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Show By elihob Bsasnmi o O ARCADIA HOUSE PUBLICATIONS WNTJ SERVICE ' SYNOPSIS Mary Loring and her father, Jim, an Ineffectual attorney, meet a train which brings his wealthy sister-in-law, unmarried unmar-ried Linnie Cotsweli and her friend. Le-lia Le-lia Ormsby, divorcee, for a Christmas visit. Waiting at home for them are Mary's mother, her younger sister, Ellen; El-len; her father's nagging maiden sister. sis-ter. Aunt Mamie, and Peter, the baby of the family. At the depot Dr. Christopher Cragg helps the guests with their luggage. lug-gage. Mary is secretly in love with Doctor Cragg. In leaving, her Aunt Linnie Lin-nie urges Mary to visit her in New York, but Mary refuses. Mary works in a rental library, where she spends her spare time writing short stories. Mary's father is let out as railroad attorney, the fees of which were almost the sole support sup-port of his family. To earn money, she decides to begin writing in earnest. Mary feels sure that her newest story, "At Sea." would please the editors of National Na-tional Weekly. After finishing it she calls Doctor Cragg, who comes to the book store for a current novel. Falling from a ladder while getting his book, she regains re-gains consciousness to find his arms around her. He tells her he loves her, and then tells her he is to be married the coming month to a girl he has known all his life. Despondent, Mary decides de-cides to accept her Aunt Linnie's invitation. invi-tation. In New York her aunt laughs at her for her plans to write, and insists that she meet as many eligible men as possible. The new week brings two letters. One, from the National Weekly, with a $100 check for her story, makes her deliriously happy. The other, from her sister, tells her that financial conditions condi-tions at home are getting worse. The next day. at a party given by her aunt, Mary meets distinguished Jerome Taylor, Tay-lor, wealthy middle aged man-about-town, and effusive Count Umberto Bali-anci. Bali-anci. The count's oily manner nauseates her. A note from her father the following follow-ing day pleads with her not to mention the family's financial plight to her aunt. After reading it she forces herself to begin be-gin work on her next short story, which is more difficult to write than the first. She labors on until her aunt informs her that Count Umberto. whom Lelia terms a sponger and fortune hunter, is to take them to dinner that evening. He takes them to a garish restaurant in Greenwich Green-wich Village. That evening Mary sends her story, "Their Son," to Ihe National Weekly. She goes to see Phillip Buchanan, Bu-chanan, editor of the National Weekly, to whom she has given her last story. CHAPTER VI Continued She smiled atr Mr. Buchanan. "Yes, I am Mary Loring." "You took me rather by surprise." sur-prise." "Oh! But I thought Miss Hicken-looper Hicken-looper announced me!" "She did, of course. I mean that I was hardly prepared for a debutante. debu-tante. 'At Sea' has the wisdom of years in its theme." "I'm twenty-two," Mary replied, as if that explained everything. Phillip Buchanan smiled, and his teeth seemed very white because of the contrast they made with the tan of his face. "All of that? Do sit down, Miss Loring. I'm so glad you dropped in. I've wanted to tell you how very much we liked 'At Sea.' It's scheduled for publication publica-tion April fifteenth." Mary seated herself in a chair facing Mr. Buchanan across the desk, the envelope containing her manuscript held tightly beneath her right arm. "Oh! Not until April?" "Not until April?" Mr. Buchanan repeated. "Why, that's giving your story an early publication! Don't you know that our material at least as far as fiction is concerned is planned months in advance? In fact, we shelved a story we had arranged to publish on that date in order to make room for' yours. By the way, have you written anything since you sent us 'At Sea'?" Mary produced the envelope containing con-taining her precious script, and placed it on the desk before him. "Indeed I have, Mr. Buchanan, and here it is. Another short short" Phillip Buchanan glanced at it, put it on a pile of papers at his left, and then casually lit his cigarette. ciga-rette. "That's fine. I'll turn it over to Mr. Johnstone today." Mary's eyes clouded with disappointment disap-pointment She had supposed that Mr. Buchanan, himself, would read the story perhaps this morning while she sat there in his office. "Mr. Johnstone?" she repeated numbly. "Yes, one of our readers." Then, evidently sensing her disappointment, disappoint-ment, he explained, "You see, all material submitted to The National Weekly goes through a regular routine. rou-tine. Mr. Johnstone reads it first, separates the wheat from the chaff; hands on the possibilities to Mr. Arbuckle, who in turn does a bit more weeding. After which, whatever what-ever is left goes on to Mr. Van Winkle. He then okays what he considers best suited to our needs and sends it on to me. A sort of survival of the'fittest, as it were!" "Heavens, what a test!" Mary replied, re-plied, that elusive dimple playing at one corner of her mouth. "I'm surprised sur-prised that anything ever reaches your desk! I had supposed ..." "That I read everything that comes to the office? Lord, no! I couldn't wander through all that trash! However, you may rest assured as-sured that your story what's the title, by the way?" "Their Son," Mary replied. "You may rest assured that "Their Son' will be given a sympathetic reading. We like your style, and the realistic manner in which you handled the situations in 'At Sea.' Once an author has appeared within our pages, he's given, as far as we're concerned, a place in the sjn. In fact, on second thought, I'll probably prob-ably just turn this over to Mr. Van Winkle not put it through the mill" He glanced abruptly at the dull gold watch strapped to his wrist. "Lord! It's nearly one o'clock, and I have an engagement with Ford Hansen at two. How about having a spot of lunch with me, Miss Loring?" Mary's hands clutched convulsively convulsive-ly beneath the protection of the coat which lay across her lap, and, to her . embarrassment, her face flushed scarlet. Phillip Buchanan, the editor-in-chief of the most popular popu-lar magazine in the United States was asking her to have a "spot of lunch" with him! "Why, thank you," she managed to reply. "That will be fun." Buchanan leaped from his chair, and went towards a cupboard at the far end of the room. "All right," he said. "Let's go." And opening the door, he dragged out a camel's hair top-coat and slid into it "I want to talk to you about a series of shorts, and this is a swell opportunity." op-portunity." Mary felt dizzy with excitement as she and Phillip Buchanan, closeted closet-ed in one of the silent elevators of Mary felt dizzy with excitement. the building which housed The National Na-tional Weekly, descended twenty floors to the lobby. Mr. Buchanan was taking her to lunch! Mr. Buchanan Bu-chanan wanted to talk to her about a series of "shorts" for his magazine. maga-zine. She mentally estimated how many words she could write a day; how many hours it would take to revise and polish what she had written. writ-ten. She must not 'be hasty or careless. care-less. She should, she figured, allow al-low herself two mornings for the original composition, two additional mornings for revision, and a fifth sitting, perhaps, for perfect retyping retyp-ing of the script. They had reached the lobby, now, and were heading for the street door. "I say," Mr. Buchanan began, be-gan, "you don't mind barging all the way down to the Lafayette, do you? My appointment with Hansen's in that neighborhood." Mind! Mary would have gone to Chinatown, or Great Neck, or Timbuktu Tim-buktu with him, had he suggested one of those spots as a lunching place! "I don't mind at all," she returned. "I've wanted to see the Lafayette ever since Greta Garbo appeared in 'Romance.' " Mr. Buchanan looked puzzled. " 'Romance'? Oh, yes, I remember now. All about a young minister who fell in love with an actress! That's right Some of the scenes were supposed to be laid at the Lafayette. La-fayette. Well, I don't know that you'll find a great deal of the atmosphere at-mosphere of the sixties remaining, but it's a good place to eat Come on, we'll hop a taxi." Once in the cab, he settled himself him-self comfortably back against the leather cushions, as if to snatch a bit of rest while the opportunity offered, of-fered, lit a cigarette, and said, "Well, tell me something about yourself, Miss Loring. You're from some small town in the West, aren't you?" Mary glanced shyly at the clear-cut clear-cut lines of the man's profile. He looked rather bored. No doubt his taking her out to lunch was only a necessary evil as far as he was concerned con-cerned the courteous gesture made by a publisher to one of his contributors. con-tributors. Perhaps he was asking her to talk about herself merely in order to avoid the trouble of making mak-ing conversation. "My home's in Hawkinsville, Iowa," she began obediently, feeling that at heart he wouldn't care if she hailed from the Fiji Islands. "I'm just visiting my aunt in New York for a while." "Oh, so your aunt lives here?" "Yes, my mother's sister. But she's going South sometime in March, and I'll probably return to Hawkinsville. I I really would like to stay in New York indefinitely." "Why would you like to stay in New York?" Mr. Buchanan asked. "I should think it would be easier to write in a country town, away from all the hurrah. Besides, you're right in touch with a certain type of life which, judging from 'At Sea.' you're particularly capable of han dling. Hawkinsville is a country town, isn't it?" "I suppose that's what you'd call it, Mr. Buchanan," Mary replied, hating herself for the resentment that had crept into her voice. "The population's almost ten thousand." Then, with a chuckle, "In fact it's been almost ten thousand for the past fifty years! Most of the boys leave for Saint Louis or Chicago to get positions as soon as they're finished fin-ished with high school or college. Some of .the girls marry and go away. A few new families dribble into town every year, and the men get employment at the leather factory. fac-tory. People die, babies are born, but the population remains the same." The man finally looked at her. "That's interesting," he commented, comment-ed, and the faint lines around his mouth crinkled with 'amusement. "Tell me. What are the ah entertainments? en-tertainments? What do people do all the time?" "Well," Mary replied, warming under his half smile, "there's the little country club, three miles from town, and set high up on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. The men, and some of the women, play golf there during the summer, and every Saturday night there's a dinner din-ner dance with Swanson's orchestra from Burlington to furnish the music; mu-sic; and even though Art Swanson could never, in anyone's wildest moments, mo-ments, be termed a second Paul Whiteman, the music is good. Really, Real-ly, it is! Then, there are two movie houses, and often we get pictures that haven't even been released in Saint Louis yet And, of course, the churches are very active, and there are any number of church dinners during the winter, with the women of the guild cooking and serving the food themselves." "And darned good food, I bet it is!" "Oh, is it! Fried chicken and cream gravy, and corn on the cob, in the summer, with great slabs of chocolate cake and home-made icecream. ice-cream. And in the winter, luscious ham, all coated with crisp, brown sugar and baked in wine, Boston baked beans, and loads and loads of tiny biscuits, fresh from the oven." "Stop! You're making my mouth water! Lord! The people in those small towns know how to live!" "In more ways than one," Mary said tensely, her thoughts flashing back to her father and mother; a sudden wave of homesickness and pity assailing her. "At least, they know what Life is all about. They're closer -to it, somehow, than people in the cities. Closer to Life and Death closer to each other. Sometimes, Some-times, you get annoyed because everybody ev-erybody in town seems to know your innermost secrets yet, on the other hand, you know that those very same people care and care terribly when you're sick or dying, or in trouble." Their cab was drawing up before the Lafayette, and Phillip Buchanan turned abruptly and faced her. "That is the kind of people you must write about!" he said. "That's the life you know. You were born to it. You were raised in it. You've been steeped in that atmosphere. Now, write about it!" And with an energetic jerk, he tugged open the door of the taxi. The Lafayette was seething with activity. Smartly groomed women were lunching at "tables for two" with smartly groomed men. Larger Larg-er tables, surrounded by males only, buzzed with laughter and conversation. conversa-tion. At first, Mary thought perhaps per-haps she and Mr. Buchanan would have to find another place for their "spot of lunch," but the captain miraculously located a small table for them, decorated by three yellow yel-low jonquils in a bud vase, and plumped against a window. "What sort of cocktail would you like, Miss Loring?" Phillip Buchanan Buchan-an asked, almost before he had succeeded suc-ceeded in getting his long legs beneath be-neath the snowy cloth. "None, thank you," Mary returned. re-turned. "You see . . ." "Fine!" the man replied. "Well, you don't mind watching me drink, do you? Have you decided what you'd like to eat?" Mary glanced at the menu in her hand. "An Egg Benedict I think, and endive salad." "Egg Benedict and endive salad, Alphonse, for Miss Loring, and I'll have fillet mignon with sauce men-uiere. men-uiere. Coffee, later." He glanced at his watch again. His life, thought Mary, seemed to be run on schedule. sched-ule. He had consulted that timepiece time-piece exactly five times in the past hour. "It's a quarter after one," he announced. "I'd better tell you what we have in mind for you. Miss Loring. Both Mr. Van Winkle and I are enthusiastic about 'At Sea.' The plot of course, is not particularly particu-larly new, but then, after all, no plot is. You attacked it from a fresh viewpoint, however, and we liked the manner in which you handled it. Now, we feel that a series of shorts, done in the same style, might be used by The National Weekly over a period of several months. Say, one every other week. And, in time, if they prove satisfactory, satisfac-tory, and click with our public, we will, of course, gradually increase the pay." "I'll do my best, Mr. Buchanan," she said breathlessly. "I'll start in tomorrow. I I think I have a plot in mind right now. And then, of course, you have 'Their Son.' " "Yes. Van Winkle will give that a reading within a few days, if possible. pos-sible. We're practically deluged with scripts right now, but many of them are unsolicited, and I'm sure he'll give "Their Son' some preference as far as the time element ele-ment is concerned." "Is there any particular treatment you . . . ?" "Simply stick to writing about the type of life you know," Buchanan replied, cutting short her question. He then attacked his steak and, for the next few minutes, completely com-pletely ignored her existence. Still resentful, she adhered to her vow of silence. Buchanan, however, didn't seem to notice the deficiency, and luncheon would probably have gone on indefinitely without further exchange of words, had it not been interrupted presently by a young man with an engaging smile, who spied them from an adjacent table, and came over to speak to Buchanan. Buchan-an. He was short and dark, with gray eyes that were serious yet friendly. "Hello, Phil," he said cordially, coming towards Buchanan with outstretched out-stretched hand. "You're the very person I hoped to see today." "Hello, Jim! Glad to see youl Miss Loring, this is Jim Ormsby." Jim Ormsby! Could this stranger be Lelia's former husband, or were there any number of Jim Ormsbys in New York? "How do you do?" she returned. "What's on your mind, Jim?" Phil Buchanan was asking, "Won't you sit down?" "Thanks, no. I'm dashing off to keep an appointment. It's this, Phil Paul Waring and Lorry Wood and I are running up to my place in Connecticut over the week-end, and we want you to make a fourth. Badminton Bad-minton at the club, you know, and plenty of Contract between drinks. How about it?" "I think it's a swell idea, Jim. Count me in." "Fine! I'll give you a ring tomorrow, tomor-row, and inform you on all the finer points of the situation! Good-by, Miss Loring." (TO BE CONTINUED) |