"All I ask you is to admit that I saw what would happen," he said with a touch of professional pride. "I knew you"d struck the right note--I knew they"d be quoting you from Maine to San Francisco. Good as fiction? It"s better--it"ll keep going longer."
"Will it?" said the Professor with a slight shudder. He was resigned to an ephemeral triumph, but the thought of the book"s persistency frightened him.
"I should say so! Why, you fit in everywhere--science, theology, natural history--and then the all-for-the-best element which is so popular just now. Why, you come right in with the How-to-Relax series, and they sell way up in the millions. And then the book"s so full of tenderness--there are such lovely things in it about flowers and children. I didn"t know an old Dryasdust like you could have such a lot of sentiment in him. Why, I actually caught myself snivelling over that pa.s.sage about the snowdrops piercing the frozen earth; and my wife was saying the other day that, since she"s read "The Vital Thing," she begins to think you must write the "What-Cheer Column," in the _Inglenook."_ He threw back his head with a laugh which ended in the inspired cry: "And, by George, sir, when the thing begins to slow off we"ll start somebody writing against it, and that will run us straight into another hundred thousand."
And as earnest of this belief he drew the Professor a supplementary cheque.
V
Mrs. Linyard"s knock cut short the importunities of the lady who had been trying to persuade the Professor to be taken by flashlight at his study table for the Christmas number of the _Inglenook_. On this point the Professor had fancied himself impregnable; but the unwonted smile with which he welcomed his wife"s intrusion showed that his defences were weakening.
The lady from the _Inglenook_ took the hint with professional promptness, but said brightly, as she snapped the elastic around her note-book: "I shan"t let you forget me, Professor."
The groan with which he followed her retreat was interrupted by his wife"s question: "Do they pay you for these interviews, Samuel?"
The Professor looked at her with sudden attention. "Not directly," he said, wondering at her expression.
She sank down with a sigh. "Indirectly, then?"
"What is the matter, my dear? I gave you Harviss"s second cheque the other day--"
Her tears arrested him. "Don"t be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really believe your success has turned his head."
"The boy--what boy? My success--? Explain yourself, Susan!"
"It"s only that Jack has--has borrowed some money--which he can"t repay. But you mustn"t think him altogether to blame, Samuel. Since the success of your book he has been asked about so much--it"s given the children quite a different position. Millicent says that wherever they go the first question asked is, "Are you any relation of the author of "The Vital Thing"?" Of course we"re all very proud of the book; but it entails obligations which you may not have thought of in writing it."
The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on the study-table which he had just successfully defended from the camera of the _Inglenook_. He took up an envelope bearing the name of a popular weekly paper.
"I don"t know that the _Inglenook_ would help much," he said, "but I suppose this might."
Mrs. Linyard"s eyes glowed with maternal avidity.
"What is it, Samuel?"
"A series of "Scientific Sermons" for the Round-the-Gas-Log column of _The Woman"s World_. I believe that journal has a larger circulation than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion."
He had not even asked the extent of Jack"s indebtedness. It had been so easy to relieve recent domestic difficulties by the timely production of Harviss"s two cheques, that it now seemed natural to get Mrs.
Linyard out of the room by promising further reinforcements. The Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss"s suggestion that he should follow up his success by a second volume on the same lines. He had sworn not to lend more than a pa.s.sive support to the fraud of "The Vital Thing"; but the temptation to free himself from Mrs. Linyard prevailed over his last scruples, and within an hour he was at work on the Scientific Sermons.
The Professor was not an unkind man. He really enjoyed making his family happy; and it was his own business if his reward for so doing was that it kept them out of his way. But the success of "The Vital Thing" gave him more than this negative satisfaction. It enlarged his own existence and opened new doors into other lives. The Professor, during fifty virtuous years, had been cognizant of only two types of women: the fond and foolish, whom one married, and the earnest and intellectual, whom one did not. Of the two, he infinitely preferred the former, even for conversational purposes. But as a social instrument woman was unknown to him; and it was not till he was drawn into the world on the tide of his literary success that he discovered the deficiencies in his cla.s.sification of the s.e.x. Then he learned with astonishment of the existence of a third type: the woman who is fond without foolishness and intellectual without earnestness. Not that the Professor inspired, or sought to inspire, sentimental emotions; but he expanded in the warm atmosphere of personal interest which some of his new acquaintances contrived to create about him. It was delightful to talk of serious things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal without being domestic.
Even in this new world, where all subjects were touched on lightly, and emphasis was the only indelicacy, the Professor found himself constrained to endure an occasional reference to his book. It was unpleasant at first; but gradually he slipped into the habit of hearing it talked of, and grew accustomed to telling pretty women just how "it had first come to him."
Meanwhile the success of the Scientific Sermons was facilitating his family relations. His photograph in the _Inglenook_, to which the lady of the note-book had succeeded in appending a vivid interview, carried his fame to circles inaccessible even to "The Vital Thing"; and the Professor found himself the man of the hour. He soon grew used to the functions of the office, and gave out hundred-dollar interviews on every subject, from labour-strikes to Babism, with a frequency which reacted agreeably on the domestic exchequer. Presently his head began to figure in the advertising pages of the magazines. Admiring readers learned the name of the only breakfast-food in use at his table, of the ink with which "The Vital Thing" had been written, the soap with which the author"s hands were washed, and the tissue-builder which fortified him for further effort. These confidences endeared the Professor to millions of readers, and his head pa.s.sed in due course from the magazine and the newspaper to the biscuit-tin and the chocolate-box.
VI
The Professor, all the while, was leading a double life. While the author of "The Vital Thing" reaped the fruits of popular approval, the distinguished microscopist continued his laboratory work unheeded save by the few who were engaged in the same line of investigations. His divided allegiance had not hitherto affected the quality of his work: it seemed to him that he returned to the laboratory with greater zest after an afternoon in a drawing-room where readings from "The Vital Thing" had alternated with plantation melodies and tea. He had long ceased to concern himself with what his colleagues thought of his literary career. Of the few whom he frequented, none had referred to "The Vital Thing"; and he knew enough of their lives to guess that their silence might as fairly be attributed to indifference as to disapproval. They were intensely interested in the Professor"s views on beetles, but they really cared very little what he thought of the Almighty.
The Professor entirely shared their feelings, and one of his chief reasons for cultivating the success which accident had bestowed on him, was that it enabled him to command a greater range of appliances for his real work. He had known what it was to lack books and instruments; and "The Vital Thing" was the magic wand which summoned them to his aid. For some time he had been feeling his way along the edge of a discovery: balancing himself with professional skill on a plank of hypothesis flung across an abyss of uncertainty. The conjecture was the result of years of patient gathering of facts: its corroboration would take months more of comparison and cla.s.sification. But at the end of the vista victory loomed. The Professor felt within himself that a.s.surance of ultimate justification which, to the man of science, makes a life-time seem the mere comma between premiss and deduction. But he had reached the point where his conjectures required formulation. It was only by giving them expression, by exposing them to the comment and criticism of his a.s.sociates, that he could test their final value; and this inner a.s.surance was confirmed by the only friend whose confidence he invited.
Professor Pease, the husband of the lady who had opened Mrs. Linyard"s eyes to the triumph of "The Vital Thing," was the repository of her husband"s scientific experiences. What he thought of "The Vital Thing"
had never been divulged; and he was capable of such vast exclusions that it was quite possible that pervasive work had not yet reached him.
In any case, it was not likely to affect his judgment of the author"s professional capacity.
"You want to put that all in a book, Linyard," was Professor Pease"s summing-up. "I"m sure you"ve got hold of something big; but to see it clearly yourself you ought to outline it for others. Take my advice--chuck everything else and get to work tomorrow. It"s time you wrote a book, anyhow."
_ It"s time you wrote a book, anyhow!_ The words smote the Professor with mingled pain and ecstasy: he could have wept over their significance. But his friend"s other phrase reminded him with a start of Harviss. "You have got hold of a big thing--" it had been the publisher"s first comment on "The Vital Thing." But what a world of meaning lay between the two phrases! It was the world in which the powers who fought for the Professor were destined to wage their final battle; and for the moment he had no doubt of the outcome. The next day he went to town to see Harviss. He wanted to ask for an advance on the new popular edition of "The Vital Thing." He had determined to drop a course of supplementary lectures at the University, and to give himself up for a year to his book. To do this, additional funds were necessary; but thanks to "The Vital Thing" they would be forthcoming.
The publisher received him as cordially as usual; but the response to his demand was not as prompt as his previous experience had ent.i.tled him to expect.
"Of course we"ll be glad to do what we can for you, Linyard; but the fact is, we"ve decided to give up the idea of the new edition for the present."
"You"ve given up the new edition?"
"Why, yes--we"ve done pretty well by "The Vital Thing," and we"re inclined to think it"s _your_ turn to do something for it now."
The Professor looked at him blankly. "What can I do for it?" he asked--"what _more_" his accent added.
"Why, put a little new life in it by writing something else. The secret of perpetual motion hasn"t yet been discovered, you know, and it"s one of the laws of literature that books which start with a rush are apt to slow down sooner than the crawlers. We"ve kept "The Vital Thing" going for eighteen months--but, hang it, it ain"t so vital any more. We simply couldn"t see our way to a new edition. Oh, I don"t say it"s dead yet--but it"s moribund, and you"re the only man who can resuscitate it."
The Professor continued to stare. "I--what can I do about it?" he stammered.
"Do? Why write another like it--go it one better: you know the trick.
The public isn"t tired of you by any means; but you want to make yourself heard again before anybody else cuts in. Write another book--write two, and we"ll sell them in sets in a box: The Vital Thing Series. That will take tremendously in the holidays. Try and let us have a new volume by October--I"ll be glad to give you a big advance if you"ll sign a contract on that."
The Professor sat silent: there was too cruel an irony in the coincidence.
Harviss looked up at him in surprise.
"Well, what"s the matter with taking my advice--you"re not going out of literature, are you?"
The Professor rose from his chair. "No--I"m going into it," he said simply.
"Going into it?"
"I"m going to write a real book--a serious one."
"Good Lord! Most people think "The Vital Thing" "s serious."
"Yes--but I mean something different."
"In your old line--beetles and so forth?"
"Yes," said the Professor solemnly.