Jack London Martin Eden

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whose cranky eyes justified themselves in his shortness of temper.
"Mr. Ford has already explained the situation," he said with
asperity. "And so have I. The check will be mailed - "
"I also have explained," Martin broke in, "and I have explained
that I want the money to-day."
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He had felt his pulse quicken a trifle at the business manager's
brusqueness, and upon him he kept an alert eye, for it was in that
gentleman's trousers pocket that he divined the TRANSCONTINENTAL'S
ready cash was reposing.
"It is too bad - " Mr. Ford began.
But at that moment, with an impatient movement, Mr. Ends turned as
if about to leave the room. At the same instant Martin sprang for
him, clutching him by the throat with one hand in such fashion that
Mr. Ends' snow-white beard, still maintaining its immaculate
trimness, pointed ceilingward at an angle of forty-five degrees.
To the horror of Mr. White and Mr. Ford, they saw their business
manager shaken like an Astrakhan rug.
"Dig up, you venerable discourager of rising young talent!" Martin
exhorted. "Dig up, or I'll shake it out of you, even if it's all
in nickels." Then, to the two affrighted onlookers: "Keep away!
If you interfere, somebody's liable to get hurt."
Mr. Ends was choking, and it was not until the grip on his throat
was eased that he was able to signify his acquiescence in the
digging-up programme. All together, after repeated digs, its
trousers pocket yielded four dollars and fifteen cents.
"Inside out with it," Martin commanded.
An additional ten cents fell out. Martin counted the result of his
raid a second time to make sure.
"You next!" he shouted at Mr. Ford. "I want seventy-five cents
more."
Mr. Ford did not wait, but ransacked his pockets, with the result
of sixty cents.
"Sure that is all?" Martin demanded menacingly, possessing himself
of it. "What have you got in your vest pockets?"
In token of his good faith, Mr. Ford turned two of his pockets
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inside out. A strip of cardboard fell to the floor from one of
Martin Eden
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195
them. He recovered it and was in the act of returning it, when
Martin cried:-
"What's that? - A ferry ticket? Here, give it to me. It's worth
ten cents. I'll credit you with it. I've now got four dollars and
ninety-five cents, including the ticket. Five cents is still due
me."
He looked fiercely at Mr. White, and found that fragile creature in
the act of handing him a nickel.
"Thank you," Martin said, addressing them collectively. "I wish
you a good day."
"Robber!" Mr. Ends snarled after him.
"Sneak-thief!" Martin retorted, slamming the door as he passed out.
Martin was elated - so elated that when he recollected that THE
HORNET owed him fifteen dollars for "The Peri and the Pearl," he
decided forthwith to go and collect it. But THE HORNET was run by
a set of clean-shaven, strapping young men, frank buccaneers who
robbed everything and everybody, not excepting one another. After
some breakage of the office furniture, the editor (an ex-college
athlete), ably assisted by the business manager, an advertising
agent, and the porter, succeeded in removing Martin from the office
and in accelerating, by initial impulse, his descent of the first
flight of stairs.
"Come again, Mr. Eden; glad to see you any time," they laughed down
at him from the landing above.
Martin grinned as he picked himself up.
"Phew!" he murmured back. "The TRANSCONTINENTAL crowd were nanny-
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goats, but you fellows are a lot of prize-fighters."
More laughter greeted this.
"I must say, Mr. Eden," the editor of THE HORNET called down, "that
for a poet you can go some yourself. Where did you learn that
right cross - if I may ask?"
"Where you learned that half-Nelson," Martin answered. "Anyway,
you're going to have a black eye."
"I hope your neck doesn't stiffen up," the editor wished
solicitously: "What do you say we all go out and have a drink on
it - not the neck, of course, but the little rough-house?"
"I'll go you if I lose," Martin accepted.
And robbers and robbed drank together, amicably agreeing that the
battle was to the strong, and that the fifteen dollars for "The
Peri and the Pearl" belonged by right to THE HORNET'S editorial
staff.
Martin Eden
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196
CHAPTER XXXIV
Arthur remained at the gate while Ruth climbed Maria's front steps.
She heard the rapid click of the type-writer, and when Martin let
her in, found him on the last page of a manuscript. She had come
to make certain whether or not he would be at their table for
Thanksgiving dinner; but before she could broach the subject Martin
plunged into the one with which he was full.
"Here, let me read you this," he cried, separating the carbon
copies and running the pages of manuscript into shape. "It's my
latest, and different from anything I've done. It is so altogether
different that I am almost afraid of it, and yet I've a sneaking
idea it is good. You be judge. It's an Hawaiian story. I've
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called it 'Wiki-wiki.'"
His face was bright with the creative glow, though she shivered in
the cold room and had been struck by the coldness of his hands at
greeting. She listened closely while he read, and though he from
time to time had seen only disapprobation in her face, at the close
he asked:-
"Frankly, what do you think of it?"
"I - I don't know," she, answered. "Will it - do you think it will
sell?"
"I'm afraid not," was the confession. "It's too strong for the
magazines. But it's true, on my word it's true."
"But why do you persist in writing such things when you know they
won't sell?" she went on inexorably. "The reason for your writing
is to make a living, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's right; but the miserable story got away with me. I
couldn't help writing it. It demanded to be written."
"But that character, that Wiki-Wiki, why do you make him talk so
roughly? Surely it will offend your readers, and surely that is
why the editors are justified in refusing your work."
"Because the real Wiki-Wiki would have talked that way."
"But it is not good taste."
"It is life," he replied bluntly. "It is real. It is true. And I
must write life as I see it."
She made no answer, and for an awkward moment they sat silent. It
was because he loved her that he did not quite understand her, and
she could not understand him because he was so large that he bulked
beyond her horizon
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197
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"Well, I've collected from the TRANSCONTINENTAL," he said in an
effort to shift the conversation to a more comfortable subject.
The picture of the bewhiskered trio, as he had last seen them,
mulcted of four dollars and ninety cents and a ferry ticket, made
him chuckle.
"Then you'll come!" she cried joyously. "That was what I came to
find out."
"Come?" he muttered absently. "Where?"
"Why, to dinner to-morrow. You know you said you'd recover your
suit if you got that money." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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