Tramping on Life Part 84

The members of the Y.M.C.A. were indignant at me for putting a maladroit question.

"It doesn't do to invite Gregory anywhere. You can't tell what stuff he might pull."

"A legitimate question--" egged on Travers at my side, "b.u.mp the old boy again, Johnnie."

But I was not given another chance. After a short but painful silence the Secretary rose and put a suave and stereotyped query ... and others filled the breach in rapid succession. And the prestige of the great theologian was salvaged.

Commencement day approached. There came to deliver the address for the day, George Harvey, then editor of _Harper's Weekly_. Travers was a.s.signed to interview Harvey....

"The fellow's a pompous big stiff," complained Jack, "the kind that makes a fetish of morning and evening dress ... wears kid gloves ... and a top hat ... he has both valet and secretary with him."

"That's no disgrace. Don't you think, Jack, that we Middle-Westerners only make fun of such people and their habits for the reason that we're either unable to do the same, or do not dare do it because of our jealousy of each other--our so-called hick democratic spirit?"

"There's a lot of truth in that. But fundamentally I would say that the newspaper editors who are here this week, holding a conference and tendering Harvey a banquet, _mean_ their plainness of dress and life ...

and do not hanker after the clubman's way of life as Harvey represents it to their eyes ... you just watch for what Ed. Lowe and Billy Dorgan do to our Eastern chap at the banquet ... they'll kid him till he's sick."

That banquet will live in the memory of Kansas newspapermen.

Harvey, when he entered the hall where the journalists were already seated, first snapped his top hat sidewise to his attending valet. Then he sat down grandly.

Billy Dorgan and Ed. Lowe "rode Harvey around," as Jack phrased it. The distinguished editor, with his solemnity, invited thrusts. Besides, most of those present were what was denominated as "progressive" ... Jarvis Alexander Mackworth was there ... and Alden ... and Tobbs, afterward governor.

The next day Travers printed a supposit.i.tious interview with Harvey's English valet on how it felt to be a valet of a great man. Both the valet and Harvey waxed furious, it was said.

Arthur Brisbane visited us. He ran down from Kansas City over night.

This man was Jack Travers' G.o.d ... and we of the Press or Scoop Club--a student newspaper club of which I had recently been made a member--also looked up to him as a sort of deity.

Travers informed me reverentially that Brisbane was so busy he always carried his stenographer with him, even when he rode to the Hill in an auto ... dictating an editorial as he drove along.

"A great man ... a very great man."

I won merit with Travers by reciting an incident of my factory life.

Every afternoon the men in my father's department would bring in Brisbane's latest editorial to me ... and listen to me as I read it aloud. To have the common man buy a newspaper for its editorials--that was a triumph.

And Brisbane's editorials frequently touched on matters that the mob are supposed not to be interested in ... stories of the lives of poets, philosophers, statesmen....

One of the men who could barely read ... who ran his fingers along the lines as he read, asked me--

"Who was this guy SO-krats?"

It was an editorial on Socrates and his life and death that brought forth the enquiry ... after I had imparted to him what information I possessed:

"Where can I find more about him, and about that pal of his, Plato?"

I was hanging on to my comfortable room at the Y.M.C.A. by bluff. I had not let on to the secretary that my Belton subsidy had stopped. Instead, I affected to be concerned about its delay. But I did this, not to be dishonest, but to gain time ... I was attempting to write tramp stories, after the manner of London, and expected to have one of them accepted soon, though none ever were....

Decker, the student-proprietor of the restaurant where I ate every day, was more astute.

"Now look here, Gregory, you just can't run your bill up any higher."

I already owed him fifteen dollars.

I compounded with him by handing him over my _Ill.u.s.trated History of English Literature_. It was like tearing flesh from my side to part with these volumes.

And now I had no more credit at the Y.M.C.A.

And I went back to Frank Randall, to apply again for my old room over his shop. He was using it now to store old stoves in. But he moved them out.

With a sense of despair, compensated by a feeling of sacrifice for my poetry, I found myself once more back over the tinshop, the hammers sounding and cras.h.i.+ng below.

Old Blore, the cancer doctor, lived in a room in the front. All day long he sat drinking rum and sugar ... and s.h.i.+pping out his cancer cure, a white mixture like powdered sugar. Whether it did any good or not, he believed in it himself....

I have not written about him before ... there are so many odd characters that I came in contact with that I have not written about ... for this book is about myself....

But old Blore ... he came waddling back to me, drunk, as usual, on his rum and sugar.

"Welcome back, Johnnie ... come on, you and Frank, into my room ...

we've got to celebrate your return."

Frank and I set down the stove we were moving, dusted our hands off, and followed.

"But I won't drink any of your rum, Ed! It's got too much of a kick."

"--nonsense ... good Jamaica rum never hurt n.o.body."

We drank several rounds of rum and water, with sugar. And we jocosely joined together in singing the cancer doctor's favourite hymn--"We're drifting down the stream of time, we haven't got long to stay."

Then Frank and Ed. retailed to me the practical jokes they had played on each other since I had been gone from among them ... on big Sam, the chocolate-coloured shoemaker who had his shop next door ... and an obscene one on a half-wit named Elmer, who was one of Frank's helpers ... that, though it was pretty raw, made me choke and gasp with merriment ... and they told me how, one night, they had wired the iron roof in the back, so that about ten cats that were mewling and quarrelling there, received a severe electric shock ... how funny and surprised they'd acted.

Most serviceably a check from the _National Magazine_ came, for twenty-five dollars ... I had sold them a prophetic poem on airs.h.i.+ps.

The check ameliorated my condition. I saw my way clear to a few weeks more of regular eating.

Then, on top of that, one day a telegram came....

"Am on my way West. Will stop off visit you at Laurel--Penton."

Travers rushed the story to the Kansas City _Star_.