The Man Who Could Not Lose | Page 7

The alternative was equally
distasteful.
Carter had struggled earnestly to find a job. But his inexperience and
the season of the year were against him. No newspaper wanted a
dramatic critic when the only shows in town had been running three
months, and on roof gardens; nor did they want a "cub" reporter when
veterans were being "laid off" by the dozens. Nor were his services
desired as a private secretary, a taxicab driver, an agent to sell real
estate or automobiles or stocks. As no one gave him a chance to prove
his unfitness for any of these callings, the fact that he knew nothing of
any of them did not greatly matter. At these rebuffs Dolly was
distinctly pleased. She argued they proved he was intended to pursue
his natural career as an author.
That their friends might know they were poor did not affect her, but she
did not want them to think by his taking up any outside "job" that they
were poor because as a literary genius he was a failure. She believed in
his stories. She wanted every one else to believe in them. Meanwhile,
she assisted him in so far as she could by pawning the contents of five
of the seven trunks, by learning to cook on a " Kitchenette," and to
laundry her handkerchiefs and iron them on the looking-glass.
They faced each other across the breakfast-table. It was only nine

o'clock, but the sun beat into the flat with the breath of a furnace, and
the air was foul and humid.
"I tell you," Carter was saying fiercely, "you look ill. You are ill. You
must go to the sea-shore. You must visit some of your proud, friends at
East Hampton or Newport. Then I'll know you're happy and I won't
worry, and I'll find a job. I don't mind the heat-and I'll write you love
letters"--he was talking very fast and not looking at Dolly--"like those I
used to write you, before----"
Dolly raised her hand. "Listen!" she said. "Suppose I leave you. What
will happen? I'll wake up in a cool, beautiful brass bed, won't I--with
cretonne window-curtains, and salt air blowing them about, and a maid
to bring me coffee. And instead of a bathroom like yours, next to an
elevator shaft and a fire-escape, I'll have one as big as a church, and the
whole blue ocean to swim in. And I'll sit on the rocks in the sunshine
and watch the waves and the yachts--"
"And grow well again!" cried Carter. "But you'll write to me," he added
wistfully, "every day, won't you?"
In her wrath, Dolly rose, and from across the table confronted him.
"And what will I be doing on those rocks?" she cried. "You KNOW
what I'll be doing! I'll be sobbing, and sobbing, and calling out to the
waves: 'Why did he send me away? Why doesn't he want me? Because
he doesn't love me. That's why! He doesn't LOVE me!' And you
DON'T!" cried Dolly. "you DON'T!"
It took him all of three minutes to persuade her she was mistaken.
"Very well, then," sobbed Dolly, "that's settled. And there'll be no more
talk of sending me away!
"There will NOT!" said Champneys hastily. "We will now," he
announced, "go into committee of the whole and decide how we are to
face financial failure. Our assets consist of two stories, accepted, but
not paid for, and fifteen stories not accepted. In cash, he spread upon

the table a meagre collection of soiled bills and coins. "We have
twenty-seven dollars and fourteen cents. That is every penny we
possess in the world."
Dolly regarded him fixedly and shook her head.
"Is it wicked," she asked, "to love you so?"
"Haven't you been listening to me?" demanded Carter.
Again Dolly shook her head.
"I was watching the way you talk. When your lips move fast they do
such charming things."
"Do you know," roared Carter, "that we haven't a penny in the world,
that we have nothing in this flat to eat?"
"I still have five hats," said Dolly.
"We can't eat hats," protested Champneys.
"We can sell hats!" returned Dolly. "They cost eighty dollars apiece!"
"When you need money," explained Carter, "I find it's just as hard to
sell a hat as to eat it."
"Twenty-seven dollars and fourteen cents," repeated Dolly. She
exclaimed remorsefully: "And you started with three thousand! What
did I do with it?"
"We both had the time of our lives with it!" said Carter stoutly. "And
that's all there is to that. Post-mortems," he pointed out, "are useful only
as guides to the future, and as our future will never hold a second three
thousand dollars, we needn't worry about how we spent the first one.
No! What we