The Silent Barrier
standing in front of a much littered table.
"Confound it, sir!" came the growl, "don't you know it is Saturday
afternoon? And what do you mean by coming in unannounced?"
"Guess you're the editor?" said Spencer.
"What if I am?"
"I've just happened along to have a few quiet words with you. If
there's no callers Saturdays, why, that's exactly what I want, and
I came right in because you didn't answer my knock."
"I tell you I'm not supposed to be here."
"Then you shouldn't draw corks while anybody is damaging the paint
outside."
Spencer smiled so agreeably that the editor of "The Firefly" softened.
At first, he had taken his visitor for an unpaid contributor; but the
American accent banished this phantom of the imagination. He continued
to pour into a tumbler the contents of a bottle of beer.
"Well," he said, "now that you are here, what can I do for you,
Mr.----"
"Spencer--Charles K. Spencer."
Instantly it struck the younger man that little more than an hour
had elapsed since he gave his name to the letter clerk in the hotel.
The singularity of his proceedings during that hour was thereby
brought home to him. He knew nothing of newspapers, daily or weekly;
but commonsense suggested that "The Firefly's" radiance was not
over-powering. His native shrewdness advised caution, though he felt
sure that he could, in homely phrase, twist this faded journalist
round his little finger.
"Before I open the ball," he said, "may I see a copy of your
magazine?"
Meanwhile the other was trying to sum him up. He came to the
conclusion that his visitor meant to introduce some new advertising
scheme, and, as "The Firefly" was sorely in need of advertisements,
he decided to listen.
"Here is last week's issue," he said, handing to Spencer a small
sixteen-page publication. The American glanced through it rapidly,
while the editor sampled the beer.
"I see," said Spencer, after he had found a column signed "H. W.,"
which consisted of paragraphs translated from a German article on
airships,--"I see that 'The Firefly' scintillates around the Tree of
Knowledge."
The editor relaxed sufficiently to smile. "That is a good description
of its weekly flights," he said.
"You don't use many cuts?"
"N-no. They are expensive and hard to obtain for such subjects as we
favor."
"Don't you think it would be a good notion to brighten it up a
bit--put in something lively, and more in keeping with the name?"
"I have no opening for new matter, if that is what you mean," and the
editor stiffened again.
"But you have the say-so as to the contents, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes. The selection rests with me."
"Good. I'm sort of interested in a young lady, Miss Helen Wynton
by name. She lives in Warburton Gardens, and does work for you
occasionally. Now, I propose to send her on a month's trip to
Switzerland, where she will represent 'The Firefly.' You must get her
to turn out a couple of pages of readable stuff each week, which you
will have illustrated by a smart artist at a cost of say, twenty
pounds an article for drawings and blocks. I pay all expenses, she
gets the trip, and you secure some good copy for nothing. Is it a
deal?"
The editor sat down suddenly and combed his whiskers with nervous
fingers. He was a weak man, and a too liberal beer diet was not good
for him.
"Are you in earnest, Mr. Spencer?" he queried in a bewildered way.
"Dead in earnest. You write the necessary letter to Miss Wynton while
I am here, and I hand you the first twenty in notes. You are to tell
her to call Monday noon at any bank you may select, and she will be
given her tickets and a hundred pounds. When I am certain that she has
started I undertake to pay you a further sum of sixty pounds. I make
only two conditions. You must guarantee to star her work, as it should
help her some, and my identity must not be disclosed to her under any
circumstances. In a word, she must regard herself as the accredited
correspondent of 'The Firefly.' If she appears to be a trifle rattled
by your generosity in the matter of terms, you must try and look as if
you did that sort of thing occasionally and would like to do it
often."
The editor pushed his chair away from the table. He seemed to require
more air. "Again I must ask you if you actually mean what you say?" he
gasped.
Spencer opened a pocketbook and counted four five-pound notes out of a
goodly bundle. "It is all here in neat copperplate," he said, placing
the notes on the table. "Maybe you haven't caught on to the root idea
of the proposition," he continued, seeing that the other man was
staring at him blankly. "I want Miss Wynton to have a real good time.
I also want to lift her up a few rungs of the journalistic ladder. But
she is sensitive, and would resent patronage; so I must not figure in
the affair at all. I have no other motive at the back of my head. I'm
putting up two hundred pounds out of sheer philanthropy. Will you
help?"
"There are points about this amazing proposal that require
elucidation," said the editor slowly. "Travel articles might possibly
come within the scope of 'The Firefly'; but I am aware that Miss
Wynton is what might be termed an exceedingly attractive young lady.
For instance, you wouldn't be philanthropic on my account."
"You never can tell. It all depends how your case appealed to me. But
if you are hinting that I intend to use my scheme for the purpose of
winning Miss Wynton's favorable regard, I must say that she strikes
me as the kind of girl who would think she had been swindled if she
learned the truth. In any event, I may never see her again, and it is
certainly not my design to follow her to Switzerland. I don't kick at
your questions. You're old enough to be her father, and mine, for that
matter. Go ahead. This is Saturday afternoon, you know, and there's no
business stirring."
Spencer had to cover the ground a second time before everything was
made clear. At last the fateful letter was written. He promised to
call on Monday and learn how the project fared. Then he relieved the
cabman's anxiety, as the alley possessed a second exit, and was driven
to the Wellington Theater, where he secured a stall for that night's
performance of the Chinese musical comedy in which Miss Millicent
Jaques played the part of a British Admiral's daughter.
While Spencer was watching Helen's hostess cutting capers in a
Mandarin's palace, Helen herself was reading, over and over again, a
most wonderful letter that had fallen from her sky. It had all the
appearance of any ordinary missive. The King's face on a penny stamp,
or so much of it as was left uninjured by a postal smudge, looked
familiar enough, and both envelop and paper resembled those which had
brought her other communications from "The Firefly." But the text was
magic, rank necromancy. No wizard who ever dealt in black letter
treatises could have devised a more convincing proof of his occult
powers than this straightforward offer made by the editor of "The
Firefly." Four articles of five thousand words each,--tickets and 100
pounds awaiting her at a bank,--go to the Maloja-Kulm Hotel; leave
London at the earliest possible date; please send photographs and
suggestions for black-and-white illustrations of mountaineering and
society! What could it possibly mean?
At the third reading Helen began to convince herself that this rare
stroke of luck was really hers. The concluding paragraph shed light on
"The Firefly's" extraordinary outburst.
"As this commission heralds a new departure for the paper, I have
to ask you to be good enough not to make known the object of your
journey. In fact, it will be as well if you do not state your
whereabouts to any persons other than your near relatives. Of course,
all need for secrecy ceases with the appearance of your first article;
but by that time you will practically be on your way home again. I am
anxious to impress on you the importance of this instruction."
Helen found herein the germ of understanding. "The Firefly" meant to
boom itself on its Swiss correspondence; but even that darksome piece
of journalistic enterprise did not explain the princely munificence of
the hundred pounds. At last, when she calmed down sufficiently to be
capable of connected thought, she saw that "mountaineering" implied
the hire of guides, and that "society" meant frocks. Of course it was
intended that she should spend the whole of the money, and thus give
"The Firefly" a fair return for its outlay. And a rapid calculation
revealed the dazzling fact that after setting aside the fabulous sum
of two pounds a day for expenses she still had forty pounds left
wherewith to replenish her scanty stock of dresses.
Believing that at any instant the letter might dissolve into a curt
request to keep her scientific jottings strictly within the limits
of a column, Helen sat with it lying open on her lap, and searched the
pages of a tattered guidebook for particulars of the Upper Engadine.
She had read every line before; but the words now seemed to live.
St. Moritz, Pontresina, Sils-Maria, Silvaplana,--they ceased to be
mere names,--they became actualities. The Julier Pass, the Septimer,
the Forno Glacier, the Diavolezza Route, and the rest of the
stately panorama of snow capped peaks, blue lakes, and narrow
valleys,--valleys which began with picturesque chalets, dun colored
cattle, and herb laden pastures, and ended in the yawning mouths of
ice rivers whence issued the milky white streams that dashed through
the lower gorges,--they passed before her eyes as she read till she
was dazzled by their glories.
What a day dream to one who dwelt in smoky London year in and year
out! What an experience to look forward to! What memories to treasure!
Nor was she blind to the effect of the undertaking on her future.
Though "The Firefly" was not an important paper, though its editor was
of a half-forgotten day and generation, she would now have good work
to show when asked what she had done. She was not enamored of beetles.
Even the classifying of them was monotonous, and she had striven
bravely to push her way through the throng of would-be writers that
besieged the doors of every popular periodical in London. It was a
heartbreaking struggle. The same post that gave her this epoch marking
letter had brought back two stories with the stereotyped expression of
editorial regret.
"Now," thought Helen, when her glance fell on the bulky envelops, "my
name will at least become known. And editors very much resemble the
public they cater for. If a writer achieves success, they all want
him. I have often marveled how any author got his first chance. Now I
know. It comes this way, like a flash of lightning from a summer sky."
It was only fit and proper that she should magnify her first real
commission. No veteran soldier ever donned a field marshal's uniform
with the same zest that he displayed when his subaltern's outfit came
from the tailor. So Helen glowed with that serious enthusiasm which is
the soul of genius, for without it life becomes flat and gray, and
she passed many anxious, half-doubting hours until a courteous bank
official handed her a packet at the appointed time on Monday, and gave
her a receipt to sign, and asked her how she would take her hundred
pounds--did she want it all in notes or some in gold?
She was so unnerved by this sudden confirmation of her good fortune
that she stammered confusedly, "I--really--don't know."
"Well, it would be rather heavy in gold," came the smiling comment.
"This money, I understand, is paid to you for some journalistic
enterprise that will take you abroad. May I suggest that you should
carry, say, thirty pounds in notes and ten in gold, and allow me to
give you the balance in the form of circular notes, which are payable