Two hundred dollars for an article! Here indeed was fame! The author went home, and thought out another one, and after a week came up to the city with it.
In this new article Thyrsis cited a presidential candidate before the bar of public opinion, and propounded troublesome questions to him. Here was the capital of the country, heaping itself up at compound interest, and demanding dividends; here were the people, sc.r.a.ping and struggling to furnish the necessary profits. Would they always be able to furnish enough; and what would happen when they could no longer furnish them?
Here were franchises obtained by bribery, and capitalized for hundreds of millions of dollars; and these millions, too, were heaping up automatically. Were they to draw their interest and dividends forever?
Here were the machines of production, increasing by leaps and bounds, and the product increasing still faster, and all counting upon foreign markets. What would happen when j.a.pan had its own machines, and India had its own machines, and China had its own machines? Again, the processes of production were being perfected, and displacing men; here were panics and crises, displacing--yet more men. Already, in England, a good fourth of the population had been displaced; and what were these displaced populations to do? They had finished making over the earth for the capitalists; and now that the work was done, there seemed to be no longer any place on the earth for them!
Such were the problems of our time, according to Thyrsis; and why did the statesmen of the time have nothing to say about them? When this article had been read and discussed, young "Billy" Macintyre himself sent for Thyrsis. This was the "real thing", said he, with his genial _bonhomie_; the five hundred thousand subscribers of Macintyre"s must surely have these mirth-provoking meditations. Also, the editors themselves needed badly to be stirred up by such live ideas; therefore would Thyrsis come to dinner next Friday evening, and, as "Billy"
phrased it, "throw a little Socialism at them"?
Section 11. So Thyrsis moved one step higher yet up the ladder of success. The younger Macintyre occupied half a block of mansion up on Riverside Drive--just across the street from the town-house of Barry Creston"s father. Thyrsis found himself in an entrance-hall where wonderful pictures loomed vaguely in a dim, religious light; and a silent footman took his cap, and then escorted him by a soft, plush-covered stairway to the apartments of "Billy", who was being helped into a dress-suit by his valet. Thyrsis, alas, had no dress-suit, and no valet to help him into it, but he sat on the edge of a big leather chair and proceeded to "throw a little Socialism" at his host.
Then they went down stairs, and there were Morris and Hemingway, of the editorial staff, and "Buddie" Comings, most popular of novelists, and "Bob" Desmond, most famous of ill.u.s.trators. And a little later on came Macintyre the elder, who had also been judged to stand in need of some Socialism.
Macintyre the elder was white-haired and rosy-cheeked. He had begun life as an emigrant-boy, running errands for a book-shop. In course of time he had become a partner, and then had started a cheap magazine for the printing of advertis.e.m.e.nts. From this had come the reprinting of cheap books for premiums; until now, after forty years, Macintyre"s was one of the leading publishing-concerns of the country. Recently the important discovery had been made that the printing of half-inch advertis.e.m.e.nts headed "FITS" and "OBESITY" prevented the securing of full-page advertis.e.m.e.nts about automobiles. The former kind was therefore being diverted to the religious papers of the country, whose subscribers were now getting the "blood of the lamb" diluted with twenty-five per cent.
alcohol and one and three-fourths per cent. opium. But such facts were not allowed to interfere with the optimistic philosophy of "Macintyre"s Monthly".
The elder Macintyre seemed to Thyrsis the most nave and lovable old soul he had encountered in many a year. When he espied Thyrsis, he waited for no preliminaries, but went up to him as he stood by the fire-place, and put an arm about him, and led him off to a seat by the window. "I want to talk to you," said he.
"My boy," he went on, "I read that article of yours."
"Which one?" asked Thyrsis.
"The last one. And you know, Billy"s got to stop putting things like that in the magazine!"
"What!" cried Thyrsis, alarmed.
"I won"t have it! He must not print that article!"
"But he"s accepted it!"
"I know. But he should have consulted me."
"But--but I wrote it at his order. And he promised to pay me--"
"Oh, that"s all right," said the old gentleman, with a genial smile.
"We"ll pay for it, of course."
There was a moment"s pause, while Thyrsis caught his breath.
"My boy," continued the other, "that"s a terrible article!"
"Um," said the author--"possibly."
"Why do you write such things?"
"But isn"t it true, sir?"
Mr. Macintyre pondered. "You know," he said, "I think you are a very clever fellow, and you know a lot; much more than I do, I"ve no doubt.
But what I don"t understand is, why don"t you put it into a book?"
"Into a book?" echoed Thyrsis, perplexed.
"Yes," explained the other--"then it won"t hurt anybody but yourself.
Why should you try to get it into my magazine, and scare away my half-million subscribers?"
Section 12. They went in to dinner, which was served upon silver-plate, by the light of softly-shaded candles; and while the velvet-footed waiters caused their food to appear and disappear by magic, Thyrsis fulfilled his mission and "threw Socialism" at the company.
The company had its guns loaded, and they went at it hot and heavy.
The editors wanted to know about "the home" under Socialism; to which Thyrsis made retort by picturing "the home" under capitalism. They wanted to know about liberty and individuality under Socialism; and so Thyrsis discussed the liberty and individuality of the hundred thousand wage-slaves of the Steel Trust. They sought to tangle him in discussions as to the desirability of compet.i.tion, and the impossibility of escaping it; but Thyrsis would bring them back again and again to the central fact of exploitation, which was the one fact that counted. They insisted upon knowing how this, that, and the other thing would be done in the Cooperative Commonwealth; to which Thyrsis answered, "Do you ask for a map of heaven before you join the Church?"
It was "Billy" Macintyre who brought up a somewhat delicate question; how would such an inst.i.tution as "Macintyre"s Monthly" be run under Socialism? Thyrsis replied by quoting Kautsky"s formula: "Communism in material production, Anarchism in intellectual". He showed how the state might print and bind and distribute, while men in "free a.s.sociations"
might edit and publish. But one could not get very far in this exposition, because of the excitement of the elder Macintyre. For the old gentleman was like a small boy who is being robbed of his marbles; if there had been a mob outside his publishing-house, he could not have been more agitated. He took occasion to state, with the utmost solemnity, that he disapproved of such discussions; and "Billy", who sat between him and Thyrsis, had to interfere now and then and soothe the "pater" down.
Mr. Macintyre"s views on the subject of capitalism were simple and easy to understand. There could be nothing really wrong with a system which had brought so many great and good men into control of the country"s affairs. Mr. Macintyre knew this, because he had played golf with them all and gone yachting with them all. And this was a perfectly genuine conviction; if there had been the slightest touch of sham in it, the old gentleman would have been more cautious in the examples he chose.
He would name man after man who was among the most notorious of the country"s "malefactors of great wealth"--men whose financial crimes had been proven beyond any possibility of doubting. He would name them in a voice overflowing with affection and admiration, as benefactors of humanity upon a cosmic scale; and of course that would end the argument in a gale of laughter. When the elder Macintyre entered the discussion, all the rest of the company moved forthwith to Thyrsis" side, and there were six Socialists confronting one business-man. And this was a very puzzling and alarming thing to the old gentleman--his son and his magazine were getting away from him, and he did not know what to make of the phenomenon!
Section 13. Thyrsis judged that the tidings must have got about that there was a new "lion" in town; for a couple of days after this he was called up by Comings, most popular of novelists, who asked him to have luncheon at the "Thistle" club. And when Thyrsis went, Comings explained that Mrs. Parmley Fatten had read his book, and was anxious to meet him, and requested that he be brought round to tea. The other was tactless enough to let it transpire that he knew nothing about Mrs. Patton; but Comings was too tactful to show his surprise. Mrs. Patton, he explained, was socially prominent--was looked upon as the leader of a set that went in for intellectual things. She was interested in social reform and woman"s suffrage, and was worth helping along; and besides that, she was a charming woman--Thyrsis would surely find the adventure worth while.
Then suddenly, while he was listening, it flashed over Thyrsis that he _had_ heard of Mrs. Patton before; the lady was in mourning for her brother, and Corydon had recently handed him a "society" item, which told of some unique and striking "mourning-hosiery" which she was introducing from Paris.
Thyrsis in former days might have been shy of this phenomenon; but at present he was a collecting economist on the look-out for specimens, and so he said he would go. He met Comings again at five o"clock, and they strolled out Fifth Avenue together to Mrs. Patton"s brown-stone palace.
Thyrsis observed that his friend had been considerate enough to omit his afternoon change of costume, and for this he was grateful.
Mrs. Patton was still in mourning, a filmy and diaphanous kind of mourning, beautiful enough to placate the angel Azrael himself. A filmy and diaphanous creature was Mrs. Patton also--one could never have dreamed of so exquisite a black b.u.t.terfly. She was very sweet and sympathetic, and told Thyrsis how much she had liked his book--so that Thyrsis concluded she was not half so bad as he had expected. After all, she might not have been to blame for the hosiery story--it might even have been a lie. He reflected that the yellow journals no doubt lied as freely about young leaders of intellectual sets in "society" as they did about starving authors.
Mrs. Patton wanted to know about Socialism, and sighed because it seemed so far away. She made several remarks that showed real intelligence--and this was startling to Thyrsis, who would as soon have expected intelligence from a real b.u.t.terfly. He got a strange impression of a personality struggling to get into contact with life from behind a wall some ten million dollars high. Mrs. Patton had three young children, and her husband was one of the "Standard Oil crowd"; she complained to Thyrsis that "Parmy"--so she referred to the gentleman--was always in terror over her vagaries.
It was a new discovery to the author that the very rich might live under the shadow of fear, quite as much as the very poor. Their wealth made them a target for newspaper satire, so that they dared not depart from convention in the slightest detail. Mrs. Patton told how once she had ventured to romp for a few minutes with some children on the grounds of the "Casino", and the next day all the world had read that she was introducing "tag" as a diversion for the Newport colony.
There came other callers, both women and men; Percy Ambler, man of fashion and dilettante poet; and with him little Murray Symington, who wrote the literary chat for "Knickerbocker"s Weekly", and was therefore a power to be propitiated. There came Blanchard, the young and progressive publisher of the "Beau Monde", a weekly whose circulation rivalled that of "Macintyre"s". There came also young Macklin, Mrs.
Patton"s nephew, with his monocle and his killing drawl. Macklin came by these honestly, having been brought up in England; but Thyrsis did not know that--he only heard the young gentleman"s pa.s.sing reference to his yacht, and to his pa.s.sion for the poetry of Stephane Mallarme; and so he had it in for Macklin. Thyrsis had got involved in a serious discussion with Mrs. Patton and Symington, and was in the act of saying that the social problem could not be much longer left unsolved; and then he chanced to turn, and discovered young Macklin, surveying him with elaborate superciliousness, and asking with his British drawl, "Aw--I beg pawdon--but what do you mean by the social problem?" And Thyrsis, with a quick glance at him, answered, "I mean you." So Macklin subsided; and Thyrsis learned afterwards that his remark was going the rounds, being considered to be a _mot_. It appeared the next week in the columns of a paper devoted to "society" gossip; and many a literary reputation had been made by a lesser triumph than that.
Thyrsis got new light upon the making of reputations, when he looked into the next issue of "Knickerbocker"s Weekly". There he found that Murray Symington had devoted no less than three paragraphs to his personality and his book. It was all "sprightly"--that was Murray"s tone--but also it was cordial; and it referred to Thyrsis" earlier novel, "The Hearer of Truth", as "that brilliant piece of work". Thyrsis read this with consternation--recalling that when the book had come out, not two years ago, "Knickerbocker"s Weekly" had referred to it as a "preposterous concoction". Could it be true that an author"s work was "preposterous" while he was starving in a garret, and became "brilliant"
when he was found in the drawing-room of Mrs. "Parmy" Patton?
Section 14. Thyrsis went on to penetrate yet deeper into these mysteries; there came a call from Murray Symington, to say that Mrs.
Jesse Dyckman wanted him to dinner. Jesse Dyckman he recognized as the name of one of the most popular contributors to the magazines--his short stories of Fifth Avenue life were the delight of the readers of the "Beau Monde".
"But I can"t go to dinner-parties with women!" protested Thyrsis. "I don"t dress!"
Murray took that message; but in a few minutes he called up again. "She says she doesn"t care whether you dress or not."
"But then, I don"t _eat!_" protested Thyrsis, who had recently discovered Horace Fletcher.
"I know _that_ won"t count," said the other, laughing. "She doesn"t want you to eat--she wants you to talk."
Mrs. Jesse Dyckman inhabited an apartment in a "studio-building" not far from Central Park; and here was more luxury and charm--a dining-room done in dark red, with furniture of some black wood, and candles and silver and cut gla.s.s, quite after the fashion of the Macintyres. Thyrsis was admitted by a French maid-servant; and there was Mrs. Dyckman, resplendent in white shoulders and a necklace of pearls; and there was Dyckman himself, even more prosperous and contented-looking than his pictures, and even more brilliant and cynical than his tales. Also there was his sister, Mrs. Partridge, the writer of musical comedies; and a Miss Taylor, who filled the odd corners of the magazines with verses, which Corydon had once described as "cheap cheer-up stuff".
So here was the cream of the "literary world"; and Thyrsis, as he watched and listened to it, was working out the formula of magazine success. Mrs. Dyckman sat next to him, displaying her shoulders and her culture; it seemed to him that she must have spent all her spare time picking up phrases about the books and pictures and plays and music of the hour, so as to be ready for possible mention of them at her dinner-parties. She had opinions on tap about everything; opinions just enough "advanced" to be striking and original, and yet not too far "advanced" for good form. Jesse Dyckman"s short stories were the sort in which you read how the hero handled his cigarette, and were told that the heroine was clad in "dimity _en princesse"_. You learned the names of the latest fashionable drinks, and the technicalities of automobiles, and met with references to far-off and intricate standards of social excellence.
To Thyrsis it appeared that he could see before him the whole career of such a man. He had trained himself by years of apprenticeship in sn.o.bbery; he had studied the fashions not only in costume and manners, but also in books and opinions. He had been educated in a "fraternity", and had chosen a wife who had been educated in a "sorority"; they had set up in this apartment, with silver service and three French servants, and proceeded to give dinners, and cultivate people who "counted." And so had come the pleasant berth with the "Beau Monde"; one or two stories every month, and one thousand dollars for each story--as one might read in all newspaper accounts of the "earnings of authors".