Something New | Page 3

indulgent eye of understanding, that
it simply did not occur to him, when he abruptly twisted his body into
the shape of a corkscrew, in accordance with the directions in the
lieutenant's book for the consummation of Exercise One, that he was
doing anything funny.
And the behavior of those present seemed to justify his confidence. The
proprietor of the Hotel Mathis regarded him without a smile. The
proprietor of the Hotel Previtali might have been in a trance, for all the
interest he displayed. The hotel employees continued their tasks

impassively. The children were blind and dumb. The cat across the way
stropped its backbone against the railings unheeding.
But, even as he unscrambled himself and resumed a normal posture,
from his immediate rear there rent the quiet morning air a clear and
musical laugh. It floated out on the breeze and hit him like a bullet.
Three months ago Ashe would have accepted the laugh as inevitable,
and would have refused to allow it to embarrass him; but long
immunity from ridicule had sapped his resolution. He spun round with
a jump, flushed and self-conscious.
From the window of the first-floor front of Number Seven a girl was
leaning. The Spring sunshine played on her golden hair and lit up her
bright blue eyes, fixed on his flanneled and sweatered person with a
fascinated amusement. Even as he turned, the laugh smote him afresh.
For the space of perhaps two seconds they stared at each other, eye to
eye. Then she vanished into the room.
Ashe was beaten. Three months ago a million girls could have laughed
at his morning exercises without turning him from his purpose. Today
this one scoffer, alone and unaided, was sufficient for his undoing. The
depression which exercise had begun to dispel surged back on him. He
had no heart to continue. Sadly gathering up his belongings, he
returned to his room, and found a cold bath tame and uninspiring.
The breakfasts--included in the rent--provided by Mrs. Bell, the
landlady of Number Seven, were held by some authorities to be
specially designed to quell the spirits of their victims, should they tend
to soar excessively. By the time Ashe had done his best with the
disheveled fried egg, the chicory blasphemously called coffee, and the
charred bacon, misery had him firmly in its grip. And when he forced
himself to the table, and began to try to concoct the latest of the
adventures of Gridley Quayle, Investigator, his spirit groaned within
him.
This morning, as he sat and chewed his pen, his loathing for Gridley

seemed to have reached its climax. It was his habit, in writing these
stories, to think of a good title first, and then fit an adventure to it. And
overnight, in a moment of inspiration, he had jotted down on an
envelope the words: "The Adventure of the Wand of Death."
It was with the sullen repulsion of a vegetarian who finds a caterpillar
in his salad that he now sat glaring at them.
The title had seemed so promising overnight--so full of strenuous
possibilities. It was still speciously attractive; but now that the moment
had arrived for writing the story its flaws became manifest.
What was a wand of death? It sounded good; but, coming down to hard
facts, what was it? You cannot write a story about a wand of death
without knowing what a wand of death is; and, conversely, if you have
thought of such a splendid title you cannot jettison it offhand. Ashe
rumpled his hair and gnawed his pen.
There came a knock at the door.
Ashe spun round in his chair. This was the last straw! If he had told
Mrs. Ball once that he was never to be disturbed in the morning on any
pretext whatsoever, he had told her twenty times. It was simply too
infernal to be endured if his work time was to be cut into like this. Ashe
ran over in his mind a few opening remarks.
"Come in!" he shouted, and braced himself for battle.
A girl walked in--the girl of the first-floor front; the girl with the blue
eyes, who had laughed at his Larsen Exercises.
Various circumstances contributed to the poorness of the figure Ashe
cut in the opening moments of this interview. In the first place, he was
expecting to see his landlady, whose height was about four feet six, and
the sudden entry of somebody who was about five feet seven threw the
universe temporarily out of focus. In the second place, in anticipation
of Mrs. Bell's entry, he had twisted his face into a forbidding scowl,
and it was no slight matter to change this on the spur of the moment

into a pleasant smile. Finally, a man who has been sitting for