And then, too quickly, the moment of clearness passed;
and he was troubled about the “Herald,”
beseeching those near him to put copies of the paper
in his hands, threatening angrily to believe they were
deceiving him, that his paper had suspended, if the
three issues of the week were not instantly produced.
What did they mean by keeping the truth from him?
He knew the “Herald” had not come out.
Who was there to get it out in his absence? He
raised himself on his elbow and struggled to be up;
and they had hard work to quiet him.
But the next night Meredith waited near his bedside,
haggard and dishevelled. Harkless had been lying
in a long stupor; suddenly he spoke, quite loudly,
and the young surgeon, Gay, who leaned over him, remembered
the words and the tone all his life.
“Away and away—across the waters,”
said John Harkless. “She was here—
once—in June.”
“What is it, John?” whispered Meredith,
huskily. “You’re easier, aren’t
you?”
And John smiled a little, as if, for an instant, his
swathed eyes penetrated the bandages, and saw and
knew his old friend again.
That same night a friend of Rodney McCune’s
sent a telegram from Rouen: “He is dying.
His paper is dead. Your name goes before convention
in September.”
JAMES FISBEE
On Monday morning three men sat in council in the
“Herald” office; that is, if staring out
of dingy windows in a demented silence may be called
sitting in council; that was what Mr. Fisbee and Parker
and Ross Schofield were doing. By almost desperate
exertions, these three and Bud Tipworthy had managed
to place before the public the issues of the paper
for the previous week, unaided by their chief, or,
rather, aided by long accounts of his condition and
the manner of his mishap; and, in truth, three copies
were at that moment in the possession of Dr. Gay, accompanied
by a note from Parker warning the surgeon to exhibit
them to his patient only as a last resort, as the
foreman feared the perusal of them might cause a relapse.
By indiscriminate turns, acting as editors, reporters,
and typesetters— and particularly space-writers—the
three men had worried out three issues, and part of
the fourth (to appear the next morning) was set up;
but they had come to the end of their string, and there
were various horrid gaps yet to fill in spite of a
too generous spreading of advertisements. Bud
Tipworthy had been sent out to besiege Miss Tibbs,
all of whose recent buds of rhyme had been hot-housed
into inky blossom during the week, and after a long
absence the youth returned with a somewhat abrupt
quatrain, entitled “The Parisians of Old,”
which she had produced while he waited—only
four lines, according to the measure they meted, which
was not regardful of art—less than a drop
in the bucket, or, to preserve the figure, a single
posy where they needed a bouquet. Bud went down
the rickety outside stairs, and sat on the lowest step,
whistling “Wait till the Clouds Roll by, Jenny”;
Ross Schofield descended to set up the quatrain, and
Fisbee and Parker were left to silence and troubled
meditation.
