Miss Fern had conceived some entertaining characters, and some very unconventional situations. Her people were virile; her hero was strong if not always grammatical; her heroine did and said things not common in real life, and yet that were quite reasonable when her peculiar nature and environment were considered.
Archie paused once in awhile to wonder how much of all this record was within the direct knowledge of the young authoress; which expressions conveyed her own ideas and which sentiments she would personally endorse. Gouger might be right as to the exceeding purity of most of the ladies who dealt in eroticism, but in this especial case Mr. Weil meant to make an investigation on his own account before he accepted as a universal rule the one his friend had laid down.
He did not go to sleep that night until he had finished his story. Had it been arranged by a competent hand he could have read it in four hours, but as it was he consumed eight in the work. With all its faults, he liked it. There was something breezy about it, and it had a theme that he did not remember had been treated exactly in the same way before. Though, as he himself had said, without much talent for composition, Archie had read a great many books. It is no proof because a person cannot write that he would make a poor critic. Mr. Weil might almost have filled Lawrence Gouger's place at Cutt & Slashem's. He had written fugitive pieces in his time for the papers, in reference to his travels, which had been extensive, and had even contributed occasional book reviews to the magazines. His connection with Gouger enabled him to keep in touch with what was going on in the literary world, and the dozens of new volumes which passed through that office were always at his disposal.
"She's not a fool, by any means," he remarked to himself, when he put down the last sheet of Miss Fern's work. "A fellow who understood his business might put that into such shape that it would be worth using. I mean to find some one who can do it, and suggest the idea to her, when I get to that stage in this affair. Let me see, who do I know that could undertake it?"
He had begun to undress, and was in the act of taking off his collar as he spoke. His mind ran over a list of struggling literary men. Something seemed the matter with most of them. There was Hamlin, but he would be too exacting, and would want to suggest alterations in the story itself, which would never do. There was Insley, whose last three books had been flat failures, and for whom Cutt & Slashem had positively refused to print anything more; but Insley had gone into the country for the summer and nobody knew his address. Then there was—
"Roseleaf!"
Archie received this thought like an inspiration. He threw his cravat on the bureau and began tugging at his shoestrings to the imminent danger of getting them into hard knots that no one could unravel. Roseleaf! Why not? The boy would do almost anything he suggested, so great was his confidence that a road to literary preferment could be staked out over that path. Roseleaf would not undertake the work for the sake of pecuniary compensation, but the thing could be presented to him in quite another light. In Miss Fern's story there were living, breathing men and women. In his own there were beautifully drawn marionettes. He could be made to see that the study of the young lady's method was worth his while. And then!
Mr. Weil's shoes lay on the floor, in the disorder of a bachelor who had never in his life taken pains to put anything in the place where it really belonged. He took out the studs of his shirt, pulled that garment over his head, and then sat for some minutes wrapped in active thought.
"They must be introduced to each other!" he exclaimed, at last. "Between them they have every qualification for success; apart they are like the separated wheels of a watch. There is Shirley, with a style so sweetly subtle, a grace so perfect, every line a gem; and with it all not a sign of human emotion. There is Millicent, full of plot and daring and breathing characters, and bold conceptions, and no more able to write good English than an Esquimaux squaw. I have both these interesting persons on my hands, and I must combine them, for their mutual good.