... Keyes stood before a downtown news-stand. Hurrying pedestrians bumped into him. An irascible character or two, thus impeded, glared back at him—what was the matter with the fellow! Did he think there was nobody but himself in the world?
B. C. Keyes walked home to the sound of a great orchestra reverberating through him. He could not tolerate the thought of subduing himself to the confinement of a car. He needed movement and air.
It had come, his great letter, a few weeks before. At his sitting down to dinner his mother had given him the envelope. The Favorite Magazine—these words had seemed to him to be printed in the upper left-hand corner; it had struck him that perhaps the strain on his nerves of late had so deranged his mind that he now saw, as in a mirage, what was not. "Benjamin C. Keyes, Esq."—so ran the address. Keyes in his dizziness noted this point: people had not customarily addressed him as esquire. Then, for the first time in his life, he held in his hand a substantial check payable to his own name—wealth! Courteous and laudatory typewritten words danced before his burning eyes.
He felt, though in a degree an hundred times intensified, as though he had smoked so much tobacco, and drunk so much coffee, he could not compose himself to eat, or read a paper, or go to bed, or stay where he was; but must rush off somewhere else and talk hysterically. He got through his meal blindly. He could not explain—just yet—to his mother: he felt he could not control the patience necessary to begin at the beginning and construct a coherent narrative.... He must go to Louise who already understood the preliminary situation.
It had occurred to Keyes on his hurried, stumbling way thither that the whole thing was unbelievable, and that he must be quite insane. After he had pushed the bell, an interminable time seemed to elapse before his ring was answered. As he stood there on the porch he felt his flesh palpitating. A terrible fear came over him that Louise might not be at home.... Louise said, when her frenzy had somewhat abated, that she had always known that he "had it in him." She told him there was now "a future" before him.... Keyes had determined to go on about his business as though nothing unusual had occurred; then when the story appeared, to accept congratulations with retiring modesty. Before noon the next day he had told three people; by night, seven.
So, going over it all again, Keyes arrived at home, to learn that—"What do you think?" His mother said "a reporter" had been at the house; an occurrence—quite unprecedented in Mrs. Keyes's experience—which had thrown her into considerable agitation. This public official she had associated in her confusion with a policeman. He had, however, treated her as a personage of great interest. He told her "there was nothing to be ashamed of." He drew from her trembling lips some account of her son's life, and requested a photograph.
Next day the dean of local newspapers, vigilant in patriotism, printed an extended article on the "state's new writer." And in an editorial entitled "The Modern Athens" (which referred to Keyes only by implication) the paper affirmed again that Andiena was "by general consent the present chief centre of letters in America." It recapitulated the names of those of her sons and daughters whose works were on the counters of every department store in the land. It concluded by saying: "The hope of a people is in its writers, its chosen ones of lofty thought, its poets and prophets, who shall dream and sing for it, who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm." Keyes read this, as he took it to be, moving and eloquent tribute to his prize story with feelings akin to those experienced, very probably, by Isaiah.
Keyes received an ovation at "the office." The humility of Pimpkins's admiration was abject. Keyes perceived the commanding quality of ambition—when successful. Miss Wimble, the hollow-breasted cashieress, regarded him with sheep's-eyes. Even Mr. Winder, in passing, congratulated him upon his "stroke of luck."
Wonders once begun, it seemed, poured. Two letters awaited him that evening. One from the editor of The Monocle Magazine. The Monocle Magazine, as Louis said, "think of it!" The editor of this distinguished institution spoke of his "pleasure" in reading Mr. Keyes's "compelling" story; he begged to request the favor of the "offer" of some of Keyes's "other work." By way of a fraternal insinuation he mentioned that he was a native of Andiena, himself. "Most of us are," was his sportive comment. The "Consolidated Sunday Magazines, Inc.," wrote with much business directness to solicit "manuscript," at "immediate payment on acceptance at your regular rates for fiction of the first class."
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