"Then you can take hold at once?"
"Yes."
"That"s good!" Witherby now entered at large into the nature of the position which he offered Bartley. They talked a long time, and in becoming better acquainted with each other"s views, as they called them, they became better friends. Bartley began to respect Witherby"s business ideas, and Witherby in recognizing all the admirable qualities of this clear-sighted and level-headed young man began to feel that he had secretly liked him from the first, and had only waited a suitable occasion to unmask his affection. It was arranged that Bartley should come on as Witherby"s a.s.sistant, and should do whatever he was asked to do in the management of the paper; he was to write on topics as they occurred to him, or as they were suggested to him. "I don"t say whether this will lead to anything more, Mr. Hubbard, or not; but I do say that you will be in the direct line of promotion."
"Yes, I understand that," said Bartley.
"And now as to terms," continued Witherby, a little tremulously.
"And now as to terms," repeated Bartley to himself; but he said nothing aloud. He felt that Witherby had cut out a great deal of work for him, and work of a kind that he could not easily find another man both willing and able to do. He resolved that he would have all that his service was worth.
"What should you think of twenty dollars a week?" asked Witherby.
"I shouldn"t think it was enough," said Bartley, amazed at his own audacity, but enjoying it, and thinking how he had left Marcia with the intention of offering himself to Mr. Atherton as a clerk for ten dollars a week. "There is a great deal of labor in what you propose, and you command my whole time. You would not like to have me do any work outside of the Events."
"No," Witherby a.s.sented. "Would twenty-five be nearer the mark?" he inquired soberly.
"It would be nearer, certainly," said Bartley. "But I guess you had better make it thirty." He kept a quiet face, but his heart throbbed.
"Well, say thirty, then," replied Witherby so promptly that Bartley perceived with a pang that he might as easily have got forty from him. But it was now too late, and a salary of fifteen hundred a year pa.s.sed the wildest hopes he had cherished half an hour before.
"All right," he said quietly. "I suppose you want me to take hold at once?"
"Yes, on Monday. Oh, by the way," said Witherby, "there is one little piece of outside work which I should like you to finish up for us; and we"ll agree upon something extra for it, if you wish. I mean our Solid Men series. I don"t know whether you"ve noticed the series in the Events?"
"Yes," said Bartley, "I have."
"Well, then, you know what they are. They consist of interviews--guarded and inoffensive as respects the sanct.i.ty of private life--with our leading manufacturers and merchant princes at their places of business and their residences, and include a description of these, and some account of the lives of the different subjects."
"Yes, I have seen them," said Bartley. "I"ve noticed the general plan."
"You know that Mr. Clayton has been doing them. He made them a popular feature. The parties themselves were very much pleased with them."
"Oh, people are always tickled to be interviewed," said Bartley. "I know they put on airs about it, and go round complaining to each other about the violation of confidence, and so on; but they all like it. You know I reported that Indigent Surf-Bathing entertainment in June for the Chronicle-Abstract. I knew the lady who got it up, and I interviewed her after the entertainment."
"Miss Kingsbury?"
"Yes." Witherby made an inarticulate murmur of respect for Bartley in his throat, and involuntarily changed toward him, but not so subtly that Bartley"s finer instinct did not take note of the change. "She was a fresh subject, and she told me everything. Of course I printed it all. She was awfully shocked,--or pretended to be,--and wrote me a very O-dear-how-could-you note about it. But I went round to the office the next day, and I found that nearly every lady mentioned in the interview had ordered half a dozen copies of that issue sent to her seaside address, and the office had been full of Beacon Street swells all the morning buying Chronicle-Abstracts,--"the one with the report of the Concert in it.""
These low views of high society, coupled with an apparent familiarity with it, modified Witherby more and more. He began to see that he had got a prize. "The way to do with such fellows as your Solid Men," continued Bartley, "is to submit a proof to "em. They never know exactly what to do about it, and so you print the interview with their approval, and make "em _particeps criminis_. I"ll finish up the series for you, and I won"t make any very heavy extra charge."
"I should wish to pay you whatever the work was worth," said Witherby, not to be outdone in n.o.bleness.
"All right; we sha"n"t quarrel about that, at any rate."
Bartley was getting toward the door, for he was eager to be gone now to Marcia, but Witherby followed him up as if willing to detain him. "My wife," he said, "knows Miss Kingsbury. They have been on the same charities together."
"I met her a good while ago, when I was visiting a chum of mine at his father"s house here. I didn"t suppose she"d know me; but she did at once, and began to ask me if I was at the Hallecks"--as if I had never gone away."
"Mr. Ezra B. Halleck?" inquired Witherby reverently. "Leather trade?"
"Yes," said Bartley. "I believe his first name was Ezra. Ben Halleck was my friend. Do you know the family?" asked Bartley.
"Yes, we have met them--in society. I hope you"re pleasantly situated where you are, Mr. Hubbard? Should be glad to have you call at the house."
"Thank you," said Bartley, "my wife will be glad to have Mrs. Witherby call."
"Oh!" cried Witherby. "I didn"t know you were married! That"s good! There"s nothing like marriage, Mr. Hubbard, to keep a man going in the right direction. But you"ve begun pretty young."
"Nothing like taking a thing in time," answered Bartley. "But I haven"t been married a great while; and I"m not so young as I look. Well, good afternoon, Mr. Witherby."
"_What_ did you say was your address?" asked Witherby, taking out his note-book. "My wife will certainly call. She"s down at Nantasket now, but she"ll be up the first part of September, and then she"ll call. _Good_ afternoon."
They shook hands at last, and Bartley ran home to Marcia. He burst into the room with a glowing face. "Well, Marcia," he shouted, "I"ve got my basis!"
"Hush! No! Don"t be so loud! You haven"t!" she answered, springing to her feet. "I don"t believe it! How hot you are!"
"I"ve been running--almost all the way from the Events office. I"ve got a place on the Events,--a.s.sistant managing-editor,--thirty dollars a week,"
he panted.
"I knew you would succeed yet,--I knew you would, if I could only have a little patience. I"ve been scolding myself ever since you went. I thought you were going to do something desperate, and I had driven you to it. But Bartley, Bartley! It can"t be true, is it? Here, here! Do take this fan. Or no, I"ll fan you, if you"ll let me sit on your knee! O poor thing, how hot you are! But I thought you wouldn"t white for the Events; I thought you hated that old Witherby, who acted so ugly to you when you first came."
"Oh, Witherby is a pretty good old fellow," said Bartley, who had begun to get his breath again. He gave her a full history of the affair, and they rejoiced together over it, and were as happy as if Bartley had been celebrating a high and honorable good fortune. She was too ignorant to feel the disgrace, if there were any, in the compact which Bartley had closed, and he had no principles, no traditions, by which to perceive it. To them it meant unlimited prosperity; it meant provision for the future, which was to bring a new responsibility and a new care.
"We will take the parlor with the alcove, now," said Bartley. "Don"t excite yourself," he added, with tender warning.
"No, no," she said, pillowing her head on his shoulder, and shedding peaceful tears.
"It doesn"t seem as if we should ever quarrel again, does it?"
"No, no! We never shall," she murmured. "It has always come from my worrying you about the law, and I shall never do that any more. If you like journalism better, I shall not urge you any more to leave it, now you"ve got your basis."
"But I"m going on with the law, now, for that very reason. I shall read law all my leisure time. I feel independent, and I shall not be anxious about the time I give, because I shall know that I can afford it."
"Well, only you mustn"t overdo." She put her lips against his cheek.
"You"re more to me than anything you can do for me."
"Oh, Marcia!"
XIX.
Now that Bartley had got his basis and had no favors to ask of any one, he was curious to see his friend Halleck again; but when, in the course of the Solid Men Series, he went to interview A Nestor of the Leather Interest, as he meant to call the elder Halleck, he resolved to let him make all the advances. On a legitimate business errand it should not matter to him whether Mr. Halleck welcomed him or not. The old man did not wait for Bartley to explain why he came; he was so simply glad to see him that Bartley felt a little ashamed to confess that he had been eight months in Boston without making himself known. He answered all the personal questions with which Mr. Halleck plied him; and in his turn he inquired after his college friend.
"Ben is in Europe," said his father. "He has been there all summer; but we expect him home about the middle of September. He"s been a good while settling down," continued the old man, with an unconscious sigh. "He talked of the law at first, and then he went into business with me; but he didn"t seem to find his calling in it; and now he"s taken up the law again. He"s been in the Law School at Cambridge, and he"s going back there for a year or two longer. I thought you used to talk of the law yourself when you were with us, Mr. Hubbard."
"Yes, I did," Bartley a.s.sented. "And I haven"t given up the notion yet.