Tales from a rolltop desk

Front matter

T^LESFROMT?

ROLLTOP DESK

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

Dedication

I think you remember — I know you do, because you have often charitably chuckled over the incident— ^that rather too eager young man who came to call on you one day in September, 1913, saying that he simply must have a job. And how you, in your inimitable way, said "Well, what kind of a job would you like best to have around this place?" And he cried "Yours!'' And you justly punctured the creature by saying "All right, go to work and get it." (There was more youthful palpitation than intended impertinence in the young man's outcry, so he has assured me.) And then, still tremulous with ambition, this misguided freshman pulled out of his pocket a bulky memorandum on which he had inscribed his pet scheme for the regeneration and stimulus of the publishing business, and laid it before you. How hospitably you considered his programme, and how tenderly you must have smiled, inwardly, at his odd mixture of earnestness and excitement! At any rate, you set him to work that afternoon, with the assurance that he might have your job as soon as he could qualify.

Well, he did not get it; nor will he ever, for he knows (by this time) what a rare complex of instincts and sagacities is needed in the head of a great publishing house; and his own ambition has proved to be a little different. But he can

DEDICATION vii never be enough grateful for the patience and humorous tolerance with which you brooded upon his various antics, condoned his many absurdities, welcomed and encouraged his enthusiasms. In nearly four years in your "shop'' he learned (so he insists) more than any college could ever teach: and how much he had to unlearn, too ! And the surprising part of it was, it was all such extraordinarily good fun. The greatest moments of all, I suppose, were when this young man was invited by one of your partners (on occasions that seemed so interminably far apart!) to "walk in the garden,'' that being the cheerful tradition of the Country Life Press. There, after some embarrassing chat about the peonies and the sun dial, the victim meanwhile groaning to know whether it was, this time, hail or farewell, there w^ould come tidings of one of those five-dollar raises that were so hotly desiderated. That paternal function (so this young man and his fellow small fry observed) was rightly a little beneath the dignity of the Effendi: you, they noted, only walked in the garden with paper merchants and people like Booth Tarkington and Ellen Glasgow and good Mr. Grosset of Grosset and Dunlap !

Contents

PAGE

The Curious Case of Kenelm Digby ... 58

Gloria and the Garden of Sweden .... 99

II

It is not the purpose of this tale to tell in detail how Arthur Caldwell laid siege to Ann Austin. He was a cautious man, and for some time he contented himself by presenting occasional reports of his progress with the damsel of the Telephone Company. Ann, in her friendly and unselfish way, was delighted to hear, a few days later, that he had met his ideal. Then, averring that he needed further counsel, Arthur persuaded her to have lunch with him one day; and Ann, convinced that the young man was in love with someone else, saw no reason why this should not be done. Perhaps it was a little odd that at their various meetings they should have talked so much of themselves, their ambitions, the books they had been reading, and so on; and so little of the Telephone lady. But surely it was strictly a matter of business that Arthur should send Miss Austin some of Fawcett's novels, for her to review in the Planet; and equally a professional matter that he should discuss with her her opinion of them. And then came the day when Arthur called up to say that things were going so well with the Telephone lady that he wanted Cynthia to meet her; and would she join them in St. Paul's Churchyard at half -past twelve? Ann, with just a curious little unanalyzed twinge in her heart, agreed to do so.

But when she reached the bench in the graveyard, where a bright autumn sunshine filled the clearing among those tremendous buildings, Arthur was there alone.

"Where's Alice?" said Ann, innocently — for such was the name Arthur had always given the lady of the Telephone Company.

"She couldn't come," he said. "But I want to show you her picture."

They sat down on the bench, and he took out of his pocket a copy of the noon edition of the Planet. He turned to the feature page, and displayed the little cut of Cynthia at the head of the Lovelorn column.

"There," he said, stoutly (though his heart was tremulous within him), "there, you adorable little thing, there she is."

It would be pleasant to linger over this scene, but, as I have just said, this is not our denouement^ but only an incident. Ann, shot through with delicious pangs of doubt and glory and anger, asked for explanations.

And do you mean to say there never was any Alice, the beautiful Telephone blonde?" she said. "What a fraud you are!"

"Of course not," he said. "You dear, delightful innocent, I just had to cook up some excuse for coming up to see you. And you can't be angry with me now, Ann, because in your own answer to Sincerity's letter you said the girl ought not to be offended. You told me to take a chance! Just think what self-control I had, that first time I came up to see you, not to blurt out the truth."

And then he tore off a scrap of margin from the newspaper and measured her finger for a ring.

Ill

There were happy evenings that winter, when Ann, after finishing her stint at the office, would hasten up their rendezvous at Piazza's little Italian table d'hote. Here, over the minestrone soup and the spaghetti and that strong Italian coffee that seems to have a greenish light round the edges of the liquid (and an equally greenish taste), they would discuss their plans and platitudes, just as lovers always have and always will. As for Ann, the light of a mystical benevolence shone in her as she conned her daily pile of broken hearts in the morning mail. More than ever she felt that she, who had seen the true flame upon the high altar, had a duty to all perplexed and random followers of the gleam who had gone astray in their search. Aware more keenly that the troubled appeals of "Tearful" and "Little Pal," however absurd, were the pains of genuine heartache, she became more and more tender in her comments, and her correspondence grew apace. Now that she knew that her job need not go on forever she tried honestly to run the column with all her might. How stern she was with the flirt and the vamp and the jilt; how sympathetic with the wounded on Love's great battle-field. "Great stuff, great stuff!" Mr. Sikes would cry, in his coarse way, and complimented her on the increasing "kick" of her department. Knowing that he attributed the accelerated pulse of the Lovelorn column to mere cynicism on her part, she did not dare wear her ring in the oflSce for fear of being joked about it. She used to think sadly that because she had made sympathy with lovers a matter of trade, she herself, now she was in love, could hope for no understanding. Although she hardly admitted it, she longed for the day when she could drop the whole thing.

One evening Arthur met her at Piazza^s, radiant. He was going off on a long business trip for his publishing house, and they had promised him a substantial raise when he returned. They sat down to dinner together in the highest spirits. Arthur, in particular, was in a triumphant mood: the publishing world, it seemed, lay under his feet.

Great news, hey?" he said. "We'll be able to get married in the spring, and you can kick out of that miserable job."

"But, Arthur," she said, "you know I have to take care of Mother. Don't you think it would be wiser if I went on with the work for a while, until your next raise comes? It would help a good deal, and we'd be able to put a little away for a rainy day."

"What?" he said. "Do you think I'm going to have my wife doing that lovelorn stuff in the paper every day? It'd make me a laughing stock if it ever got out. No, sir ! I haven't said much about it, because I knew it couldn't be helped; but believe me, honey, that isn't the right kind of job for you. I've often wondered you didn't feel that yourself."

Ann was a little nettled that he should put it that way. Whatever her private distaste for the Lovelorn column, it had served her well in a difficult time, and had paid the doctor's bills at home. And she knew how much honest devotion she had put into the task of trying to give helpful counsel.

^'At any rate," she said, "it was through the column that we first met."

What evil divinity sat upon Arthur's tongue that he could not see this was the moment for a word of tenderness.^ But a young man flushed with his first vision of business success, the feeling that now nothing can prevent him from "making good," is likely to be obtuse to the finer shades of intercourse.

"Of course, dear, I could see you were different from the usual sob sister of the press," he said. "I could see you didn't really fall for that stuff. It's because I love you so, I want to get you out of that cheap, degrading sensational work. Most of those letters you get are only fakes, anyway. I think Love ought to be sacred, not used as mere circulation bait for a newspaper."

Ann was a high-spirited girl, and this blunt criticism touched her in that vivid, quivering region of the mind where no woman stops to reason. But she made an honest attempt to be patient.

"But, Arthur," she said; "there's nothing really cheap and degraded in trying to help others who haven't had the same advantages we have. I know a lot of the letters I print are silly and absurd, but not more so than some of the books you publish."

"Now, listen," he said, loftily, "we won't quarrel about this. I don't want you to go on with the job, that's all. It isn't fair to you. You may take the work seriously, and put all sorts of idealism into it, but it's not the right kind of job for a refined girl. How about the men in the oflfice? I'll bet I know what they think of it. They probably think it's a devil of a good joke, and laugh about it among themselves. Don't you think I've seen that managing editor leering at you.^ That sort of thing cheapens a girl among decent men. Every Lovelace in town feels he has a right to send you mash-notes, I guess."

Ann was furious.

"Well, you're the only one I ever paid any attention to," she said, blazing at him. "I'm sorry you think I've cheapened myself. I guess I have, by letting you interfere with my affairs."

She slipped the ring from her finger, and thrust it at him. Arthur saw, too late, what he had done. She listened in scornful silence to his miserable attempts to console her, which were doubly handicapped by the old waiter hovering near. She was still adamant while he took her up town. The only thing she said was when she reached the door of her apartment.

"I don't want you to cheapen yourself. You needn't come any more.''

By this time Arthur also was thoroughly angry. The next morning he went away on his business trip, realizing for the first time that he who has the pass key to a human heart treads among dangerous explosives.