There was a recent accession to the transient population of the village which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a young fellow, rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at home as if he owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He commonly had a cigar in his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the non-explosive sort, and a stick with a bulldog's head for its knob; wore a soft hat, a coarse check suit, a little baggy, and gaiterboots which had been half-soled,—a Bohemian-looking personage, altogether.
This individual began making explorations in every direction. He was very curious about the place and all the people in it. He was especially interested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he made all sorts of inquiries. This led him to form a summer acquaintance with the Secretary, who was pleased to give him whatever information he asked for; being proud of the Society, as she had a right to be, and knowing more about it than anybody else.
The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearing something of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, connected with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell him anything about Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note-book he always had with him.
All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about this new visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an attribute thought to belong more especially to her sex, became somewhat interested to know more exactly who this inquiring, note-taking personage, who seemed to be everywhere and to know everybody, might himself be. Meeting him at the Public Library at a fortunate moment, when there was nobody but the old Librarian, who was hard of hearing, to interfere with their conversation, the little Secretary had a chance to try to find out something about him.
“This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess,” he remarked to Miss Lurida.
“It is, indeed,” she said. “Have you found it well furnished with the books you most want?”
“Oh, yes,—books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do for the Newspapers. I like a Review well enough,—it tells you all there is in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper saves a fellow the trouble of reading it.”
“You find the papers you want, here, I hope,” said the young lady.
“Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do much reading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?”
“I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, there is a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account of some of the doings at our Society. The city papers are always glad to get the reports of our meetings, and to know what is going on in the village.”
“I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are the Secretary.”
This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man about his business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She ducked her head, and let the question go over her.
“Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write, —especially to give an account of their own papers. I think they like to have me put in the applause, when they get any. I do that sometimes.” (How much more, she did not say.)
“I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what they tell me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have written herself.”
He looked her straight in the eyes.
“I have transmitted some good papers,” she said, without winking, or swallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to change; her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and more too. “You spoke of Newspapers,” she said, without any change of tone or manner: “do you not frequently write for them yourself?”
“I should think I did,” answered the young man. “I am a regular correspondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'”
“The regular correspondent from where?”
“Where! Oh, anywhere,—the place does not make much difference. I have been writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and then from Constantinople.”
“How long since your return to this country, may I ask?”
“My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with a gazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can get the facts much better from them than by trusting your own observation. I have made the tour of Europe by the help of them and the newspapers. But of late I have taken to interviewing. I find that a very pleasant specialty. It is about as good sport as trout-tickling, and much the same kind of business. I should like to send the Society an account of one of my interviews. Don't you think they would like to hear it?”
“I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; and if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. You know everything has to be examined and voted on by the Committee,” said the cautious Secretary.
“Very well,—I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, please send it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter,' or 'The Second Best,' or some of the paying magazines.”
This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the Pansophian Society.
“I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to a certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could concerning him and all that related to him. I have interviewed a good many politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I had never tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite sure how this one would feel about it. I said as much to the chief, but he pooh-poohed my scruples. 'It is n't our business whether they like it or not,' said he; 'the public wants it, and what the public wants it's bound to have, and we are bound to furnish it. Don't be afraid of your man; he 's used to it,—he's been pumped often enough to take it easy, and what you've got to do is to pump him dry. You need n't be modest,—ask him what you like; he is n't bound to answer, you know.'
“As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up a little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine on my best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the house where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and pass for a visitor from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' who call in to pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home and say that they have met the distinguished So and So, which gives them a certain distinction in the village circle to which they belong.
“My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his reception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on my face, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his face in the light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged things so as to give him that advantage. It was like two frigates manoeuvring,—each trying to get to windward of the other. I never take out my note-book until I and my man have got engaged in artless and earnest conversation,—always about himself and his works, of course, if he is an author.
“I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those who had read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of them.
“He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a great many callers.
“I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his readers feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to cherish a certain attachment to him.
“He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he said. In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had told him so.
“My dear sir,” I said, “there is nothing wonderful in the fact you mention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts.
'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.'
“Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), were your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you very frequently?
“He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they will all turn out well.'
“I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said.
“No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and pleasanter there.'
“I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's boudoir, a sacred apartment.
“So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face, when I wanted it on has.
“You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly wish to see.
“Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes? Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must open. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,—how gently at first, how strenuously when once fairly between the shells!
“And here, I said, you write your books,—those books which have carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you write with?
“'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied.
“He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which the angel I used to read about in Young's 'Night Thoughts' ought to have dropped, and did n't.
“Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure.
“So I got out my note-book.
“It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview. I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are?
“'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.'
“I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said I. Eight feet,—eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down.
“So I got out my pencil.
“I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not using them as yet.
“I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a very early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you began to write in verse?
“He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are themselves the subjects of conversation.
“'Very early,—I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Colet said,
“'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'”
“I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind enough to translate that line for me.
“'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how to write them.'
“How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she?
“My man was pleased to give me a piece of literary information.
“'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse Karr?'
“Why,—yes,—more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in French literature. What had he to do with your lioness?
“'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He keeps it with an inscription:
“Donne a Alphonse KarrPar Madame Louise Colet....Dans le dos.
“Lively little female!'
“I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably disposed toward me.
“I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening to:
“How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated man?
“'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters that tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot before he began to be what you call a celebrity!'
“Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called celebrity?
“'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to after his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after a few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you thirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of a year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished your task, after all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased to call “a literary celebrity.” I won't dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that title. I will take it for granted I am what you call me, and give you some few hints on my experience.
“'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorry to say that it has not effected its purpose.'
“I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and as much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was well conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his expression that he was its author.)
“'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom you have applied the term “Literary Celebrity.”
“'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to him for assistance.
“'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is expected to fill up.
“'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word which can be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the newspapers.
“'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he is called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscripts having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever.
“'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to write for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to send money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard of.
“'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate it by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet after sheet, if of the other.
“'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an ode for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found in Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover who believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his affections.'
“Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity.
“'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and they will both have a good laugh over them.'
“I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself exposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'”
After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who the person spoken of as the “Literary Celebrity” might be. Among the various suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither more nor less than the unexplained personage known in the village as Maurice Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be the Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escape from the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him and stabbing him nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy?
The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened soon after the meeting when his paper was read.
“I do not know,” she said, in the course of a conversation in which she had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment of the Society, “that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whom you interviewed so successfully.”
“I did not mention him, Miss Vincent,” he answered, “nor do I think it worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story told of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if I did, it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regretting that he was bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignation at the bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages of trash, all the writers of which would expect answers to their letters of condolence.”
The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman who called himself Maurice Kirkwood.
“What,” he answered, “the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides all the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I have met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me. Do you know anything particular about him?”
“Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that he has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what or whom.”
“To newspaper correspondents, perhaps,” said the interviewer. “What made you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity,' did you?”
“I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview this mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, I should think.”
“Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story of crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a few paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him professionally.”
“I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how much wiser you are for that piece of information.”
“An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as for a naked caterpillar,—I believe I should go into a fit if I had to touch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great green caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and early autumn.”
“Afraid of them?” asked the young lady.
“Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,—sometimes using very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the moment.”
“I understand what you mean,” said Miss Vincent. “I used to have the same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a little menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, pretty much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though I don't scream when I see one.”
“What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular antipathy?”
“That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can't guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to discover some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way of everybody, as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seem to be able to tell which. It would make the old ladies of the village sleep a great deal sounder,—yes, and some of the young ladies, too,—if they could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, that he never comes near any of the people here.”
“I think I can find out,” said the Interviewer, whose professional ambition was beginning to be excited. “I never came across anybody yet that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a week or two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, of this Mr. Maurice Kirkwood.”
We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present us with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure.
When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as she pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strain she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, but how great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw its effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all its manifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproach herself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful and sympathetic.
The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence of two young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavily than the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes.
On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her superior. She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, and deferred to her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions. It was a different thing, however, when the graver questions of life came up. Lurida was full of suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable to run into whims before she knew where they were tending. She would lay out her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could not help believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend must accept them with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia would take them up with her sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on them.
Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new interests and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papers to be read at the meetings of her Society,—for she made it her own in great measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,—and in the mean time she was reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing on the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herself with the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion, or disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name of antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question.
“How do you like the books I see you reading?” said Euthymia to Lurida, one day, as they met at the Library.
“Better than all the novels I ever read,” she answered. “I have been reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearer the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just as if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in my head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how many centres of energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sorts of influences, external and internal. Do you know, I believe I could solve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called him, if he would only stay here long enough?”
“What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard of its being mentioned in any of the papers.”
“You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here for some time,—the same one who gave the account of his interview with a celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which he writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks about this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a Sphinx here, who has mystified us all.”
“And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh, Lurida, Lurida, do be careful! What with this mysterious young man and this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people, the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.—I wonder if we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like.”
“Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy, so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about him. I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a young man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. I believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies and antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often wonder whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as 'brain-waves,' which some have already recognized.”
Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious but enduring intellectual development. If the readers of this narrative cannot pick them out, they need not expect the writer of it to help them. If they guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact that just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing with are met with from time to time in families where intelligence has been cumulative for two or three generations.
Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other informant than Lurida.
The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside his door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and handsome youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly that one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by his side. Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewer asked all sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When he came to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interest regarding him. The greatest curiosity, he said, existed with reference to this personage. Everybody was trying to find out what his story was,—for a story, and a strange one, he must surely have,—and nobody had succeeded.
The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told him the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, about his horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help out the effect of his narrative.
The Interviewer was becoming excited. “Can't find out anything about him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find? Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is an actor,—a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off in their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are the very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at the city theatres; but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings and Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you.”
The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. “I shouldn't wonder if you were right,” he said. “I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, as they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believe there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, and why he does n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't come up here and get hold of this story. It would be just the thing for a sensational writer.”
To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,—to the biggest pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog from the human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading without spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or every six months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a new story, an undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonder that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject for an inventive and emotional correspondent.
He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himself that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summer season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits—oranges, bananas, and others, according to the seasons—did an active business. The Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that his hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examining the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity. Here was an introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to the master.
He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,—there was no difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was an Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him.
“Good morning, Mr. Paul,” he said. “How do you like the look of these oranges?”
“They pretty fair,” said Paolo: “no so good as them las' week; no sweet as them was.”
“Why, how do you know without tasting them?” said the Interviewer.
“I know by his look,—I know by his smell,—he no good yaller,—he no smell ripe,—I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is,” and Paolo laughed at his own comparison.
The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo.
“Good!” said he,—“first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get two nice sweet ones for him.”
Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of conferring a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and grave deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer him an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation.
“How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?” he asked.
“Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you he sick?”
“No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day or two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he in the house now?”
“No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very early,—in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read, and study, and write,—he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood.”
“A good many books, has n't he?”
“He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you.”
“Has n't he some curiosities,—old figures, old jewelry, old coins, or things of that sort?”
Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. “He don't keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,—old jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old times: she don't pass now.” Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat indiscriminately distributed.
A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. “I wonder if he would examine some old coins of mine?” said he, in a modestly tentative manner.
“I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him. Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?”
“Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones.”
The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old battered bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where they had been passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct,—a common little Roman penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question, as would two or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told him that if he came the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeing Mr. Kirkwood. At any rate, he would speak to his master.
The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger up to his library,—or study, as he modestly called it.
It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found that he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Some of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names which he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange to his eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar.
The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his visiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who was living as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed them to Maurice.
“I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that you could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for a good while.” So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of Gallienus.
“Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have been paid for some of these ancient coins,—ever so many guineas, sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old.”
“More than a thousand years old,” said Maurice.
“And worth a great deal of money?” asked the Interviewer.
“No, not a great deal of money,” answered Maurice.
“How much, should you say?” said the Interviewer.
Maurice smiled. “A little more than the value of its weight in copper,—I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coins of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is a good deal a matter of imagination.”
“And what do you say to these others?” asked the Interviewer. Poor old worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint trace of a figure on one or two of them.
“Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was brought when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it.' But the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beauty and preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is a coin, now,”—he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. “Here is a Syracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare, well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it.”
The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very little more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thought his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matter about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, that Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what he himself considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That would do for a beginning.
“May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?” he said
“That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pick up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I bought this of a great dealer in Rome.”
“Lived in Rome once?” said the Interviewer.
“For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?”
The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he should go there, one of these years, “suppose you studied art and antiquities while you were there?” he continued.
“Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities. Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classic authors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, and not have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, and churches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take it for granted?”
The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them. “Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome,” he answered. “May I ask how long you lived in Rome?”
“Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiar with Vasari, of course?”
The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out his handkerchief. “It is a warm day,” he said. “I have not had time to read all—the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, to find all the time for reading and study I could have wished.”
“In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardon my inquiry? said Maurice.
“I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your own lips some account of your literary experiences.”
“Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it for my autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do I understand that you are an author?”
By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's very simple question.
“If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, I may call myself one. I write for the 'People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor'.”
“Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you manage the political column?”
“I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of interest.”
“Places you have been to, and people you have known?”
“Well, yes,—generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my articles.”
“Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?”
The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he had found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thing he could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that he should be able to pick up something or other which he could work into his report of his visit.
“Well, I—prepared that article for our columns. You know one does not have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, in its descriptions?”
“Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle—the old Milvian bridge—a good deal too far down the stream, if I remember. I happened to notice that, but I did not read the article carefully. May I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visit and the conversation we have had, for the columns of the newspaper with which you are connected?”
The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. “If you have no objections,” he said, “I should like very much to ask a few questions.” He was recovering his professional audacity.
“You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet, —after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to submit me to examination?”
“The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humble agent of its investigations.”
“What has the public to do with my private affairs?”
“I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a large number of curious people that form a majority against you. That is the way I've heard the chief put it.”
Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the American citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure, at last. Maurice calmly answered, “There is nothing left for minorities, then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made the subject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding my own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against your system of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public all it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall request to be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you a good-morning.”
The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his next communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a brief mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting the place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege of examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligence would otherwise confer upon him.
The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failed to get the first hint of its solution.
The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle. The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the various cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversational circles which met every evening in the different centres of social life. The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had a congenital aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him were so painful or disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it. It was known, and it has already been mentioned, that such cases were on record. There had been a great deal of discussion, of late, with reference to a fact long known to a few individuals, but only recently made a matter of careful scientific observation and brought to the notice of the public. This was the now well-known phenomenon of color-blindness. It did not seem very strange that if one person in every score or two could not tell red from green there might be other curious individual peculiarities relating to color. A case has already been referred to where the subject of observation fainted at the sight of any red object. What if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy would tend to isolate the person who was its unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesis not difficult to test, but it was a rather delicate business to be experimenting on an inoffensive stranger. Miss Vincent was thinking it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of any projects she might entertain.