Samuel Merwin - Henry Is Twenty - A Further Episodic History of Henry Calverly, 3rd

She saw his face fall. He mumbled something that sounded like, ‘Oh – all right! Doesn’t matter.’ For a moment he stood waving his stick in jerky, aimless little circles. Then went off down the stairs.

Emerging from Donovan’s drug store Henry encountered the ponderous person of old Boice – six feet an inch and a half, head sunk a little between the shoulders, thick yellowish-white whiskers waving down over a black bow tie and a spotted, roundly protruding vest, a heavy old watch chain with insignia of a fraternal order hanging as a charm; inscrutable, washed-out blue eyes in a deeply lined but nearly expressionless face.

Henry stopped short; stared at his employer.

Mr Boice did not stop. But as he moved deliberately by, his faded eyes took in every detail of Henry’s not unremarkable personal appearance.

Henry was thinking: ‘Old crook. Wish I had a paper of my own here and I’d get back at him. Run him out of town, that’s what!’ And after he had nodded and rushed by, his colouring mounting: ‘Like to know why I should work my head off just to make money for him . No sense in that!’

Henry came moodily into the Voice office, dropped down at his inkstained, littered table behind the railing, and sighed twice. He picked up a pencil and fell to outlining ink spots.

The sighs were directed at Humphrey, who sat bent over his desk, cob pipe in mouth, writing very rapidly. ‘He’s got wonderful concentration,’ thought Henry, his mind wandering a brief moment from his unhappy self.

Humphrey spoke without looking up. ‘Don’t let that Business Men’s Picnic get away from you, Hen. Really ought to be getting it in type now. Two compositors loafing out there.’

Henry sighed again; let his pencil fall on the table; gazed heavily, helplessly at the wall…

‘Old man say anything to you about the “Library Notes”?’

Humphrey glanced up and removed his pipe. His swarthy long face wrinkled thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Just now. He’s going to have Miss Wombast send ‘em in direct every month.’

‘And I don’t have ‘em any more.’

Humphrey considered this fact. ‘It doesn’t amount to very much, Hen.’

‘Oh, no – works out about sixty cents to a dollar. It ain’t that altogether – it’s the principle. I’m getting tired of it!’

The press-room door was ajar, Humphrey reached out and closed it.

Henry raised his voice; got out of his chair and sat on the edge of the table. His eyes brightened sharply. Emotion crept into his voice and shook it a little.

‘Do you know what’s he done to me – that old doubleface? Took me in here two years ago at eight a week with a promise of nine if I suited. Well, I did suit. But did I get the nine? Not until I’d rowed and begged for seven months. A year of that, a lot more work – You know! “Club Notes,” this library stuff, “Real Estate Happenings,” “Along Simpson Street,” reading proof – ’

Humphrey slowly nodded as he smoked.

‘ – And I asked for ten a week. Would he give it? No! I knew I was worth more than that, so I offered to take space rates instead. Then what does he do? You know, Hump. Been clipping me off, one thing after another, and piling on the proof and the office work. Here’s one thing more gone to-day. Last week my string was exactly seven dollars and forty-six cents. Dam it, it ain’t fair! I can’t live! I won’t stand it. Gotta be ten a week or I – I’ll find out why. Show-down.’

He rushed to the door. Then, as if his little flare of indignation had burnt out, fingered there, knitting his brows and looking up and down the street and across at the long veranda of the Sunbury House, where people sat in a row in yellow rocking chairs.

Humphrey smoked and considered him. After a little he remarked quietly: —

‘Look here, Hen, I don’t like it any more than you do. I’ve seen what he was doing. I’ve tried to forestall him once or twice – ’

‘I know it, Hump.’ Henry turned. He was quite listless now. ‘He’s a tricky old fox. If I only knew of something else I could do – or that we could do together – ’

‘But – this was what I was going to say – no matter how we feel, I’m going to be really in trouble if I don’t get that picnic story pretty soon. Mr Boice asked about it this morning.’

Henry leaned against Mr Boice’s desk, up by the window; dropped his chin into one hand.

‘I’ll do it, Hump. This afternoon. Or to-night. We’re going down to Mildred’s this noon, of course.’

‘That’s part of what’s bothering me. God knows how soon after that you’ll break away from Corinne.’

‘Pretty dam soon,’ remarked Henry sullenly, ‘the way things are going now… I’ll get at it, Hump. Honest I will. But right now’ – he moved a hand weakly through the air – ‘I just couldn’t. You don’t know how I feel. I couldn’t! ’

‘Where you going now?’

‘I don’t know.’ The hand moved again. ‘Walk around. Gotta be by myself. Sorta think it out. This is one of the days… I’ve been thinking – be twenty-one in November. Then I’ll show him, and all the rest of ‘em. Have a little money then. I’ll show this hypocritical old town a few things – a few things…’

His voice died to a mumble. He felt with limp fingers at his moustache.

‘I’ll be ready quarter or twenty minutes past twelve,’ Humphrey called after him as he moved mournfully out to the street.

Mr Boice moved heavily along, inclining his massive head, without a smile, to this acquaintance and that, and turned in at Schultz and Schwartz’s.

The spectacle of Henry Calverly – in spotless white and blue, with the moustache, and the stick – had irritated him. Deeply. A boy who couldn’t earn eight dollars a week parading Simpson Street in that rig, on a week-day morning! He felt strongly that Henry had no business sticking out that way, above the village level. Hitting you in the eyes. Young Jenkins was bad enough, but at least his father had the money. Real money. And could let his son waste it if he chose. But a conceited young chump like Henry Calverly! Ought to be chucked into a factory somewhere. Stoke a furnace. Carry boxes. Work with his hands. Get down to brass tacks and see if he had any stuff in him. Doubtful.

Mr Boice made a low sound, a wheezy sound between a grunt and a hum, as he handed his hat to the black, muscular, bullet-headed, grinning Pinkie Potter, who specialised in hats and shoes in Sunbury’s leading barber shop.

He made another sound that was quite a grunt as he sank into the red plush barber chair of Heinie Schultz. His massive frame was clumsy, and the twinges of lumbago, varied by touches of neuritis, that had come steadily upon him since middle life, added to the difficulties of moving it about. He always made these sounds. He would stop on the street, take your hand non-committally in his huge, rather limp paw, and grunt before he spoke, between phrases, and when moving away.

Heinie Schultz, who was straw-coloured, thin, listlessly patient (Bill Schwartz was the noisy fat one), knew that the thick, yellowish gray hair was to be cut round in the back and the neck shaved beneath it. The beard was to be trimmed delicately, reverently – ‘not cut, just the rags taken off’ – and combed out. Heinie had attended to this hair and beard for sixteen years.

‘Heard a good one,’ murmured Heinie, close to his patron’s ear. ‘There was a bride and groom got on the sleeping car up to Duluth – ’

A thin man of about thirty-five entered the shop, tossed his hat to Pinkie, and dropped into Bill Schwartz’s chair next the window. The new-comer had straight brown hair, worn a little long over ears and collar. His face was freckled, a little pinched, nervously alert. Behind his gold rimmed spectacles his small sharp eyes appeared to be darting this way and that, keen, penetrating through the ordinary comfortable surfaces of life.