"Good," thought I. "It will no doubt be excellent; but be honest, and don't insist that you've taken down life as it is; for you may have an astigmatism, for all you know, and life may not be at all what it has seemed to you while you were putting it down.""Yes, sir," said Harley, leaning back in his chair and drawing a long breath, which showed his determination, "to the bitter end she shall go, through such complications as I choose to have her, encountering whatever villains I may happen to find most convenient, and to complete her story she shall marry the man I select for my hero, if he is as commonplace as the average salesman in a Brooklyn universal dry-goods emporium."Imagine my feelings if you can! Having gone as a self-appointed ambassador to the enemy to secure terms of peace, to return to find my principal donning his armor and daubing his face with paint for a renewal of the combat, was certainly not pleasant. What could I say to Marguerite Andrews if I ever met her in real life? How could Ilook her in the eye? The situation overpowered me, and I hardly knew what to say. I couldn't beg Harley to stick to his realism and not indulge in compulsion, because I had often jeered at him for not infusing a little more of the dramatic into his stories, even if it had to be "lugged in by the ears," as he put it. Nor was he in any mood for me to tell him of my breach of faith--the mere knowledge that she had promised to be docile out of charity would have stung his pride, and I thought it would be better, for the time, at least, to let my interview remain a secret. Fortune favored me, however.
Kelly and the Professor entered the dining room at this moment, and the Professor held in his hand a copy of the current issue of The Literary Man, Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick's fortnightly publication, a periodical having to do wholly with things bookish.
"Who sat for this, Stuart?" called out the Professor, tapping the frontispiece of the magazine.
"Who sat for what?" replied Stuart, looking up.
"This picture," said the Professor.
"It's a picture of a finely intellectual-looking person with your name under it, Harley," put in the Doctor.
"Oh--that," said Harley. "It does flatter me a bit.""So does the article with it," said Kelly. "Says you are a great man--man with an idea, and all that. Is that true, or is it just plain libel? Have you an idea?"Harley laughed good-naturedly. "I had one once, but it's lost," he said. "As to that picture, they're bringing out a book for me," he added, modestly. "Good ad., you know.""When you are through with that, Professor," I put in, "let me have it, will you? I want to see what it says about Harley.""It's a first-rate screed," replied the Professor, handing over the publication. "It hits Harley right on the head.""I don't know as that's pleasant," said Harley.
"What I mean, my dear boy," said the Professor, "is that it does you justice."And it really did do Harley justice, although, as he had suggested, it was written largely to advertise the forthcoming work. It spoke nicely of Harley's previous efforts, and judiciously, as it seemed to me. He had not got to the top of the ladder yet, but he was getting there by a slow, steady development, and largely because he was a man with a fixed idea as to what literature ought to be.
"Mr. Harley has seen clearly from the outset what it was that he wished to accomplish and how to accomplish it," the writer observed.
"He has swerved neither to the right nor to the left, but has progressed undeviatingly along the lines he has mapped out for himself, and keeping constantly in mind the principles which seemed to him at the beginning of his career to be right. It has been this persistent and consistent adherence to principle that has gained for Mr. Harley his hearing, and which is constantly rendering more certain and permanent his position in the world literary. Others may be led hither and yon by the fads and follies of the scatter-brained, but Realism will ever have one steadfast champion in Stuart Harley.""Read that," I said, tossing the journal across the table.
He read it, and blushed to the roots of his ears.
"This is no time to desert the flag, Harley," said I, as he read.