CHAPTER XXIX

A MAN OF LETTERS

The Macochee gossips, after they were assured he was engaged in clerical, and not manual work, might have promoted Marley much more rapidly than his railroad would have done, had it not been for the news that he had changed his employment. They had gone far enough to noise it about that Marley was chief clerk in the office, where he was only a bill clerk, when the _Republican_, with the impartial good nature with which it treated all of Macochee's folk, so long as they kept out of politics, mentioned him for the first time since his departure, and then, to tell of the advancement he was rapidly making in the metropolis that loomed so large and important in their provincial eyes. Lavinia had the facts in a letter from Marley a day or so before the _Republican_ had them, though she never could imagine, as she told everybody, where the _Republican_ got its information.

"I have a big piece of news to tell you," he wrote. "Last night I dined with Weston. It was the first really enjoyable evening I have had since I struck the town. Luckily, the strikers had everything tied up so tight that we could do little work, and I had no trouble in getting off in time. I met him about six o'clock, and we went to the swellest restaurant in town. Weston is the finest fellow you ever saw; as it was pay night, he said he would blow me off to a good dinner. And he did, the best dinner I have ever eaten; there were half a dozen courses, and as we ate we talked, talked about everything, college days, the hard days that come after college, and you, and everything. Weston's experience has been about the same as mine--one long, hopeless search for a job. He, however, did not wait so long as I did; he said that he realized there was no place for him in a small town, and so he set out for the city almost at once. His father wanted him to study medicine, but he said he hadn't the money or the patience to wait, and he hated medicine anyway, and, as newspaper work offered the quickest channel to making a living he chose that. His secret ambition, he confessed, is literature, and I believe he is writing a book, but he would not, or did not, tell me as much. He says he thinks newspaper work a bad business for any one to get into, but then I have discovered that that is the way every man talks about his own calling.

"After we had finished our dinner, we sat there for a long, long time over our coffee and cigarettes, and we finally got to talking about the strike. Weston, you know, has been working on it, and I was glad to be able to tell him a good many things he said he could use. Finally, I don't know just how it came about, but I told him how the strike started with us, about the man appearing in the street alongside the freight house, whistling, and then holding up two fingers--I think I described it to you in a letter the other night. Weston was greatly interested; I can see him still, sitting across the table from me, knocking the ashes from his cigarette into his empty coffee-cup and looking so intently at me out of his brown eyes that he almost embarrassed me. And what was my surprise when I finished to have him say:

"'By Jove, Marley, I'll have to use that. I've been wondering how to lead my story to-night.'

"Now you know the strike at our place occurred several days ago, but since then it has been spreading, and to-day the men on another road walked out. This morning when I picked up the _Courier_ and turned to the strike news, here is what I read, under big head-lines:

"'A short man with a brown derby hat cocked over his eye walked leisurely down Canal Street at ten o'clock yesterday morning. The short man walked a block and then turned and walked back. At the open door of the C. and A.'s big freight house he stopped. Suddenly he whistled, once, twice, thrice, in low notes. Then he raised his hand with a gesture that was graceful and yet commanding, and held up two fingers. Inside the freight house the men who were heaving away at the big bales and boxes, attracted by the whistle, paused in their labor and looked up; they saw the man raise his two fingers; and, with the discipline of well-trained troops, they dropped their trucks, put on their coats and marched out of the freight house. And the Alton had been added to the list of railroads whose men were on strike.'

"Of course, I was surprised and puzzled, and a little pleased too, that I had had a hand in the article. As I read it, though, I thought of a hundred details I might have told Weston, and I began to wish I had written the account myself. This afternoon he came around to the office again, and the first thing he said was:

"'Did you see your story this morning?'

"I told him I had, of course. 'But,' I added, 'that was the way it happened on our road; not on the Alton.'

"But he only laughed, and said something about the tricks of the trade.

"And now for the news I was going to tell you. I told Weston, as we talked the story over, of my little wish that I had written the article myself, and he looked at me intently for a moment. Then he said:

"'How'd you like to break into newspaper business?'

"My heart leaped; it came to me suddenly that it wasn't the law, nor railroad work, but journalism that I wanted to enter. I told him so frankly and he said:

"'Well, it's a dog's life and I don't know whether I'm doing you a good turn or not, but I'll speak to the city editor tonight. He's a little short of men just now.

"My heart is in my mouth. I can hardly wait till to-morrow, when I'm to see him again. Think of it, dear, and all it means! It means more money, association with men of my own kind, men like Weston, and a fine, interesting life; and it means you; oh, it means you!"

Marley was able in this letter to communicate to Lavinia some of his enthusiasm and some of his suspense, and she found it difficult to await the result of his next interview with Weston. She began to count the hours until Marley and Weston should meet again, and then in a flash it came over her that they had doubtless already met, that the decision was already known, the fate determined, and she was still in ignorance. She had a sense of mystery in it, and she grew impatient, wondering why he did not telegraph. The next day came, and a letter with it; but the