I persuaded Franklin to stop at the office of the principal newspaper, in order that I might make inquiry as to the present whereabouts of H——. He had written me, about for years before, to say that he was connected with a paper here. He wanted me to teach him how to write short stories! It was a dull room or store, facing the principal street, like a bank. In it were a young, reporterish looking boy, very trig and brisk and curious as to his glance, and a middle aged man, bald, red faced, roundly constructed like a pigeon, and about as active.
“Do you happen to recall a man by the name of H—— who used to work here in Bowling Green?” I inquired of the elder, not willing to believe that he had controlled a paper, though I had understood from someone that he had.
“B—— H——?” he replied, looking me over.
“Yes, that’s the man.”
“He did work here on the other paper for a while,” he replied with what seemed to me a faint look of contempt, though it may not have been. “He hasn’t been here for four or five years at the least. He’s up in Michigan now, I believe—Battle Creek, or Sheboygan, or some such place as that. They might tell you over at the other office.” He waved his hand toward some outside institution—the other paper.
“You didn’t happen to know him personally, I presume?”
“No, I saw him a few times. He was their general utility man, I believe.”
I went out, uncertain whether to bother any more or not. Twentythree years is a long time. I had not seen him in all of that. I started to walk toward the other newspaper office, but the sight of the bare street, with a buggy or two and an automobile, and the low, quiet store buildings, deterred me.
“What’s the use?” I asked myself. “This is a stale, impossible atmosphere. There isn’t an idea above hay and feed in the whole place.”
I climbed back in the car and we fled.