“A success!” Calmar Bye stroked a long, thin face with a long, thin hand. “A success!” he repeated. “I couldn’t have been a worse 83 failure, Bob.” He paused a moment, smoothing the table-cloth absently with his finger tips.
“Success!” once more, bitterly. “I’m not even a mediocre at anything unless it is at what I’m doing now, dangling and helping spend the money some one else has worked all day to earn.” He looked his astonished friend fair in the eyes.
“You don’t know what an idiot, a worse than idiot, I’ve made of myself,” and he began the story of the past year.
Monotonously, unemotionally he told the tale, omitting nothing, adding nothing; while about him the sounds of the restaurant, the tinkling of glassware, the ring of silver, the familiar muffled pop of extracted corks, played a soft accompaniment. Occasionally Bob would make a comment or ask explanation of something to him entirely new; but that was all until near the end,––where the delinquent herder, coming swiftly to the brow of the hill, looked down upon the scene in the ravine below. Then Bob, the care-free, the pleasure-seeking, raised a hand in swift protest. 84
“Don’t describe it, please, old man,” he requested. “I’d rather not hear.”
The speaker’s voice ceased; over his thin features fell the light of a queer little half-smile which, instead of declaring itself, only provoked Bob Wilson’s curiosity. In the silence Bye, with a hand unaccustomed to the exercise, made the familiar gesture that brought one of the busy attendants to his side.
“And the story you wrote––?” suggested Wilson while they waited.
For answer Calmar Bye drew an envelope from his pocket and tossed it across the table to his friend. Wilson first noted that it bore the return address of one of the country’s foremost magazines; he then unfolded the letter and read aloud:
“Dear Mr. Bye:––
“The receipt of your two stories, ‘Storm and Stampede’ and ‘The Lonely Grave,’ has settled a troublesome question for us, namely: What has become of Mr. Calmar Bye?