“I mean just what I say—no less and no more. I was the man in question, and I admit that I ought to have thanked Orrington for his kindness. I meant to, of course; but I set to work at once on those articles that have assumed such importance in our discussion, and I was very busy. I had to make them as good as I knew how. I assumed, naturally, that I had merely received a useful tip from a man who didn’t care for the job. I’ve always assumed that till this afternoon. I wanted the job badly, myself.”
“Oh, well!” Orrington put in soothingly. “It doesn’t matter, does it? I’ve explained that the incident really set me on my feet. You don’t owe me anything, Reynolds. If I’d been a complete pig and kept the chance for myself, I’d probably have been much worse off for it. You needed it much more than I did, evidently.”
To my surprise, Reynolds was not quieted by Orrington’s magnanimous speech. Instead, he jumped up in a passion and stood before us, clinching and unclinching his fists like a small boy before his first fight.
“That isn’t the point,” he said in a voice so loud that various groups of men scattered about the room looked toward us with amusement. “I admit that I was glad of the opportunity to do the articles, but I was by no means in such straits as you suppose. So much for the critical sense for which you have such a reputation!” He turned on Orrington with a sneer.
Orrington remained very calm. He seemed in no wise disturbed by the fury of Reynolds’s tirade, nor by his insufferable rudeness, but puffed at a cigarette two or three times before he replied. “It’s a poor thing, critical sense,” he murmured. “I’ve never been proud of what mine has done for me. But you must admit that I paid you a pretty compliment, Reynolds, in believing that your story was founded on real experience. I don’t see why you need mind my saying that it wasn’t much of a yarn. Nobody need be sensitive about something he did twenty years back.”
“I don’t care a hang what you thought about the story then, or what you think of it now,” Reynolds snapped. “You might, however, grant the existence of imagination. You needn’t attribute everything anybody writes to actual experience. I never went hungry.”
So that was where the shoe pinched! Reynolds insisted on being proud of his prosperity at all stages. I laughed. “You’ve missed something, then,” I put in. “The sensation, if not agreeable, is unique. Every man should feel it once, in a way. A couple of times I’ve run short of provisions, and I assure you the experience is like nothing else.”
“That’s different,” said Reynolds a little more quietly. “I’m not saying that I owe nothing to Orrington. I acknowledge that I do, and I admit that I ought to have acknowledged it twenty years ago. I was anxious at the time to get a start in the world of letters, and I was looking for an opening. Orrington’s suggestion gave me my first little opportunity; but it certainly didn’t save my life.”
“Then it was all imagination, after all,” Orrington said gently. “What a mistake I made!”
“Of course it was all imagined!” Reynolds protested, and he added naïvely: “I was living at home at the time, and I had a sufficient allowance from my father.”