Young Peoples Pride | Page 4

at the Brevoort. They spend the rattling, tunnel-like passage to 125th Street catching their breath again, a breath that seems to strike a florid gentlemen in a dirty collar ahead of them with an expression of permanent, sorrowful hunger. Then Ted remarks reflectively,
"Nice gin."
"Uh-huh. Not floor varnish anyway like most of this prohibition stuff. What think of the people?"
"Interesting but hardly conclusive. Liked the Wilson lad. Peter, of course, and Johnny. The French person rather young Back Bay, don't you think?"
Oliver smiles. The two have been through Yale, some of the war and much of the peace together, and the fact has inevitably developed a certain quality of being able to talk to each other in shorthand.
"Well, Groton plus Harvard--it always gets a little inhuman especially Senior year--but gin had a civilizing influence. Lucky devil!"
"Why?"
"Baker's newest discovery--yes, it does sound like a patent medicine. Don't mean that, but he has a play on the road--sure-fire, Johnny says--Edward Sheldon stuff--Romance--"
"The Young Harvard Romantic. An Essay Presented to the Faculty of Yale University by Theodore Billett for the Degree of--"
"Heard anything about your novel, Oliver?"
"Going to see my pet Mammon of Unrighteousness about it in a couple of weeks. Oh _Lord!_"
"Present--not voting."
"Don't be cheap, Ted. If I could only make some money."
"Everybody says that there is money in advertising," Ted quotes maliciously. "Where have I heard that before?"
_"That's_ what anybody says about anything till they try it. Well, there is--but not in six months for a copy-writer at Vanamee and Co. Especially when the said copy-writer has to have enough to marry on." "And will write novels when he ought to be reading, 'How I Sold America on Ossified Oats' like a good little boy. Young people are so impatient."
"Well, good Lord, Ted, we've been engaged eight months already and we aren't getting any furtherer--"
"Remember the copybooks, my son. The love of a pure, good woman and the one-way pocket--that's what makes the millionaires. Besides, look at Isaac."
"Well, I'm no Isaac. And Nancy isn't Rebekah, praises be! But it is an--emotional strain. On both of us."
"Well, all you have to do is sell your serial rights. After that--pie."
"I know. The trouble is, I can see it so plain if everything happens right--and then--well--"
Ted is not very consoling.
"People get funny ideas about each other when they aren't close by. Even when they're in love," he says rather darkly; and then, for no apparent reason, "Poor Billy. See it?"
Oliver has, unfortunately--the announcement that the engagement between Miss Flavia Marston of Detroit and Mr. William Curting of New York has been broken by mutual consent was an inconspicuous little paragraph in the morning papers. "That was all--just funny ideas and being away. And then this homebred talent came along," Ted muses.
"Well, you're the hell of a--"
Ted suddenly jerks into consciousness of what he has been saying.
"Sorry" he says, completely apologetic, "didn't mean a word I said, just sorry for Billy, poor guy. 'Fraid it'll break him up pretty bad at first." This seems to make matters rather worse and he changes the subject abruptly. "How's Nancy?" he asks with what he hopes seems disconnected indifference.
"Nancy? All right. Hates St. Louis, of course."
"Should think she might, this summer. Pretty hot there, isn't it?"
"Says it's like a wet furnace. And her family's bothering her some."
"Um, too bad."
"Oh, I don't mind. But it's rotten for her. They don't see the point exactly--don't know that I blame them. She could be in Paris, now--that woman was ready to put up the money. My fault."
"Well, she seems to like things better the way they are--God knows why, my antic friend! If it were my question between you and a year studying abroad! Not that you haven't your own subtle attractions, Ollie." Ted has hoped to irritate Oliver into argument by the closing remark, but the latter only accepts it with militant gloom.
"Yes, I've done her out of that, too," he says abysmally, "as well as sticking her in St. Louis while I stay here and can't even drag down enough money to support her--"
"Oh, Ollie, snap out of it! That's only being dramatic. You know darn well you will darn soon. I'll be saying 'bless you, my children, increase and multiply,' inside a month if your novel goes through."
"If! Oh well. Oh hell. I think I've wept on your shoulder long enough for tonight, Ted. Tell me your end of it--things breaking all right?"
Ted's face sets into lines that seem curiously foreign and aged for the smooth surface.
"Well--you know my trouble," he brings out at last with some difficulty. "You ought to, anyhow--we've talked each other over too much when we were both rather planko for you not to. I'm getting along, I think. The work--ca marche assez bien. And the restlessness--can be stood. That's about all there is to