CHAPTER III
Maria went to the Argentine a month later but Peter heard from her every now and then. Her letters were mostly brief, acknowledging the letters from Pat which Peter forwarded to her. Occasionally he would supply a footnote to something which Pat had written if it touched upon things which were known only to himself and the boy and could not be understood by an outsider without explanation. Or it might be that some sporting reference, simple enough in itself, seemed to require clarification for the sake of Maria. For instance when Pat wrote, "He tried a forward pass but I managed to grab it on the two yard line and ran all the way for a touchdown," Peter added the note, "A football field is a hundred yards long. Pat's feat was most unusual."
But sports did not figure quite so large in the letters as they had done before. Rather often the boy wrote about books. In one letter he outlined the entire plot of "Mr. Polly" for Peter. In another somewhat to Peter's astonishment he wrote "Heard Galli again last Saturday. She does not excite me so much as she used to." Maria returned this letter with her acknowledgment and Peter found that this time she was supplying a footnote. "Galli," she wrote, "is Galli Curci, an opera singer with the voice and nothing else."
When the letter came in which Pat announced that he had entered the officer's training school at Harvard, Peter cabled to Maria. She replied almost immediately, "Have broken my contract, coming back to Paris." Before she arrived the armistice was signed. Peter went to see her almost immediately. He wanted to explain to her why her schemes about Pat were wholly impossible and he felt that now with the war issue removed it would be easier to discuss the matter calmly and rationally. He plunged into the question immediately.
"Now let's both make a solemn promise, Maria, to tell nothing but the truth without letting emotion or anything like that come in."
"But then," objected Maria, "it would not be the truth."
"Oh, you know what I mean. When I showed you Pat's picture that night you got very much excited. You said he had a nose just like yours and that it meant he was all cut out to be a singer. A great singer you said. Well, we're not excited now. Be honest with me. You can't really tell anything about whether he could be a singer or not just by looking at his nose in a picture. That was a little far-fetched, wasn't it? I mean it wasn't plain, cold, common-sense."
"What you ask me is a little hard, Peter. This common-sense you talk to me about, for that I care nothing. It is no good. It is not so that I see things. I was excited when I see the picture. That is true but it makes no difference. To have the much sense it is necessary for me to get excited. It is so I see things. If you mean can I write it down on the piece of paper like the contract, Pat he will be the singer, the great singer, I must say no. That I cannot promise. But contracts too I do not like."
"Yes," said Peter, "I've observed that."
"But I feel it, Peter. That is so much more. Can you not understand? You have sometimes maybe look into the crystal. It is so when I look at the picture. Here is my nose again in the world. It is for something."
"Maybe," suggested Peter, "it's a nose for news."
Maria paid no attention. "Do you not see? If it is the failure that does not matter. Just so long as it is the possibility it is necessary that we try.
"You don't begin to understand how far apart we are, Maria. I'll tell you frankly where I stand. Even if I knew Pat could be the greatest singer in the world I'd rather have him a newspaperman. That's my angle."
"You are not serious."
"But I am. Newspaper work's real. It's got roots into life. It is life. It makes people in the world a little different. Singing is just something you go and hear in the evening."
"For you it is enough that he should go to the baseball and the football and perhaps the next war and write the book 'Lafayette Voulez Vous.'"
Peter flushed. "I think there's more sense to it," he said. "And it's pretty probable that Pat'll think something like I do. We were together and you weren't there. And we went around together and talked about Matty and Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker."
Maria looked a little puzzled.
"You wouldn't know," said Peter a little bitterly, "they're none of them singers."
"I didn't mean to be rotten," he added hastily. "I'm just trying to tell you the truth."
Maria smiled. "It is all right. You tell me, Peter, the truth – your truth."
"Well, you see, Maria, he is like me. The nose may be you, but the rest is me. It's just got to be. In the beginning he wasn't anything but just sort of red clay or he was like a phonograph record before you cut the tune on it. He's been brought up around baseball games and newspaper offices. He knows, and everybody knows, that he's coming on the Bulletin and will take my place. In fact the job's been promised him. I'm not trying to lay down the law. It's just the way things are. I don't see what I could do about it even if I wanted to. He's all made by now. What's the use of my saying, 'Yes, let him go over and learn to be a singer.' It just hasn't been put in him."
Peter paused.
"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 assumed 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 documents, '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 title. 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 God! 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?"
"Hell! 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 assignment. 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
It was a Pat prodigiously grown who met Peter as he came down the gangplank. Not much had altered in the look of him but just the added inches and heft gave him a curiously disturbing air of maturity. Peter would have liked to put his arms around him but he didn't dare. The handshake was not adequate and there was nothing he could say to express what he wanted to. It seemed better not to try.
"Hello, Pat," he said.
"Hello, Father," said the boy.
"Don't," exclaimed Peter almost as if in pain. "I've got a name. I don't want to be father. I never have been father. Four years oughtn't to do that."
"I'm sorry, Peter," Pat said it almost shyly.
The baggage was passed promptly, but as Peter was about to leave the pier a man came up to him.
"You're Peter Neale, aren't you?" he asked.
Peter nodded.
"I'm a reporter from the Bulletin. My name's Weed. Mr. Twice sent me down. He told me to tell you to come right up to the office."
"What's the rush?" asked Peter.
"I don't know. He didn't say."
"I think maybe we'd better go," broke in Pat. "He gave me the same message for you yesterday. I forgot about it."
"What has he got to do with you?" Peter inquired, after Weed had gone.
"Don't you see, when Mr. Twice became editor he inherited me along with the paper. Mr. Miles never did anything much the last couple years about managing me. He just turned over the allowance you gave me every week. Mr. Twice has taken complete charge. He's got my whole life mapped out."
"What's it going to be?"
"He's got it all fixed up for me to go to Harvard one more year and then start on the Bulletin."
"How do you like that?"
"I like it fine. But that doesn't make any difference. It's all fixed up that way anyhow. Twice has made up his mind about it."
"I'm obliged to him, but why can't he let me alone the first day. They didn't do things like this on the Bulletin in the old days. Here it is four years and I want to sit down some place and talk with you."
They waited in the outer office less than half an hour before a young woman ushered them into Twice's room. Peter had seen him before. The description which Cheeves gave was not so very good after all. His hair wasn't very black.
"Glad to see you back, Neale," said Twice, "and you, Pat. Won't you just sit down. I'll be with you in a second."
"Miss Nathan," he called across the room to his secretary, "I want you to take a cablegram to Speyer in Berlin. 'Fine story today. We think Ebert is doing constructive service to humanity. Tell him I said so.' And oh, Miss Nathan, let me know the minute that call from Washington comes through. But don't disturb me for anything else. I'm going to be busy now for some time. Don't forget to make that note about finding out when Blake's contract is up. I want to know about that the first thing in the morning. And tell Mr. O'Neill not to go home until he sees me. You can hold the rest of those letters over till I get back from dinner tonight. You know where to get me. Just a minute. Take a note for Booth. The Milwaukee offer is far too low. Tell 'em I've been thinking it over and that the price for the series is now three hundred instead of two.' That's the cheapest crowd I ever had to deal with. Don't put that in the letter. 'Price for the series now three hundred instead of two.' That's the end of it."
He turned to Peter. "It's that diary of the sub-commander. I'm letting a few selected papers in on it. Miss Nathan – " In the moment of lull the secretary had gone.
"Well, Neale, I certainly am glad to have you back here again. We've got to begin to hammer sports. They're coming back terrifically. I put all the foreign politics in the paper because that's what I think the people ought to read. Baseball's the thing that actually gets 'em. If Babe Ruth and Lloyd George both died tomorrow Ruth would just blanket him. And let me tell you, Neale, George is one of the great men of our day. I have a very warm personal feeling for him. I don't suppose you remember Delehanty."
Peter was just about to answer that he had seen him several times but he wasn't nearly quick enough.
"Ruth reminds me more of him than any other player I've seen in the game," continued Twice. "Killed, jumping off a railroad bridge on June third, 1902. I've always made it a business not to be wrong. Remember that, Pat. It's just as easy to have the right date as the wrong one. It's just a knack. Anybody can do it. Come in some time and I'll explain the trick for you."
Peter broke in resolutely. "There was a man came down to the dock who said you wanted to see me. His name was Weed."
"Yes, Weed, good man. I dug him up myself. He came off a little paper in Reading. Of course he hasn't quite got the touch yet. The city's a little too big for him, but I think he's going to be a first rate newsman. Right now he tries too hard. He thinks he's got to dazzle people. The result is he's just a little esoteric. A little too esoteric. I must remember to tell him he's too esoteric."
"What is it you want to do with me?" asked Peter, returning to the attack.
"Yes," said Rufus Twice, "that's why I asked you to come here. I've been talking it over with Booth, the syndicate man, and a week from Monday'll be a good time for you to begin the sport column again. It takes a little time to get momentum up again but inside of a year I think we'll have a bigger list for you than when you went away. What did you have then?"
"A hundred and twelve," replied Peter.
"A hundred and twelve," repeated Twice. "Yes, that's just about right. Well, in a year we'll give you two hundred. I've got another name for your column. I don't like 'Looking Them Over With Peter Neale.' It's a little amorphous. How do you like 'Hit and Run?'"
"I'm not sure I like that at all," said Peter.
"That's just because it sounds strange to you. You'll get used to it in no time. Now, we want you to get your first column ready in a couple of days. We want to have a good margin of time there. I don't want to do any more than suggest, but I believe you want to say in your first column that fundamentally there is a kinship between war and sport. Take a football quarterback and you have the perfect prototype of the general in charge of operations. The line plunge gives you exactly the same problem the allies had in Flanders. If you have sufficient preparation the point of attack will be learned before you're ready. The quick thrust must be a surprise. Then you have the forward pass. What's that?"
"Why, I don't know," said Peter.
"An air raid," said Pat.
"Exactly. Work it out, Neale and you'll find it has almost innumerable possibilities. Of course you understand this is just a suggestion."
Miss Nathan ran in through the door. "Senator Borah's on the wire now," she cried.
"All right," said Twice, "I'll be there in a minute. While you were away, Neale, Miles told me I was supposed to take a look after Pat. That was an agreement he made with you, he told me. I've got that all fixed. He goes back to Harvard next week. His work in the officers' training camp will count him for a year. That means he'll be a sophomore and can play football. I think he might even make the team. Then the next year he comes to us. Four years of college is too much. A degree's just nonsense. I never got one and I wouldn't take an LL.D. I hope the arrangement's satisfactory to you. Will you please excuse me now? I've got to talk up disarmament in Washington. You and Pat come down and have lunch with me tomorrow. Ring me up at the house around noon. It's a private number but Miss Nathan will give it to you. Glad to have you back, Neale."
He was gone.
"Say, Pat," said Peter, "how did you know a forward pass was like an air raid?"
"Well, you see I've heard him do that a couple of times before. How do you like him?"
Peter did not obey his first impulse in answering. He suddenly realized that Rufus Twice was in a position to offer him the most useful sort of support in launching Pat safely and permanently into the newspaper business.
"I tell you, Pat," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a lot more sense than you'd think."