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Show Nf FICTION CORNER mS, I THEN IN TRIUMPH I ND' By Frank L. Parke five of this city and the husbanc of . . ." The second floor rooms might have been vacant, but ClifTord took no chances. He kept on going untl he reached his study at the back oi the attic. He snapped on the light over the table and dropped into th chair before it. He put Julia's booh right in front of him, but he didn'1 immediately open it. Instead he squirmed back in the chair and looked about him. The room was familiar enough. It had been his for over eighteen years. The table was the same. The print of the Jones flagship was the same. And the old typewriter was the one he had bought before Julia and he were married. There hadn't been many changes. The fireplace had been re-bricked. And the radio was a recent gift ol Julia's. And stacked all along the bookcase were the manuscripts oi his novels. His rejected novels. On top was his latest one, the one that ment booth down at the gas company com-pany and to wake up the husband hus-band of a best-selling novelist? Very startling, he told them. Was he going go-ing to give up his job? No, he snapped, he wasn't. Had he heard the news that "Welcome Tomorrow" Tomor-row" was going to be translated into Turkish? No, he hadn't. And then the woman came over. The one whose voice he'd heard back in the kitchen where he wished devoutly he'd stayed. "How," she inquired briskly, "did you like the story?" Clifford didn't answer immediately. immediate-ly. He just looked at the woman. THERE were cars in front of the house. Four of them. And two more in the drive. Clifford Oslow cut across the Drake's lawn and headed for the back steps. But not soon enough. The door of a big red cabriolet opened and a woman came rushing after him. She was a little person, smaller even than Clifford himself. But she was fast. She reached him just as he made the gap in the hedge. "You're Mr. Oslow, aren't you?" she panted. She didn't wait for a confession. She pulled out a little book and a pencil and held them under his nose. "I've been trying to get her autograph all week," she explained. ex-plained. "I want you to get it for me. Just drop the book in a mailbox. mail-box. It's stamped and the address is on it." And then she was I I gone and Clifford itl was standing there lms holding the book Week's an pencil In his hand. "Never Best mind," she shouted . from the car, "mall- FlCtlOIl ing the pencill" He stuffed the autograph book in his pocket and hurried up the steps. There was a lot of noise coming from the parlor. Several male voices all going it at once. A strange woman's voice insinuating itself every ev-ery now and then. And 'Julia's voice, rising above the babble, clear and kindly and very sure. "Yes," she was saying. And, "I'm very glad." And, "People have been tremendously generous to me." She sounded tired, though. Clifford leaned against the ironing-board ironing-board while he finished the sandwich sand-wich and the coke. He left the empty bottle on the table, snapped off the kitchen light and pushed easily eas-ily on the hall door. The hall light was on and someone Clifford didn't know was pacing the carpet across They bounced him into the parlor. "Here he is!" somebody shouted. ' had stopped going the rounds six months before. On the bottom was his earliest one. The one he wrote when Julia and he were first married. The one whose people both of them lived with in the two years during which he labored over it. "How's Vincent coming along?" Julia would say. "He's got the house built," Clifford would tell her, "but I can't think of a valid way for him to get the Gleason acre he needs for pasturage." pastur-age." Yes, Clifford was a writer then. Large W. And he kept on thinking of himself as one for many years after, despite the concerted indifference indif-ference of the publishers. Finally, of course, his writing had become merely a gesture. A stubborn unwillingness un-willingness to admit defeat. Now, to be sure, the defeat was unquestioned. unques-tioned. Now that Julia, who before from the parlor. But It was only three short steps to the rear stairs. He didn't make it. Someone who babbled incompre-hensively incompre-hensively at him grabbed him by the arm and bounced him along the hall and into the parlor. "Here he is," somebody shouted. "Here's Mr. Oslow!" There were half-a-dozen people there, all with note books and busy pens. Julia was in the big chair by the fireplace, looking plumper than usual in her new green dress. She smiled at him affectionately but, it seemed to him, a little distantly. dis-tantly. He'd noticed that breach in her glance many times lately. He hoped that it wasn't superiority, but he was desperately afraid that it was. She looked, he saw, as tired as she had sounded. . , "Hello, Clifford," she said. "Hello, Julia," he answered. He didn't get a chance to go over and kiss her. A reporter had him right against the wall. How did it I seem to go to bed a teller at the pay- Everyone became very quiet. And everyone looked at him. The woman wom-an repeated the question. Clifford knew what he wanted to say. "I liked it very much," he wanted to say and then run. But they wouldn't let him run. They'd make him stay. And ask him more questions. Such as which character he had liked best. Which he couldn't answer. "I haven't," he mumbled, "had an opportunity to read it yet. But I'm going to," he promised. And then came a sudden inspiration. "I'm going to read it now!" There was a copy on the desk by the door. Clifford grabbed it and raced for the front stairs. BEFORE he reached the second flight, though, he could hear the woman's voice on the hall phone. "At last," she was saying, "diligent digging has unearthed an adult American 'Who has not read 'Welcome 'Wel-come Tomorrow.' He is, of all people, peo-ple, Clifford Oslow, white, 43, a na- a year ago hadn't put pen to paper, had written a book, had it accepted and now was looking at advertisements advertise-ments that said, "over lour hundred thousand copies." Julia, Clifford sighed. Well, the utter miserableness of his failure wouldn't be permitted to steal one ounce from her merited pleasure in her own accomplishment! He picked up "Welcome Tomorrow" Tomor-row" and opened it, as he opened every book, in the middle. He read' a paragraph. And then another. He had just started a third when' suddenly he stopped. He put down Julia's book, reached over to the shelf and tugged out the dusty man-1 uscript of his own first effort. Rapidly Rap-idly he flipped over the crisp pages. Then he began to read aloud. C'ROM his own manuscript he read: "The water was high above the fence-top. Beyond on the hill the cattle cowefed. Vincent stood, silent si-lent and stricken, beside the ruin of his farm." Clifford put the manuscript on the table on top of the book. For a time he sat quietly inspecting the crease of his trousers. Then he put the book in his lap and left the' manuscript on the table and began to read them, page against page. He had his answer in ten minutes. And then he went back downstairs. A couple of reporters were still in the parlor. "But, Mrs. Oslow, naturally nat-urally our readers are Interested," one was insisting. "When," he demanded, de-manded, "will you finish your next book?" "I don't know," she answered uneasily. un-easily. Clifford came across the room to her, smiling. He put his arm around her and pressed her shoulder firmly but gently. "Now, now, Julia," he protested. "Let's not quibble with the young man." The reporter looked up. "Mrs. Oslow's new novel," Clifford Clif-ford announced proudly, "will be ready in another month." Julia turned around and stared at him, quite terrified. But Clifford kept on smiling. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out the autograph book and pencil that had been forced on him on his way home. "Sign here," he instructed. |