The close observer might have detected a faint sadness under the official congratulation of his tone; but the Professor was too amazed to have an ear for such fine shades.
“Expected it of me? Expected what of me?” he gasped. “What in heaven do you think this thing is?” And he struck his fist on the manuscript which lay between them.
Harviss had recovered his optimistic creases. He rested a benevolent eye on the document.
“Why, your apologia—your confession of faith, I should call it. You surely must have seen which way you were going? You can’t have written it in your sleep?”
“Oh, no, I was wide awake enough,” said the Professor faintly.
“Well, then, why are you staring at me as if I were not?” Harviss leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on his visitor’s worn coat-sleeve. “Don’t mistake me, my dear Linyard. Don’t fancy there was the least unkindness in my allusion to your change of front. What is growth but the shifting of the standpoint? Why should a man be expected to look at life with the same eyes at twenty and at—our age? It never occurred to me that you could feel the least delicacy in admitting that you have come round a little—have fallen into line, so to speak.”
But the Professor had sprung up as if to give his lungs more room to expand; and from them there issued a laugh which shook the editorial rafters.
“Oh, Lord, oh Lord—is it really as good as that?” he gasped.
Harviss had glanced instinctively toward the electric bell on his desk; it was evident that he was prepared for an emergency.
“My dear fellow—” he began in a soothing tone.
“Oh, let me have my laugh out, do,” implored the Professor. “I’ll—I’ll quiet down in a minute; you needn’t ring for the young man.” He dropped into his chair again, and grasped its arms to steady his shaking. “This is the best laugh I’ve had since college,” he brought out between his paroxysms. And then, suddenly, he sat up with a groan. “But if it’s as good as that it’s a failure!” he exclaimed.
Harviss, stiffening a little, examined the tip of his cigar. “My dear Linyard,” he said at length, “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
The Professor succumbed to a fresh access, from the vortex of which he managed to fling out—“But that’s the very core of the joke!”
Harviss looked at him resignedly. “What is?”
“Why, your not seeing—your not understanding—”
“Not understanding what?”
“Why, what the book is meant to be.” His laughter subsided again and he sat gazing thoughtfully at the publisher. “Unless it means,” he wound up, “that I’ve over-shot the mark.”
“If I am the mark, you certainly have,” said Harviss, with a glance at the clock.
The Professor caught the glance and interpreted it. “The book is a skit,” he said, rising.
The other stared. “A skit? It’s not serious, you mean?”
“Not to me—but it seems you’ve taken it so.”
“You never told me—” began the publisher in a ruffled tone.
“No, I never told you,” said the Professor.
Harviss sat staring at the manuscript between them. “I don’t pretend to be up in such recondite forms of humour,” he said, still stiffly. “Of course you address yourself to a very small class of readers.”
“Oh, infinitely small,” admitted the Professor, extending his hand toward the manuscript.
Harviss appeared to be pursuing his own train of thought. “That is,” he continued, “if you insist on an ironical interpretation.”
“If I insist on it—what do you mean?”
The publisher smiled faintly. “Well—isn’t the book susceptible of another? If I read it without seeing—”
“Well?” murmured the other, fascinated.—“why shouldn’t the rest of the world?” declared Harviss boldly. “I represent the Average Reader—that’s my business, that’s what I’ve been training myself to do for the last twenty years. It’s a mission like another—the thing is to do it thoroughly; not to cheat and compromise. I know fellows who are publishers in business hours and dilettantes the rest of the time. Well, they never succeed: convictions are just as necessary in business as in religion. But that’s not the point—I was going to say that if you’ll let me handle this book as a genuine thing I’ll guarantee to make it go.”
The Professor stood motionless, his hand still on the manuscript.
“A genuine thing?” he echoed.
“A serious piece of work—the expression of your convictions. I tell you there’s nothing the public likes as much as convictions—they’ll always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is just on the line of popular interest. You’ve got hold of a big thing. It’s full of hope and enthusiasm: it’s written in the religious key. There are passages in it that would do splendidly in a Birthday Book—things that popular preachers would quote in their sermons. If you’d wanted to catch a big public you couldn’t have gone about it in a better way. The thing’s perfect for my purpose—I wouldn’t let you alter a word of it. It’ll sell like a popular novel if you’ll let me handle it in the right way.”
III
When the Professor left Harviss’s office, the manuscript remained behind. He thought he had been taken by the huge irony of the situation—by the enlarged circumference of the joke. In its original form, as Harviss had said, the book would have addressed itself to a very limited circle: now it would include the world. The elect would understand; the crowd would not; and his work would thus serve a double purpose. And, after all, nothing was changed in the situation; not a word of the book was to be altered. The change was merely in the publisher’s point of view, and in the “tip” he was to give the reviewers. The Professor had only to hold his tongue and look serious.
These arguments found a strong reinforcement in the large premium which expressed Harviss’s sense of his opportunity. As a satire, the book would have brought its author nothing; in fact, its cost would have come out of his own pocket, since, as Harviss assured him, no publisher would have risked taking it. But as a profession of faith, as the recantation of an eminent biologist, whose leanings had hitherto been supposed to be toward a cold determinism, it would bring in a steady income to author and publisher. The offer found the Professor in a moment of financial perplexity. His illness, his unwonted holiday, the necessity of postponing a course of well-paid lectures, had combined to diminish his resources; and when Harviss offered him an advance of a thousand dollars the esoteric savour of the joke became irresistible. It was still as a joke that he persisted in regarding the transaction; and though he had pledged himself not to betray the real intent of the book, he held in petto the notion of some day being able to take the public into his confidence. As for the initiated, they would know at once: and however long a face he pulled, his colleagues would see the tongue in his cheek. Meanwhile it fortunately happened that, even if the book should achieve the kind of triumph prophesied by Harviss, it would not appreciably injure its author’s professional standing. Professor Linyard was known chiefly as a microscopist. On the structure and habits of a certain class of coleoptera he was the most distinguished living authority; but none save his intimate friends knew what generalizations on the destiny of man he had drawn from these special studies. He might have published a treatise on the Filioque without disturbing the confidence of those on whose approval his reputation rested; and moreover he was sustained by the thought that one glance at his book would let them into its secret. In fact, so sure was he of this that he wondered the astute Harviss had cared to risk such speedy exposure. But Harviss had probably reflected that even in this reverberating age the opinions of the laboratory do not easily reach the street; and the Professor, at any rate, was not bound to offer advice on this point.