoulder of the man who held the paper.
The man looked around, surprised and annoyed by the strange face breaking in so close to his own, but Queed paid no attention to him. Yes ... it was his article they were mocking at—HIS article. He remembered the passage perfectly. He had written: "A lengthy procession of pleas harassed the Diet." His trained eye swept rapidly down the half column of print. There it was! "A procession of fleas." In his article! Fleas, unclean, odious vermin, in His Article!
Relatively, Queed cared nothing about his work on the Post, but for all the children of his brain, even the smallest and feeblest, he had a peculiar tenderness. He was more jealous of them than a knight of his honor, or a beauty of her complexion. No insult to his character could have enraged him like a slight put upon the least of these his articles. He sat back in his seat, feeling white, and something clicked inside his head. He remembered having heard that click once before. It was the night he determined to evolve the final theory of social progress, which would wipe out all other theories as the steam locomotive had wiped out the prairie schooner.
He knew well enough what that click meant now. He had got a new purpose, and that was to exact personal reparation from the criminal who had made Him and His Work the butt of street-car loafers. Never, it seemed to him, could he feel clean again until he had wiped off those fleas with gore.