CHAPTER II
“I LIKE to eat at Tony’s, because he cuts out the din.” As he spoke, Whitman lifted the cover from two of the thick, juicy English chops which were the restaurant’s specialty, and passed one to Radding. “I don’t care to compete with a Hungarian orchestra and a cabaret show when I have something to say,” he finished.
“Have you something to say?”
The question caused Whitman to flush consciously. Radding was so unfailingly logical.
“Nothing special,” the younger man parried; and through the rest of the meal he discreetly confined his conversation to commonplaces. It was not until after the soufflé that he said with forced nonchalance:
“By the way, Rad, it looks as if I’d won the bet.”
“What bet?”
“What bet! The one about the writer of the letter from Deep Harbor.”
“Ah,” said Radding carelessly, “I’d forgotten.”
“Forgotten!” Whitman looked at his friend closely, as if to test his sincerity. He could never be sure when Radding was quizzing him.
“Heard something, have you?” Radding asked.
For answer Whitman fumbled in his breast pocket and drew out a letter which he spread on the table before them. “This came this morning, in answer to my acceptance of the poem,” he said.
“What did you say in your acceptance? I’m not sure that doesn’t interest me more than ‘Henry’s’ reply.”
“Why?” There was a hint of defiance in Whitman’s manner.
“I don’t know; I just wondered.”
“I said we’d give five dollars for the poem,” said Whitman. “I wish it might have been more.”
“Is that all you said?”
“All except—”
“Except—?”
“I did speak of her”—
“His,” corrected Radding, plainly enjoying Whitman’s resentment at the change of pronoun.
“I did speak of her trouble,” continued Whitman. “I think I’d have been a brute not to have mentioned it.”
“Are you so tender with all your contributors?”
“I never had much to do with the correspondence before,” the young editor explained. “They put me on the job because the office is short handed at this time of year.”
“Ah, I see. And so you told ‘Henry’ that you were sympathetic with him in his difficulty?”
“Not that exactly. I told the girl who wrote the letter that I hoped the encouragement from the magazine would be the beginning of better things for her.”
“Anything more?”
“Hang it, Rad. Why are you so curious?... Let me see. The whole letter was only a few typewritten words. Nothing very personal in that, you’ll admit.”
“Dictate the letter?”
“No, I happened to write it myself.”
“I see! Go on.”
“Go on! I can’t remember what I was going to say, you pick me up so every other word.”
“I’ll promise not to do it again. What else was in the letter?”
“That was about all, except I did say I knew how he felt (I had to say ‘he’ until I’d proved that the name was a blind.)”—
“Yes; or the truth.”
“And I told her that I spent my boyhood in a village like Deep Harbor.”
“Did you let ‘Henry’ know what a short time ago that was?”
Whitman showed his white, even teeth in a broad, conscious smile, as he met Radding’s twinkling eyes across the table. “Rad, I’ve a guilty conscience,” he confessed. “I hope it was fair; but if she could pretend to be a man, I thought I might pretend to be an old one. A fatherly friend seemed to be what she needed.”
“Um umph.”
“I did not say I corresponded to her picture of me; but I did say that no matter how gray my whiskers or how ample my white waistcoat, I could never forget my own early struggle for a footing.”
Radding nodded. “I see,” he said. “Now we’ve had the prologue, let’s have the letter.”
“Shall I read it, or will you?” asked Whitman.
“You read it, if you will. That kind of angular hand-writing makes my eyes tired.”
“She thought it was manly to write that way,” Whitman defended the writer. He began to read the letter, lowering his voice so that the good German family near them could not hear.
“Deep Harbor, N. Y.
“Dear Editor of Better Every Week:
“Thank you, thank you for your letter and the money. I can’t tell you how I felt when I got the courage to look into Box 37 and made sure that there was an envelope between the seed catalogue and the weekly copy of The Harbor.
“All the way down the road I had said to myself ‘there won’t be a letter there. I know there won’t. I don’t expect any;’ but that was just to keep up my courage in case another empty day awaited me. Did you ever cheat yourself that way when you were young? But when I got to the Post Office there was my letter.
“I made up my mind not to open it until I was at home with the door locked. Then if you had returned my verses, I could have had a good cry. But as I ran down the road, I loosened the flap, put in one finger and felt the check. I can’t tell you what it meant. It wasn’t just money. It was HOPE.
“And your letter,—your dear, kind letter. I can’t find the right words to thank you for that. With five dollars that I have earned, and a friend, I know I can accomplish anything!
“I hope you will accept a very tiny present as a mark of my appreciation of your kindness, just a simple little gift from Deep Harbor. I hoped if you are old, it might please you. Grandfather used to wear them.
“Gratefully yours,
“Henry Luffkin.”
“What was the present?” Radding asked, not attempting to conceal his amusement.
Whitman hesitated. Then he reached into his pocket and took out a soft gray ball, which he kept in his own hands, smoothing it gently. “Wristlets,” he said. “Gray worsted wristlets.”
“What on earth are wristlets?”
“That shows you weren’t brought up in the country, Rad.” He slipped the bands on his wrists and held his hands out, smiling. “You can saw wood, milk cows, pump water, do all sorts of things that are best done with bare hands, and yet keep warm, if you have wristlets. I wouldn’t take anything for them. Not that I’ll use them in New York; but because they’ll bring up my boyhood every time I look at them.”
Radding examined them curiously. “I see,” he said. “I wonder where ‘Henry’ bought them.”
“Henry!” protested Whitman. “Henry! Won’t you acknowledge you’re beaten, yet? Did ‘Henry’ knit wristlets? Did ‘Henry’ write that letter?”
“You haven’t proved he didn’t, not to my entire satisfaction.”
“What other proof do you want?”
“Well, I’ll have to think it over. I’ll try my own hand at the detective business. Dine here again a week from to-night, and I’ll have some evidence.”
“Very well, a week from to-night—but Rad, you know more about girls than I do, I’ve always avoided them. Girl stenographers can’t spell and lady contributors cry if you criticize their copy. But tell me this, if Henry is a girl isn’t he unusually interesting, something out of the ordinary?”