While Editor Westbrook was sauntering between the rows of park benches (already filling with vagrants and the guardians of lawless childhood) he felt his sleeve grasped and held. Suspecting that he was about to be panhandled, he turned a cold and unprofitable face, and saw that his captor was Dawe Shackleford Dawe, dingy, almost ragged, the genteel scarcely visible in him through the deeper lines of the shabby.
While the editor is pulling himself out of his surprise, a flashlight biography of Dawe is offered.
He was a fiction writer, and one of Westbrooks old acquaintances. At one time they might have called each other old friends. Dawe had some money in those days, and lived in a decent apartment house near Westbrooks. The two families often went to theatres and dinners together. Mrs. Dawe and Mrs. Westbrook became dearest friends. Then one day a little tentacle of the octopus, just to amuse itself, ingurgitated Dawes capital, and he moved to the Gramercy Park neighborhood where one, for a few groats per week, may sit upon ones trunk under eight-branched chandeliers and opposite Carrara[175] marble mantels and watch the mice play upon the floor. Dawe thought to live by writing fiction. Now and then he sold a story. He submitted many to Westbrook. The Minerva printed one or two of them; the rest were returned. Westbrook sent a careful and conscientious personal letter with each rejected manuscript, pointing out in detail his reasons for considering it unavailable. Editor Westbrook had his own clear conception of what constituted good fiction. So had Dawe. Mrs. Dawe was mainly concerned about the constituents of the scanty dishes of food that she managed to scrape together. One day Dawe had been spouting to her about the excellencies of certain French writers. At dinner they sat down to a dish that a hungry schoolboy could have encompassed at a gulp. Dawe commented.
Its Maupassant[176] hash, said Mrs. Dawe. It may not be art, but I do wish you would do a five-course Marion Crawford[177] serial with an Ella Wheeler Wilcox[178] sonnet for dessert. Im hungry.
As far as this from success was Shackleford Dawe when he plucked Editor Westbrooks sleeve in Madison Square. That was the first time the editor had seen Dawe in several months.
Why, Shack, is this you? said Westbrook, somewhat awkwardly, for the form of his phrase seemed to touch upon the others changed appearance.
Sit down for a minute, said Dawe, tugging at his sleeve. This is my office. I cant come to yours, looking as I do. Oh, sit down you wont be disgraced. Those half-plucked birds on the other benches will take you for a swell porch-climber. They wont know you are only an editor.
Smoke, Shack? said Editor Westbrook, sinking cautiously upon the virulent green bench. He always yielded gracefully when he did yield.
Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sun-perch, or a girl pecks at a chocolate cream.
I have just began the editor.
Oh, I know; dont finish, said Dawe. Give me a match. You have just ten minutes to spare. How did you manage to get past my office-boy and invade my sanctum? There he goes now, throwing his club at a dog that couldnt read the Keep off the Grass signs.
How goes the writing? asked the editor.
Look at me, said Dawe, for your answer. Now dont put on that embarrassed, friendly-but-honest look and ask me why I dont get a job as a wine agent or a cab driver. Im in the fight to a finish. I know I can write good fiction and Ill force you fellows to admit it yet. Ill make you change the spelling of regrets to c-h-e-q-u-e before Im done with you.
Editor Westbrook gazed through his nose-glasses with a sweetly sorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression the copyrighted expression of the editor beleagured by the unavailable contributor.
Have you read the last story I sent you The Alarum of the Soul? asked Dawe.
Carefully. I hesitated over that story, Shack, really I did. It had some good points. I was writing you a letter to send with it when it goes back to you. I regret
Never mind the regrets, said Dawe, grimly. Theres neither salve nor sting in em any more. What I want to know is why. Come now; out with the good points first.
The story, said Westbrook, deliberately, after a suppressed sigh, is written around an almost original plot. Characterization the best you have done. Construction almost as good, except for a few weak joints which might be strengthened by a few changes and touches. It was a good story, except
I can write English, cant I? interrupted Dawe.
I have always told you, said the editor, that you had a style.
Then the trouble is
Same old thing, said Editor Westbrook. You work up to your climax like an artist. And then you turn yourself into a photographer. I dont know what form of obstinate madness possesses you, but that is what you do with everything that you write. No, I will retract the comparison with the photographer. Now and then photography, in spite of its impossible perspective, manages to record a fleeting glimpse of truth. But you spoil every denouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of your brush that I have so often complained of. If you would rise to the literary pinnacle of your dramatic senses, and paint them in the high colors that art requires, the postman would leave fewer bulky, self-addressed envelopes at your door.