Fraternity
Merryman, Mildred Plew
FRATERNITY By MILDRED PLEW MERRYMAN HE IS assistant cashier in a bank uptown; last fall he became my next-door neighbor. Now we are good friends. Once or twice in a fortnight, he forsakes the...
...In his eagerness, he appeared to rise to his tiptoes...
...I—I am also of the fraternity," he said...
...a white envelope peeps out...
...Haven't you any particular market in mind...
...He hems and plunges in...
...Could I tell him the truth—tell him that nothing ever came over me at night but slumber and never yet in my experience had I been visited by a flash...
...Arc lights and the white eyes of automobiles played eerily through the shadows...
...One evening a week or so later, with a manuscript in his pocket, he came to call...
...He was short and the fence was tall...
...He blinked and again his enthusiasm bubbled...
...He never drops in for a chat...
...Well," he murmurs, "ten o'clock, the idea...
...In reality we hate no one, are jealous of few...
...One has so little chance with the underlings...
...I got out of bed to write it...
...It was night in the city of Paris...
...I assure him I am delighted...
...This is an old subject of controversy between us...
...You — you are positive I do not disturb you...
...but I have been told you — you are a — a writer...
...He has his special armchair near the fireplace, and I mine...
...I am no longer stupid about that moment...
...Very little, we decide...
...What about the sketch you read me last time...
...Experience has made me wise...
...I'd try it by all means...
...And where is it now...
...Our cups and saucers look somehow a little pathetic, like a child's tea-party after the children have gone...
...We decide definitely upon Harper's...
...The moment has arrived...
...the time has slipped away so agreeably...
...Out of the murk a tall handsome man approached to stare at the beautiful brown eyes of the maiden in whose depths lurked tragedy...
...What would you think of Harper's...
...While I take his hat, his overcoat, his stick or his umbrella, we speak formally of the weather, our states of health...
...Contentedly we sip and scrunch and sip...
...Exactly like that...
...After all, you see, they are my — my brain children and living in a commercial age, what can one expect...
...he queries anxiously...
...He is, I think, the gentlest little man I have ever known...
...I hope to be some day," I said...
...I, too write...
...At my nod he resumes...
...The trials of the heroine grow lurid...
...Tell me," he said, "do your — your best inspirations come over you late at night in a sort of — of flash...
...It — it came back," he replies, "with a slip...
...I said...
...Gradually he relaxes, feels at home...
...He ponders...
...When the clock strikes ten we are both astonished...
...he inquires politely concerning my relatives...
...He looks ashamed and unhappy...
...We rise and enter the hall, where he dons his coat and carefully draws on his gloves...
...In — in my desk...
...The pocket of his coat looks fat and bulgy...
...Each evening after the brown-eyed maid's adventures have drawn to a satisfactory close, we sit quietly for awhile, considering where to send her...
...Occasionally, after some bit of particularly luscious alliteration, he pauses to glance shyly at me over his glasses and make sure I have not failed him...
...Lingering among my dahlias late one autumn afternoon, I was surprised to hear a flurry of sound and to see his blond head come bobbing above the top of the fence...
...Then we thank each other for a pleasant evening and he departs...
...Years of unselfish living have left him a trifle worn at the edges, but his spirit is undimmed...
...Our flesh creeps agreeably as we descend along devious paths...
...Tell me," he said, a little hoarsely, "do you — publish...
...he comes to call...
...It is merely that having discovered a game, we like to play it...
...Have you had any luck with that...
...His voice, which is ordinarily bland and diffident, takes on a full rich tone...
...We suceed in ignoring it for half an hour...
...He smiles guiltily...
...he shifts toward the lamp and adjusts his glasses...
...When we have damned them all, my maid brings in hot chocolate and homemade cookies...
...Once long ago in my ignorance, I was moved to suggest a humbler port and was met by a hurt silence...
...I regarded him and nodded...
...Obviously, I could not...
...he breathed...
...My manner is accusing...
...His voice rolls on...
...If only," he sighs, "one could be certain that one's story would reach the editor himself...
...I inquire: "You have brought a sketch or a story to read me...
...I approached the fence and, somewhat after the manner of conspirators indulging in a high sign, we shook hands...
...It is of no consequence really," he protested...
...but I thought perhaps you might like it—it is merely a little thing of my own...
...I do when I'm lucky," I replied...
...But the sputter of the fire is restful and the lamplight mellowing...
...Ah...
...All of a sudden, in the middle of the night last night, it came over me in a sort of rush...
...I hesitated...
...It is of no consequence really," he protests...
...it is merely a little thing of my own — but being a writer yourself I thought you might care to hear it and to — to advise me...
...I know," he explains, "but I feel so — so crushed when they come back — I really haven't the heart to try again...
...With half my mind I follow her faithfully through peril after peril, while the other half withdraws to consider the occasion of our first meeting— my neighbor's and mine...
...I — I beg your pardon," he stammered...
...Splendid," I replied...
...On my return to the fire the living-room feels empty and oddly quiet...
...they are so often insensitive, careless, prejudiced...
...The manuscript crackles as he opens it...
...I know it, even as it ticks...
...Once or twice in a fortnight, he forsakes the company of his two maiden sisters and his old mother, to tap softly at my door...
...On the corner of a street in Montmartre waited the still figure of a woman, scarcely more than a girl...
...Upon my inquiry he flushed...
...For a moment he was so impressed he could not speak...
...As we seat ourselves in the living-room, I ask about his sisters and his mother...
...Standing there winking at me through his glasses, he waited hopefully for my answer...
...Thick glasses made a vagueness of his eyes...
...His is beneath the lamp...
...I inquire...
...I asked him...
...The rest of the evening we have a lovely time berating the public, the critics, the editors, everyone but ourselves...
...I must be going at once...
...He blushes and fumbles in his pocket...
...Thus began the occasions which have made us friends...
...He is fidgety at first and sits erectly, crossing and recrossing his feet, or lifting a hand to run thin nervous fingers through his downy hair...
...Our evenings together have a ceremonious air...
Vol. 12 • July 1930 • No. 13
