"Why didn't you answer your 'phone?" smiled Lescott, though he knew.
The stout man shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the wall, where
the disconnected receiver was hanging down. "Necessary precaution
against creditors," he explained. "I am out--except to you."
"Busy?" interrogated Lescott. "You seem to have a manuscript in the
making."
"No." The stout man's face clouded with black foreboding. "I shall
never write another story. I'm played out." He turned, and restively
paced the worn carpet, pausing at the window for a despondent glance
across the roofs and chimney pots of the city. Lescott, with the
privilege of intimacy, filled his pipe from the writer's tobacco jar.
"I want your help. I want you to meet a friend of mine, and take him
under your wing in a fashion. He needs you."
The stout man's face again clouded. A few years ago, he had been
peddling his manuscripts with the heart-sickness of unsuccessful middle
age. To-day, men coupled his name with those of Kipling and De
Maupassant. One of his antipathies was meeting people who sought to
lionize him. Lescott read the expression, and, before his host had time
to object, swept into his recital.
At the end he summarized: "The artist is much like the setter-pup. If it's in him, it's as
instinctive as a dog's nose. But to become efficient he must go a-field
with a steady veteran of his own breed."
"I know!" The great man, who was also the simple man, smiled
reminiscently. "They tried to teach me to herd sheep when my nose was
itching for bird country. Bring on your man; I want to know him."
Samson was told nothing of the benevolent conspiracy, but one evening
shortly later he found himself sitting at a café table with his sponsor
and a stout man, almost as silent as himself. The stout man responded
with something like churlish taciturnity to the half-dozen men and
women who came over with flatteries. But later, when the trio was left
alone, his face brightened, and he turned to the boy from Misery.
"Does Billy Conrad still keep store at Stagbone?"
Samson started, and his gaze fell in amazement. At the mention of the
name, he saw a cross-roads store, with rough mules hitched to fence
palings. It was a picture of home, and here was a man who had been
there! With glowing eyes, the boy dropped unconsciously back into the
vernacular of the hills.
"Hev ye been thar, stranger?"