“Well; he’s done it this time. Made a fine young riot for himself last night. It seems he’s been pasting cartoons and mottoes in his show window; and some of the younger fellows from the Deutscher Club, who pass there on their way home, naturally got sore. Last night with a few beers aboard, they stopped and gave him a raree serenade. Out comes the old boy in his nighty and makes ’em a red-hot speech. They give him the whoop, and he begins to damn ’em all back to Germany.”
“Yes; he’s got fighting stuff in him,” agreed Jeremy.
“Too much for his own good. Somebody ups with a rock, and down comes the big boot over the door. Well, the old boy goes dippy over that. Dives inside and grabs up a hammer and right into them. First thing you know, they have him on a rail—a scantling from that new building on the corner—and are yelling for tar. It might have been serious for the old boy, but just then along comes Andy Galpin of The Guardian. You know him; he’s some young husky. Guard on the O. C. team for three years. Well, he bucks the center and lays out a couple of the merry villagers and there’s a pretty mix-up, and I understand Galpin got one in the eye that did n’t improve his make-up. But the boys were sick of the fun anyway, and they let Galpin get away with it and take old Wade home. Instead of doing the sensible thing and sleeping it off, Wade gets all het up, and swears out warrants and they’re going to thrash it out in police court this noon, in time for the edition. Probably Wade ’ll make a speech. Anyhow, there’ll be a circus when he goes on the stand. We want a rattling good story on it; and put in your best touches on the old boy. He’ll do for a local character to hang all sorts of stories on, later.”
“But look here, Mr. Wackley: I know Eli Wade pretty well. He’s—he’s a sort of friend of mine.”
“What if he is? You can have fun with him, can’t you? He won’t know the difference. And if he does, he won’t care. Those fanatical guys are crazy for publicity. He’ll eat it up.”
It was Jeremy’s settled intention, so he told himself, as he set out for court, to write an account which, while lively, should fairly set forth his friend’s side. When he saw Eli Wade at court his heart misgave him, the Boot & Shoe Surgeon looked so whitely wrathful. The proceedings dwindled into nothing. The “life” was out of the story, quite to one reporter’s relief, when his evil genius inspired Eli Wade to address the court. At the outset he was simple and dignified. But counsel for the serenaders interpolated some well-timed taunts which roused him to indignation. He had not slept that night, for shame of the treatment to which he had been subjected; and his self-control was in abeyance. Indignation, as he answered the taunts, waxed to fury. He burst into a savage and absurd invective, aimed at “German interlopers,” “foreign clubs that run our city,” and the like; his voice shrilling louder and louder until he was drowned out by the uncontrollable laughter of the court-room. It was all quite absurd and pitiable. Instinctively Jeremy’s pencil took it down. Here was his story, ready to hand.
As he sat in the office, the grip of characterization settled upon him. Oddments and gleams of past conversations in the “Infirmary” came back to him, and he embodied them. Stroke by stroke there grew up under his hand a portrait, crude from haste but vivid, telling, and a stimulant to mirth, not always of the kindliest. It was not intentionally unfair; it was never malicious in purpose. But it was the more deadly in effect. By the magic transformation of print it made out of an unpolished, simple, generous, fervent, and thoughtful artisan, a laughable homunculus. Yet there was in it no element of “fake.” Jeremy could have defended it at all points. Any newspaper judgment would have credited it with due fidelity to facts. The sum-total was a subtle and gross misrepresentation. Had the writer read it over he would perhaps have seen this for himself. But there was no time. He barely caught the edition. Wackley’s: “Great stuff, my boy! You’ll hear of this,” happily distracted him from the stirrings of a conscience which faintly wished to know how Eli Wade would take it.
“You’re doing golf to-morrow,” continued the managing editor. “Don’t bother to come to the office first.” Profiting by this, Jeremy, an hour before match time, called at Miss Pritchard’s for Marcia. He was informed that she had left on an errand, but would meet him at the Country Club. When, just before the first pair teed up, she appeared, her mentor was startled, she looked so wan and languid.
“Good Heavens!” said Jeremy in a whisper. “You have n’t let this thing get on your nerves?”
She shook her head. Her eyes did not avoid his now; but the changeful lights seemed to have dwindled to the merest flicker in inscrutable depths.