The Best Short Stories of 1919 Part 13

He drew out a card and handed it to Green. The group gathered closer and read it.

"Harvey L. Galbraithe, Trego County Courier."

Green solemnly extended his hand.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Galbraithe. Up here on business, or pleasure?"

"I used to work here," explained Galbraithe. "I came up on a vacation to see the boys."

"Used to work on this sheet?" exclaimed Green, as though doubting it.

"I left five years ago," answered Galbraithe.

"Holy Smoke!" exclaimed Green, with a low whistle. "You are sure some old-timer. Let's see--that's over fifteen hundred days ago. When did you come on?"

"Just before the Spanish War," answered Galbraithe eagerly. "Hartson sent me to Cuba."

Harding came closer, his eyes burning with new interest.

"Gee," he exclaimed, "those must have been great days. I ran across an old codger at the Press Club once who was with Dewey at Manila."

He spoke as Galbraithe might speak of the Crimean War. He pressed the latter for details, and Galbraithe, listening to the sound of his own voice, allowed himself to be led on. When he was through he felt toothless, and as though his hair had turned gray.

"Those were the happy days," exclaimed Harding. "The game was worth playing then--eh, old man?"

"Yes," mumbled Galbraithe. "But don't any of you know what has become of Hartson?"

"Haydon would probably remember him--"

"Haydon?" broke in Galbraithe. "Is he here?"

He looked wistfully about the room to the corner where the exchange editor used to sit.

"He died last spring," said Green. "Guess he was the last leaf on the tree."

"He came on five years ahead of me," said Galbraithe. "He and I did the barrel murders together."

"What was that story?" inquired Harding.

Galbraithe looked at Harding to make sure this was not some fool joke.

At the time nothing else had been talked of in New York for a month, and he and Haydon had made something of a name for themselves for the work they did on it. Harding was both serious and interested--there could be no doubt about that.

The details were as fresh in Galbraithe's mind as though it were yesterday. But what he was just beginning to perceive was that this was so because he had been away from New York. To those living on here and still playing the old game that story had become buried, even as tradition, in the multiplicity of subsequent stories. These younger men who had superseded him and his fellows, already had their own big stories. They came every day between the dawn and the dark, and then again between the dark and the dawn. Day after day they came unceasingly, at the end of a week dozens of them, at the end of a month hundreds, at the end of a year thousands. It was fifteen hundred days ago that he had been observing the manifold complications of these million people, and since that time a thousand volumes had been written about as many tragedies enacted in the same old setting. Time here was measured in hours, not years. The stage alone remained unchanged.

Galbraithe made his feet, so dazed that he faltered as with the palsy.

Harding took his arm.

"Steady, old man," he cautioned. "You'd better come out and have a drink."

Galbraithe shook his head. He felt sudden resentment at the part they were forcing upon him.

"I'm going back home," he announced.

"Come on," Harding encouraged him. "We'll drink to the old days, eh?"

"Sure," chimed in Green. The others, too, rose and sought their hats.

"I won't," replied Galbraithe, stubbornly, "I'm going back home, I tell you. And in ten years I'll be twenty-five years younger than any of you."

He spoke with some heat. Harding laughed but Green grew sober. He placed his hand on Galbraithe's arm.

"Right," he said. "Get out, and G.o.d bless you, old man."

"If only Haydon had been here--" choked Galbraithe.

"I expect he's younger than any of us," replied Green, soberly. "He's measuring time by eternities."

Galbraithe picked up his bag.

"S'long," he said.

He moved toward the door, and the entire group stood stock still and without a word watched him go out. He moved along the narrow corridor and past the city editor's room. He went down the old stairs, his shoulders bent and his legs weak. Fifteen hundred days were upon his shoulders. He made his way to the street, and for a moment stood there with his ears buzzing. About him swarmed the same newsboys he had left five years before, looking no older by a single day. Squinting his eyes, he studied them closely. There was Red Mick, but as he looked more carefully he saw that it was not Red Mick at all. It was probably Red Mick's younger brother. The tall one, the lanky one and the little lame one were there, but their names were different. The drama was the same, the setting was the same, but fifteen hundred days had brought a new set of actors to the same old parts. It was like seeing Shakespeare with a new cast, but the play was older by centuries than any of Shakespeare's.

Galbraithe hailed a taxi.

"Granderantal stashun," he ordered.

Peering out of the window, he watched the interminable procession on street and sidewalks. He gazed at the raw angular buildings--permanent and unalterable. Overhead a Kansas sun shone down upon him--the same which in its gracious bounty shone down upon New York.

DISHES[7]

[Note 7: Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company.

Copyright, 1920, by Agnes Mary Brownell.]

BY AGNES MARY BROWNELL

From _The Pictorial Review_

"Well, I guess that's the last of that!" Myra Bray said grimly, and blinked at the smashed fragments of the cup.

It had been so fragile, that even the sound of its breaking was thin and evanescent like a note blown, not struck. Now as it lay on the floor, it seemed dwindled to nothing more than the fine gilt stem that had been its handle, and irregular pinkish fragments like fallen petals.

"Myry Bray! b.u.t.terfingers!" Myra apostrophized herself, and darted a quick, sidelong glance in the direction of old Mrs. Bray, her mother-in-law.