"It seems incredible," exclaimed George Z. Green, "that you could have become so famous! You never displayed any remarkable ability in school."
"I never displayed any ability at all. But you did," said Williams admiringly. "How beautifully you used to write your name on the blackboard! How neat and scholarly you were in everything."
"I know it," said Green gloomily. "And _you_ flunked in almost everything."
"In everything," admitted Williams, deeply mortified.
"And yet," said Green, "here we are at thirty odd; and I"m merely a broker, and--_look_ what _you_ are! Why, I can"t go anywhere but I find one of your novels staring me in the face. I"ve been in Borneo: they"re there! They"re in Australia and China and Patagonia. Why the devil do you suppose people buy the stories you write?"
"I"m sure I don"t know," said Williams modestly.
"I don"t know either, though I read them myself sometimes--I don"t know why. They"re all very well in their way--if you care for that sort of book--but the things you tell about, Williams, never could have happened. I"m not knocking you; I"m a realist, that"s all. And when I read a short story by you in which a young man sees a pretty girl, and begins to talk to her without being introduced to her, and then marries her before luncheon--and finds he"s married a Balkan Princess--good-night! I just wonder why people stand for your books; that"s all."
"So do I," said Williams, much embarra.s.sed. "I wouldn"t stand for them myself."
"Why," continued Green warmly, "I read a story of yours in some magazine the other day, in which a young man sees a pretty girl for the first time in his life and is married to her inside of three quarters of an hour! And I ask _you_, Williams, how you would feel after spending fifteen cents on such a story?"
"I"m terribly sorry, old man," murmured Williams. "Here"s your fifteen--if you like----"
"Dammit," said Green indignantly, "it isn"t that they"re not readable stories! I had fifteen cents" worth all right. But it makes a man sore to see what happens to the young men in your stories--and all the queens they collect--and then to go about town and never see anything of that sort!"
"There are millions of pretty girls in town," ventured Williams. "I don"t think I exaggerate in that respect."
"But they"d call an officer if young men in real life behaved as they do in your stories. As a matter of fact and record, there"s no more romance in New York than there is in the annual meeting of the British Academy of Ancient a.s.syrian Inscriptions. And you know it, Williams!"
"I think it depends on the individual man," said Williams timidly.
"How?"
"If there"s any romance in a man himself, he"s apt to find the world rather full of it."
"Do you mean to say there isn"t any romance in me?" demanded George Z.
Green hotly.
"I don"t know, George. Is there?"
"Plenty. Pl-en-ty! I"m always looking for romance. I look for it when I go down town to business; I look for it when I go home. Do I find it?
No! Nothing ever happens to me. Nothing beautiful and wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice ever tries to pick me up. Explain _that_!"
Williams, much abashed, ventured no explanation.
"And to think," continued Green, "that you, my old school friend, should become a celebrity merely by writing such stories! Why, you"re as celebrated as any brand of breakfast food!"
"You don"t have to read my books, you know," protested Williams mildly.
"I don"t have to--I know it. But I do. Everybody does. And n.o.body knows why. So, meeting you again after all these unromantic years, I thought I"d just ask you whether by any chance you happen to know of any particular section of the city where a plain, everyday broker might make a hit with the sort of girl you write about. Do you?"
"Any section of this city is romantic enough--if you only approach it in the proper spirit," a.s.serted Williams.
"You mean if my att.i.tude toward romance is correct I"m likely to encounter it almost anywhere?"
"That is my theory," admitted Williams bashfully.
"Oh! Well, what _is_ the proper att.i.tude? Take me, for example. I"ve just been to the bank. I carry, at this moment, rather a large sum of money in my inside overcoat pocket. My purpose in drawing it was to blow it. Now, tell me how to blow it romantically."
"How can I tell you such a thing, George----"
"It"s your business. You tell people such things in books. Now, tell me, face to face, man to man, how to get thoroughly mixed up in the sort of romance you write--the kind of romance that has made William McWilliam Williams famous!"
"I"m sorry----"
"What! You won"t! You admit that what you write is bunk? You confess that you don"t know where there are any stray queens with whom I might become happily entangled within the next fifteen minutes?"
"I admit no such thing," said Williams with dignity. "If your att.i.tude is correct, in ten minutes you can be up against anything on earth!"
"Where?"
"Anywhere!"
"Very well! Here we are on Madison Square. There"s Admiral Farragut; there"s the Marble Tower. Do you mean that if I walk from this spot for ten minutes--no matter in what direction--I"ll walk straight into Romance up to my neck?"
"If your att.i.tude is correct, yes. But you"ve got to know the elements of Romance when you see them."
"What are the elements of Romance? What do they resemble?" demanded George Z. Green.
Williams said, in a low, impressive voice:
"Anything that seems to you unusual is very likely to be an element in a possible romance. If you see anything extraordinary during the next ten minutes, follow it up. And ninety-nine chances in a hundred it will lead you into complications. Interfering with other people"s business usually does," he added pleasantly.
"But," said Green, "suppose during the next ten minutes, or twenty minutes, or the next twenty-four hours I _don"t_ see anything unusual."
"It will be your own fault if you don"t. The Unusual is occurring all about us, every second. A trained eye can always see it."
"But suppose the Unusual doesn"t occur for the next ten minutes,"
insisted Green, exasperated. "Suppose the Unusual is taking a vacation?
It would be just my luck."
"Then," said Williams, "you will have to imagine that everything you see is unusual. Or else," he added blandly, "you yourself will have to start something. _That_ is where the creative mind comes in. When there"s nothing doing it starts something."
"Does it ever get arrested?" inquired Green ironically. "The creative mind! Sure! _That"s_ where all this bally romance is!--in the creative mind. I knew it. Good-bye."
They shook hands; Williams went down town.
XXII