The Boy Grew Older Part 22

"I'm sorry, Maria. The trouble is he's a boy. If he'd been a girl I'd have jumped at the chance to have you make a singer of him. Newspaper work's no good for women."

"And singing, it is not good for men?" asked Maria.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I don't honestly think it is."

"Peter, I understand better now what this is you feel, but it is not all the truth you say. When I go away he is red clay, that is what you say.

It is not so simple. I have looked at him then and to me he was just what you have said. But it is more. Inside the clay all the time there is something. The little bug, I do not know what it is you call it."

"Do you mean germ?"

"Yes, I think so. That you cannot touch and I cannot. So we do not need to talk and to get angry. It is for him to say. Is it not so?"

"Well, within reason--yes."

"So! You go back to America and you make him the newspaper man. That is fair. When he is twenty-one you will come here. And he will come. You will say 'yes'."

"That's almost four years off."

"The day I know; it is the twentieth in August. The year it will be 1922."

Peter hesitated.

"But it is fair, Peter. You should like it. Do you not see it is what you call it 'sporting'."

"You're on," said Peter.

"There, now we will not quarrel any more. Some things I want to know.

You will tell me. You have heard him singing? Sometimes he sings a little?"

"I suppose so. I never noticed particularly. Yes, I remember when he was a kid he used to sing something that went, 'Tell me, pretty maiden'---- I can't remember the rest of it. He's got a loud voice, I say that for him. When he was playing out in front of the house with other kids I could always hear him a way above all the others. I guess he's got lungs all right."

"Those he has got from you. If he is the singer, you see, it will not be all my fault."

Maria was leaving for Spain within a few days and Peter said he expected to get back to America pretty soon.

"Here we shall meet on the twentieth in August, in nineteen twenty-two,"

said Maria. "Good-bye, Peter. I want you to bring my son at eight o'clock."

CHAPTER IV

A few months later while the peace conference was still raging fiercely, Peter was puzzled by a cablegram which he received from America.

"Congratulations on your story," it read, "we want more just like it.

Convey my respects to President Wilson and tell him I am solidly behind him,---- Twice."

Peter couldn't remember anybody named Twice which made it still more difficult for him to understand why he was being congratulated. He wondered just how urgent was the message to Wilson. Of course it sounded a little bit like somebody on the paper, but the manner was not that of Miles even if he a.s.sumed that the signature had been in some way or other so curiously distorted. Cheeves, the Paris correspondent of the Bulletin, solved his perplexity.

"You're kidding me," he said. "It isn't possible that you never heard of Twice. Why, it's Rufus Twice of course, but he always signs just his last name. You know how it is on state doc.u.ments, 'Lansing,' 'Bryan' or whoever the current boy on the job happens to be."

"It doesn't help any that his first name's Rufus. Who's Rufus Twice, anyhow?"

"Well, since yesterday afternoon he happens to be your boss. He's the new managing editor of the Bulletin, only they don't call him that. He's got a t.i.tle. They call him Supervising Editor."

"He didn't lose any time cabling, did he?"

"No, everybody around here got one."

"Were they all congratulations?"

"All that I've seen, but most of them are much briefer than yours."

"How about this message I'm to give Wilson, is that really necessary?"

"Oh, I guess not. But the president ought to feel flattered that Rufus Twice is behind him and not about three feet out in front pulling him along. On the level, don't you remember Rufus Twice on the Bulletin?"

"No, I don't. I've been away for years and years now. I don't remember anybody."

"Big black-haired fellow. Snappy dresser. Always made a point of coming in late and just barely catching the first edition."

"That fits any one of twenty people around the shop."

"Maybe they were all Rufus Twice. My G.o.d! there've been times when he seemed like _ad nauseam_. You'll remember him if I remind you of the story about Twice and the district attorney."

"Go on. Remind me. What district attorney?"

"h.e.l.l! I can't be bothered remembering the names of district attorneys.

He don't figure anyway. We'll just call him Smith. It was about that Haldeman murder case. I suppose you've forgotten that too, but Haldeman was a fellow said he had something on the police and the day before he was to spill it they found him murdered up in his apartment. This was about twelve o'clock at night and all the reporters come down to the station. Rufus Twice is there and this district attorney fellow he shows up too. After getting all the facts they go out for sandwiches and one of the reporters says, 'Mr. Smith, haven't you some statement to make to the papers about this murder.' The district attorney just looks at him and sits there trying to make up his mind. And while he's thinking Rufus Twice hops in. 'I think Mr. Smith would like to say something about as follows,' he begins. It goes on for about a thousand words and when he's all done he turns to Smith and says, 'That's about right, isn't it?' And Smith says, 'Yes.' And after that all through the case Twice gives out the statements the same way except that he doesn't bother to say, 'That's about right' any more."

"Is that a true story?"

"I don't know. That's the way Twice always tells it."

As Peter was going out, Cheeves called him back.

"Say, I suppose now that the cruel peace conference is almost over you'll be going back. I don't want to give you a wrong steer about Twice. Maybe you got the impression from what I said that he's just a big bluff. That's only about ten per cent right. He is a big bluff but in addition to that he's got the stuff. You could make about ten of Miles out of him. When you pack up your stuff to go back don't forget to take along a grain of salt."

There must have been something of prophetic vision in the remarks of Cheeves for Peter received his message of recall the next day. The cable said, "Baseball beginning to look more important peace conference stop much quicker stop we want you back right away stop advise you take Espagne--Twice."

Peter looked at his watch. He had just twenty-two hours to dig up such roots as he had sprouted during his four years in France. He made the boat by the closest possible margin. Of course he would rather that it had been any vessel afloat except the Espagne haunted by the ghost of what was probably by now a dead submarine. Still catching the boat was a sort of a.s.signment. And it was the quickest way home. Pat would be waiting on the pier in New York. Peter had cabled ahead to him.

CHAPTER V