“Only this,” Orrington went on. “It turned out that the people who had offered to let me do the articles were tremendously impressed by my turning them down. The letter I wrote them must have been a corker. Somehow or other they got the notion that I was a very busy man and a person of importance. They ought to have known better, of course, but they evidently adopted that silly idea. They talked about me to their friends and cracked me up as a coming man. The upshot of it was that I began to be tempted with most flattering offers of one sort and another—before long I had my choice of several things. My self-constituted backers were rather powerful in those days, so it was useful to be in their good books. I left my moribund magazine and got so prosperous that I began to grow fat at once. Serene obscurity has been my lot ever since; and I’ve never got rid of the fat.”
“That’s a happy ending,” I remarked lazily. “It’s very like a real conclusion. What more do you want?”
“Oh, for the sake of argument, I’d like to prove that I was right and that Reynolds’s theory is all wrong.”
“I’m exceedingly glad that it turned out so well for you,” said Reynolds unctuously. “Then the young man whom you assisted didn’t need to feel quite so much under obligation to you as we’ve been thinking?”
I was outraged. Reynolds was a great gun in literature, at least in the opinion of himself and a huge circle of readers. He was also a dozen years older than I. At the same time, I couldn’t allow him to disparage what Orrington had done, merely because Orrington made light of it.
“You will observe,” I said with some heat, “that the effect on Orrington was purely secondary and fortuitous. Orrington didn’t know he could possibly gain by it when he took the bread out of his own mouth to feed the young cur. I hope, for my part, that the fellow eventually starved to death or took to digging ditches.”
Reynolds sat up very straight. His black eyes snapped with anger. “He didn’t,” he burst out. “I happen to know him.”
“You know him!” I exclaimed, while Orrington goggled.
“Yes.” Reynolds had grown very red, but he looked defiant. “Since I’ve been attacked like this, I may as well tell you. Not that I think it’s anybody’s business but my own. Orrington didn’t suffer by what he did.”
“You don’t mean—” I began.