My first trial was in finding the office I wanted. I had no trouble locating the building in which the Spark was published, since its address was printed in every issue: it turned out to be a vast stonepile near the Lexington Canal. Most of its huge space was devoted to printing, binding, warehousing, and distributing the company’s papers and pamphlets, however, and I was reduced to asking my way of a grimy press-operator who told me, “Oh, you want Editorial.”
“Editorial” was a suite of rooms at the top of a flight of stairs on the fourth floor. All the heat of the building (and it was a warm June day) had collected in that airless warren, and so had the smells of ink and solvent and machine oil. I did not know precisely to whom I ought to speak, but further inquiries led me to the door of the Editor and Publisher, a man named John Hungerford. Apparently Mr. Hungerford wasn’t accustomed to meeting visitors who hadn’t scheduled appointments; but I was firm in my entreaties to his secretary, and eventually I was allowed into his office.
Hungerford sat behind an oaken desk, in one of the few rooms on the floor that possessed an open window, though it looked out on a brick wall. He was a man of fifty years or thereabout, stern and peremptory in his manner. He asked without preamble what I wanted from him.
I said I was a writer. I had hardly pronounced that word when he interrupted me: “I can’t give you a job, if that’s what you want. We have all the writers we need—they’re thick on the ground at the moment.”
“It’s not a job I want, it’s justice! I’m a sorry to say that a man connected with your firm has robbed me, and he has done it with your collaboration.”
That silenced him for a moment. His eyebrows inched up, and he looked me over. “What’s your name, son?”
“Adam Hazzard.”
“Means nothing to me.”
“I don’t expect it would. But the thief is Mr. Theodore Dornwood—maybe you know that name.”
He evinced less surprise than I expected. “And what do you claim Dornwood stole from you? A watch, a wallet, a woman’s affections?”
“Words. Twenty thousand of them, roughly.” I had made an estimate of the length in words of The Adventures of Julian Commongold.
A word is a small thing; but twenty thousand of anything is a ponderable number. “May I explain?”
“Be my guest.”
I told him the story of the work I had done for Dornwood in Montreal , and what Dornwood in turn had done with my work.
Mr. Hungerford said nothing but asked his secretary to send for Dornwood, who apparently had an office in the building. In a moment or two that villain arrived.
Dornwood in Manhattan was not quite the hemp-scented drunkard I had last espied near Montreal. The success of Captain Commongold had improved his clothing, his tonsure, and his skin tone. Unfortunately it also seemed to have damaged his memory. He looked at me blankly, or pretended to, until Mr. Hungerford made an introduction.
“Oh, yes!—Mr. Hazzard— Private Hazzard, wasn’t it? I’m pleased to see you survived your tour of duty. I’m sorry I didn’t know you out of uniform.”
“Well, I know you,” I said, “uniform or not.”
“This young man has a grievance against you,” Hungerford said, and he proceeded to repeat in fair detail what I had told him. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Theodore Dornwood shrugged and looked vaguely hurt. “Well, what can I say? I suppose there’s some truth in it. I do recall Private Hazzard coming to me for lessons in writing. And I did agree to peruse a few pages for him.”
“You admit it!” I cried.
“Admit to consulting you, yes. I think you misunderstand the nature of journalism, Private Hazzard. But I don’t blame you, for a boreal lease-boy could hardly know any better. A journalist draws on many sources. You and I talked about Julian Commongold, yes—you may even have shown me some written notes—but I discussed the subject with a great number of infantrymen and officers, of which you were only one. In so far as I did employ your notes as a partial source (and I admit I may have), it was in exchange for my advice on writing… such advice as I could supply to a poorly-schooled Westerner. No formal bargain existed, of course; but if ever there was an informal one, surely it was fulfilled.”
I stared at him. “I made no bargain at all!”
Mr. Hungerford looked up sharply from his desk. “If you made no bargain, Mr. Hazzard, then there was no bargain to be broken, was there? I’m afraid Mr. Dornwood has the better of you on all counts.”
“Except that every word printed in Captain Commongold is mine, exactly as I wrote it!—apart from the misplacement of the commas.”
Dornwood, who was proving to be a smooth and efficient liar, threw his hands up and gave his employer a beseeching look. “He accuses me of plagiarism. Must I stoop to deny it?”
“Look, Mr. Hazzard,” Hungerford said, “you’re not the first individual to blow in here claiming some pamphlet was based on an idea of his, somehow ‘stolen.’ It happens with every successful piece we publish. I don’t mean to call you a liar—and Dornwood generously admits that he used you as one source among hundreds—but you present no evidence that what you say is true, and every indication that it’s simply a painful misunderstanding on your part.”
“I’m glad you don’t mean to call me a liar, for I’m not one—though you might find one close to hand!”
“See here,” said Dornwood.
“The discussion is closed,” Hungerford said, abruptly standing. “And I want to go to lunch. I’m sorry we can’t do anything to accommodate you, Mr. Hazzard.”
“I don’t want to be accommodated, I want to be paid! I’ll have you before a court, if necessary!”
“So you say. For your sake I hope you won’t pursue the matter. If you insist, you can come back this afternoon and speak to me in the presence of my lawyer. He stops by the office about three o’clock. Perhaps he can convince you the case is hopeless, if I can’t. Goodbye, Mr. Hazzard—you know where the door is.”
Dornwood smiled at me, maddeningly.
* * *
I went home disconsolate. Calyxa, as it turned out, had gone off with Mrs. Comstock to buy clothing for the Independence Day celebration at the Executive Palace. Julian—who had stayed out late after the movie, meeting friends among the showpeople and aesthetes of Broadway—had just rolled out of bed. I passed him on the way to the kitchen; he asked me if I had had my breakfast yet.
“Breakfast hours ago, and it’s already late for lunch,” I said irritably.
“Fine—I’d rather eat lunch than breakfast. Why don’t we go out and have a decent meal? No offense to the kitchen staff.”
“I’m not sure but that I wouldn’t rather spend the afternoon reading.”
“Not on a day as fine as this!”
“How would you know what sort of day it is? I’m sure you haven’t even looked out a window yet.”
“The fineness of it seeps under the doors. I smell sunshine. Don’t be a fossil, Adam. Join me for lunch.”
I could hardly resist his invitation without citing the morning’s events, which I preferred to keep to myself. We dined at a restaurant not far distant, which served ox-tongue cobblers and lozenged pork of a refined quality, and I tried to smile and make small talk. But I hardly tasted the food; and I was such glum company that Julian repeatedly asked about my state of mind.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Maybe indigestion.”
“Maybe nothing of the kind. Have you had an argument with Calyxa?”
“No—”
“Are you worried about Independence Day?”