WHAT man of achievement cannot recall some one short period of his life which seems to transcend in significance and value all the rest of his career—when great things for which he had only unconsciously waited came to him without the asking; when the high court of events rendered its sudden, unexpected verdict of success, without costs to him who had never made a plea; when the very stars in their courses seemed to have privily conspired to fight for him? How swift, inexplicable, even amazing it all was! And yet how simple too! And when the first flush of astonishment—half delight, half diffidence—had passed, how natural it all seemed; how mind and manners and methods all expanded to meet the new requirements; how calmly and as a matter of course the dignity was worn, the increment appropriated, the mental retina adapted to the widened focus! How easily, too, he sloughed off his own conviction that it was all pure luck, and accepted the world’s kind judgment of deserved success! Who is it that accuses the world, and rails at its hardness of heart? What man among us all, in the hour of honest introspection, does not know that he is rated too high, that he is in debt to the credulity, the generosity, the dear old human tendency to hero-worship, of his fellows?
This is an extract from a letter which the successful Seth Fairchild wrote a few months ago. Chronologically, it is dated only a couple of years after the occurrences with which we are now concerned—but to him an interval of decades doubtless seemed to separate the periods. Perhaps the modesty of it is a trifle self-conscious, and the rhetoric is of a flamboyant kind which he will never, apparently, outgrow, but at all events it shows a disposition to be fair as between himself and history. The period of great fortune, to which he alludes, is to be glanced at in this present chapter—to be limned, though only in outline, more clearly no doubt than he himself could be trusted to do it. For, though a man have never so fine a talent for self-analysis, you are safe to be swamped if you follow him a step beyond your own depth. In cold fact, Seth could no more tell how it was that, within one short year, he rose from the very humblest post to become Editor of the Chronicle, than Master Tom here can explain why he has outgrown his last summer’s knickerbockers while his twin brother hasn’t.
He had been back at his work in Tecumseh only a month when word came to the office one morning that Mr. Tyler could not come—that he had been seriously injured in the havoc wrought by a runaway horse. It was too early for either editor or proprietor to be on the scene, and Arthur Dent at that hour was the visible head of the staff. He and Seth had scarcely spoken to each other for months—in fact since that disagreeable evening encounter—but he walked over now to our young man’s desk and said:
“Mr. Fairchild, you would better take the News to-day. Tyler has been badly hurt.”
Marvelling much at the favoritism of the selection, for Dent had not only passed Murtagh over but had waived his own claims of precedence, Seth, changed desks. He got through the work well enough, it appeared, but he mistrusted deeply his ability to hold the place. Mr. Samboye did not seem to approve his promotion, though he said nothing, and the manner in which Mr. Workman looked at him in his new chair seemed distinctly critical.
After the paper had gone to press, and some little routine work against the next morning’s start was out of the way, he wavered between idling the remaining two hours away among the exchanges, or attempting an editorial article for the morrow, such as Mr. Tyler occasionally contributed. His former experience with Mr. Samboye dismayed him a bit, but he concluded to try the editorial experiment again. Some things which Ansdell had said one day on the Silver question remained in his mind, and he made them the basis of a half-column article. He was finishing this when the office-boy told him Mr. Workman wished to see him below. He took his Silver article with him, vaguely hoping, hardly expecting, to be congratulated on his day’s work, and told to keep the desk.
Seth’s impressions of his employer were that he was a hard, peremptory man, and he searched his face now for some sign of softness in vain. Mr. Workman motioned him to a seat, and said abruptly:
“You were on the News desk to-day. Did you take it yourself, or were you sent there?”
“Mr. Dent told me to take it, sir.”
“Why didn’t he take it himself, or put Murtagh on?”
Seth had it in mind to explain that Murtagh did not come down early enough, but he remembered how strenuous the rules were in the matter of matutinal punctuality, and concluded to say simply that he didn’t know. Mr. Workman looked at him for a moment, made some arabesque figures with his pencil on the edge of the blotter, looked at him again, and then said, in a milder tone than Seth had supposed his voice capable of:
“I may as well be candid with you. I have been very much disappointed in you so far. You haven’t panned out at all as your brother led me to expect you would.”
This was a knock-down blow. Poor Seth could only turn his copy about in his hands and stammer: “I am very sorry. In what way have I failed?”
“It would be hard to tell exactly in what way. I should say it was in a general failure to be the sort of young man I thought you were going to be. You have shown no inclination, for example, to write anything—and yet your brother praised you up to the skies as a writer.”
“But what was the good? I did write a long paragraph when I first came here, and handed it in to Mr. Samboye, and he tore it up before my eyes! That would be enough to discourage anybody!”
“Oh, he did that with you too, did he?” Mr. Workman made more arabesques on his blotter, shading them with great neatness.
Seth thought this was a favorable opportunity to get in his Silver article, and handed it to the proprietor with a word of explanation. Mr. Workman read it over carefully and laid it aside without a syllable of comment. There was nothing in his face to show whether he liked it or not. He surrounded all his penciled figures with a wavy border, and said again:
“Then there are your associations. Before ever you came I was discouraged at the amount of money and time and health my young men were squandering in saloons. It had become a scandal to the town. I get a young man in from the country, whose habits are vouched for as perfect, with an idea that he will influence the rest, and lo and behold! he becomes the boss guzzler of the lot!”
“There is a good deal of justice in that, Mr. Workman—or there was. But since I’ve been back this time it has been changed. I have moved into another boarding house where I have a room to myself, and I have read at home almost every evening when I was not with Mr. Ansdell. I think I see the folly of that old way, as clearly as any one can.”
“Ansdell and I had a long talk about you the other day. It was he who gave me my first idea that there was anything in you. He is something of a crank on certain subjects, but he knows men like a book. I have been saying to myself that if he liked you there must be more in you than I had discovered. If I am right in this, now is your time to show it. It is a toss up, the doctors say this afternoon, whether poor Tyler lives or dies. In any case he won’t be about in months. You can keep on at the desk for a while. We’ll see how you make it go.”
The next afternoon, when the inky boy brought up the damp first copies from the clanging, roaring region of the press, Seth was transfixed with bewilderment at seeing his article in the position of honor on the editorial page. While he still stared at it, amazed and troubled, Mr. Samboye with an angry snort swung around in his chair to face him:
“Is this Silver thing yours?”
“Yes.”
“And it is your conception of the ethics of journalism, is it, to sneak leaders into the composing, room without authority?”
“I sneaked nothing in! I gave the copy to Mr. Workman last night. I am as much surprised to see it the leader as you are.”
Mr. Samboye rose abruptly, and strode through the room to the stairs. They were ricketty at best and they trembled, the whole floor trembled, under his wrathful and ponderous tread.
The fa............