The South American Editor
by
If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late hour the next day, I listlessly drew aside the azure curtains of my couch, and languidly rang a silver bell which stood on my dressing-table, and received from a page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and letters which had been left for me since morning, and the newspapers of the day.
I am not writing a novel.
The next morning, about ten o’clock, I arose and went down to breakfast. As I sat at the littered table which every one else had left, dreading to attack my cold coffee and toast, I caught sight of the morning papers, and received some little consolation from them. There was the Argus with its three columns and a half of “Important from South America,” while none of the other papers had a square of any intelligibility excepting what they had copied from the Argus the day before. I felt a grim smile creeping over my face as I observed this signal triumph of our paper, and ventured to take a sip of the black broth as I glanced down my own article to see if there were any glaring misprints in it. Before I took the second sip, however, a loud peal at the door-bell announced a stranger, and, immediately after, a note was brought in for me which I knew was in Julia’s hand-writing.
“DEAR GEORGE:–Don’t be angry; it was not my fault, really it was not. Grandfather came home just as I was leaving last night, and was so angry, and said I should not go to the party, and I had to sit with him all the evening. Do write to me or let me see you; do something–”
What a load that note took off my mind! And yet, what must the poor girl have suffered! Could the old man suspect? Singleton was true to me as steel, I knew. He could not have whispered,–nor Barry; out that Jane, Barry’s wife. O woman! woman! what newsmongers they are! Here were Julia and I, made miserable for life, perhaps, merely that Jane Barry might have a good story to tell. What right had Barry to a wife? Not four years out of college, and hardly settled in his parish. To think that I had been fool enough to trust even him with the particulars of my all-important secret! But here I was again interrupted, coffee-cup still full, toast still untasted, by another missive.
“Tuesday morning.
“SIR:–I wish to see you this morning. Will you call upon me, or appoint a time and place where I may meet you?
“Yours, JEDEDIAH WENTWORTH.”
“Send word by the bearer.”
“Tell Mr. Wentworth I will call at his house at eleven o’clock.”
The cat was certainly out; Mrs. Barry had told, or some one else had, who I did not know and hardly cared. The scene was to come now, and I was almost glad of it. Poor Julia! what a time she must have had with the old bear!
* * * * *
At eleven o’clock I was ushered into Mr. Wentworth’s sitting-room. Julia was there, but before I had even spoken to her the old gentleman came bustling across the room, with his “Mr. Hackmatack, I suppose”; and then followed a formal introduction between me and her, which both of us bore with the most praiseworthy fortitude and composure, neither evincing, even by a glance, that we had ever seen or heard of each other before. Here was another weight off my mind and Julia’s. I had wronged poor Mrs. Barry. The secret was not out–what could he want? It very soon appeared.
After a minute’s discussion of the weather, the snow, and the thermometer, the old gentleman drew up his chair to mine, with “I think, sir, you are connected with the Argus office?”