CHAPTER IV
WHEN Carmel entered the office next morning she found Prof. Evan Bartholomew Pell occupying her chair. On his face was an expression of displeasure. He forgot to arise as she stepped through the gate, but he did point a lead pencil at her accusingly.
“You have made me appear ridiculous,” he said, and compressed his lips with pedagogical severity. “In my letter, which you published in this paper, you misspelled the words ‘nefarious’ and ‘nepotist.’ What excuse have you to offer?”
Carmel stared at the young man, nonplused for an instant, and then a wave of pity spread over her. It was pity for a man who would not admit the existence of a forest because he was able to see only the individual trees. She wondered what life offered to Evan Pell; what rewards it held out to him; what promises it made. He was vain, that was clear; he was not so much selfish as egotistical, and that must have been very painful. He was, she fancied, the sort of man to whom correct spelling was of greater importance than correct principle—not because of any tendency toward lack of principle, but because pedantry formed a shell about him, inside which he lived the life of a turtle. She smiled as she pictured himas a spectacled turtle of the snapping variety, and it was a long time before that mental caricature was erased from her mind. Of one thing she was certain; it would not do to coddle him. Therefore she replied, coolly: “Perhaps, if you would use ordinary words which ordinary people can understand, you would run less risk of misspelling—and people would know what you are trying to talk about.”
“I used the words which exactly expressed my meaning.”
“You are sitting in my chair,” said Carmel.
Evan Bartholomew flushed and bit his lips. “I—my mind was occupied——” he said.
“With yourself,” said Carmel. “Have you come to work?”
“That was my intention.”
“Very well. Please clear off that table and find a chair.... You may smoke!”
“I do not use tobacco.”
She shrugged her shoulders, and again he flushed as if he had been detected in something mildly shameful. “I am wondering,” she said, “how you can be of use.”
“I can at least see to it that simple words are correctly spelled in this paper,” he said.
“So can Tubal, given time and a dictionary.... What have you done all your life? What experience have you had?”
He cleared his throat. “I entered the university at the age of sixteen,” he said, “by special dispensation.”
“An infant prodigy,” she interrupted. “I’ve oftenread about these boys who enter college when they should be playing marbles, and I’ve always wondered what became of them.”
“I have always been informed,” he said, severely, “that I was an exceptionally brilliant child.... Since I entered college and until I came here a year ago I have been endeavoring to educate myself adequately. Before I was twenty I received both LL.B. and A.B. Subsequently I took my master’s degree. I have also worked for my D.C.L., my Ph.D....”
She interrupted again. “With what end in view?” she asked.
“End?...” He frowned at her through his spectacles. “You mean what was my purpose?”
“Yes. Were you fitting yourself for any particular work?”
“No.”
“Merely piling up knowledge for the sake of piling up knowledge.”
“You speak,” he said, “as if you were reprehensible.”
She made no direct reply, but asked his age.
“Twenty-six,” he said.
“Nine years of which you have spent in doing nothing but study; cramming yourself with learning.... What in the world were you going to do with all of it?”
“That,” he said, “is a matter I have had little time to consider.”
“Did you make any friends in college?”
“I had no time——”
“Of course not. Sanscrit is more important than friends. I understand. A friend might have dropped in of an evening and interrupted your studies.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“Of course you did not go in for athletics.”
“Exercise,” he said, “scientifically taken, is essential to a clear mind. I exercise regularly morning and evening. If you are asking whether I allowed myself to be pummeled and trampled into the mud at football, or if I played any other futile game, I did not.”
“So you know almost everything there is to be known about books, but nothing about human beings.”
“I fancy I know a great deal about human beings.”
“Mr. Pell,” she said, becoming more determined to crush in the walls of his ego, “I’ve a mind to tell you exactly what I think of you.”
For an instant his eyes twinkled; Carmel was almost sure of the twinkle and it quite nonplused her. But Evan’s expression remained grave, aloof, a trifle patronizing. “I understood I was coming here to—work.”
“You are.”
“Then,” said he, “suppose we give over this discussion of myself and commence working.”
How Carmel might have responded to this impact must remain a matter for debate, because she had not quite rallied to the attack when the arrival of a third person made continuance impossible. Thereare people who just come; others who arrive. The first class make no event of it whatever; there is a moment when they are not present and an adjoining moment when they are—and that is all there is to it. The newcomer was anarrival. His manner was that of an arrival and resembled somewhat the docking of an ocean liner. Carmel could imagine little tugs snorting and coughing and churning about him as he warped into position before the railing. It seemed neither right nor possible that he achieved the maneuver under his own power alone. His face, as Carmel mentally decapitated him, and scrutinized that portion of his anatomy separately from the whole, gave no impression of any sort of power whatever. It was a huge putty-mask of placid vanity. There was a great deal of head, bald and brightly glistening; there was an enormous expanse of face in which the eyes and nose seemed to have been crowded in upon themselves by aggressive flesh; there were chins, which seemed not so much physical part of the face as some strange festoons hung under the chin proper as barbaric adornments. On the whole, Carmel thought, it was the most face she had ever seen on one human being.
She replaced his head and considered him as a whole. It is difficult to conceive of the worddapperas applying to a mastodon, but here it applied perfectly. His body began at his ears, the neck having long since retired from view in discouragement. He ended in tiny feet dressed in patent-leather ties. Between ears and toes was merely expanse, immensity,a bubble of human flesh. One thought of a pan of bread dough which had been the recipient of too much yeast.... The only dimension in which he was lacking was height, which was just, for even prodigal nature cannot bestow everything.
He peered at Carmel, then at Evan Bartholomew Pell, with an unwinking baby stare, and then spoke suddenly, yet carefully, as if he were afraid his voice might somehow start an avalanche of his flesh.
“I am Abner Fownes,” he said in a soft, effeminate voice.
“I am Carmel Lee,” she answered.
“Yes.... Yes.... I took that for granted—for granted. I have come to see you—here I am. Mountain come to Mohammed—eh?...” He paused to chuckle. “Very uppity young woman. Wouldn’t come when I sent for you—so had to come to you. What’shedoing here?” he asked, pointing a sudden, pudgy finger at Evan Pell.
“Mr. Pell is working for the paper.”
“Writing more letters?” He did not pause for an answer. “Mistake, grave mistake—printing letters like that. Quiet, friendly town—Gibeon. Everybody friends here.... Stir up trouble. It hurt me.”
Carmel saw no reason to reply.
“Came to advise you. Friendly advice.... I’m interested in this paper—er—from the viewpoint of a citizen and—er—financially. Start right, Miss Lee. Start right. Catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.... You commenced with vinegar. Nobody likes it. Can’t make a living with vinegar. Torun a paper in Gibeon you must be diplomatic—diplomatic. Can’t expect me to support financially a paper which isn’t diplomatic, can you? Now can you?”
“What do you mean by being diplomatic?”
“Why—er taking advice—yes, taking advice.”
“From whom?”
His little eyes opened round as if in great astonishment.
“From me,” he said. “People in Gibeon—er—repose great confidence in my judgment. Great confidence.”
“What sort of advice?”
“All sorts,” he said, “but principally about what you print about different things.... Now, I should have advised you against printing this young man’s letter.”
“Would you have advised me against printing anything about the threatening note I found on my desk?”
“Ah—sense of humor, miss. Boyish prank.... Jokers in Gibeon. Town’s full of ’em.... Best-natured folks in the world, but they love to joke and to talk. Love to talk better than to joke. Um!... Mountains out of molehills—that’s Gibeon’s specialty. Mean no harm, Lord love you, not a particle—but they’ll tell youanything. Not lying—exactly. Just talk.”
“Is Sheriff Churchill’s disappearance just talk?”
“Um!... Sheriff Churchill—to be sure. Disappeared. Um!... Gabble, gabble, gabble.”
“Talk of murder is not gabble,” said Carmel.
“Ugly word.... Shouldn’t use it. Makes me shiver.” He shivered like a gelatin dessert. “Forget such talk. My advice—straight from the heart.... Stirs things up—things best forgot. Best let rest for the sake of wife and children.... Paper can’t live here without my support. Can’t be done. Can’t conscientiously support a paper that stirs up things.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Fownes.”
“Goodness, no! Gracious, no! Just want to help.... Kind heart, Miss Lee. Always think of me as a kind heart. Love to do things for folks.... Love to do things foryou.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fownes. You hold a chattel mortgage on this plant.”
“Don’t think of it. Not a breath of worry—cancel it if you say so—cancel it this minute.”
“In consideration of what?”
“Why—you put it so sharplike, so direct. I wasn’t thinking of consideration. Just being friendly and helpful.... Public-spirited gift to Gibeon. Newspaper a wonderful benefit to a town—the right kind of a newspaper.”
“That’s it, of course. The right kind of a newspaper.
“Naturally you wouldn’t make so munificent a gift to the wrong kind of newspaper. Is this the right kind?”
“It always has been,” said Mr. Fownes.
“What made it the right kind?”
“Your uncle—the former proprietor—relied on my advice. Consulted with me daily.... During many years his paper made few mistakes.”
“So, if I consult with you—daily—and act upon your advice, I’m sure to have the right kind of a paper, too?... And in that case you would cancel the chattel mortgage?”
“To be sure—exactly.”
“But if, on the contrary, I should decide to run this paper myself, as I see fit, without taking advice from anybody, and printing what I think should be printed?”
Mr. Fownes pondered this briefly. “Then,” he said, “I should have to wait—and determine how sound your judgment is.... I fear your sympathies—natural sympathies for a young woman—sway you.... Er ... as in the instance of this young man. His letter was not kindly, not considerate. It hurt people’s feelings. Then, it appears, you have hired him.... I hope that step may be reconsidered.... Gibeon—found this young man unsatisfactory.”
“Would that have anything to do with—the chattel mortgage?”
“It might—it might.”
“My uncle always followed your advice?”
“Ah ... implicitly.”
“He did not grow rich,” said Carmel.
“He lived,” said Mr. Fownes, and blinked his little eyes as he turned his placid gaze full upon her.
“I think you have made yourself clear, Mr.Fownes. I shall think over what you have said—and you will know my decision.”
“Consider well—er—from all angles.... Mountain came to Mohammed....”
He commenced to warp himself away from the railing, and slowly, ponderously, testing the security of each foot before he trusted his weight to it, he moved toward the door. There he paused, turned his bulk, the whole of him, for it was quite impossible for him to turn his head without his shoulders going along with it, and smiled the most placid smile Carmel ever saw. “Er—I am a widower,” he said....
Carmel remained standing, her eyes following him as he turned up the street. “What’s underneath it all?” she said, aloud. “What’s it all about?”
Evan Pell turned in his chair and said, sharply, “Textbooks have this merit at least—they can instruct in the simplest rules of logic.”
“The fatuous idiot,” said Carmel.
“It must be a great satisfaction,” said Evan, dryly, “to understand human beings so thoroughly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was admiring,” said Evan, “the unerring certainty with which you arrived at Mr. Fownes’s true character.”
She peered at him, searching for a trace of irony, but his face was innocent, bland.
“Why does a wealthy man like Mr. Fownes—a powerful man—give a thought to so insignificant a thing as this paper?”
“An interesting speculation—provided your premises are true.”
“What premises?”
“Your major premise, so to speak—wealth.”
“Why, is he not rich?”
“All the indications bear you out.”
“He owns mills, and miles of timberland.”
“Um!... Am I to remain in your employ—or shall you accept the—advice—of Mr. Fownes?”
“This is my paper. So long as it is mine I’m going to try to run it. And if that man thinks he can threaten me with his old chattel mortgage, he’s going to wake up one bright morning to find his mistake. Maybe he can take this paper away from me, but until he does it’s mine.... You are working for me, Mr. Pell.”
“Very gratifying.... In which case, if you mean what you say, and if I, with so many years wasted upon books, as you say, may offer a word of advice, this would be it: Find out who owns the Lakeside Hotel.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Protracted study of the various sciences may be folly, but it does train the mind to correct observation and in the ability to arrange and classify the data observed. It teaches how to move from cause to effect. It teaches that things which equal the same thing are equal to each other.”
“What is the Lakeside Hotel?”
“A resort of sordid reputation some three miles from town.”
“And who owns it?”
“Jonathan Bangs, colloquially known as Peewee, is the reputed owner.”
“And what has that to do with Abner Fownes?”
“That,” he said, “is a matter which has aroused my curiosity for some time.”