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Page 54
"You will fail this time," I said, emphatically.
"Perhaps so," admitted Van Sweller, looking out of the window into the
street below, "but if so it will be for the first time. The authors all
send me there. I fancy that many of them would have liked to accompany
me, but for the little matter of the expense."
"I say I will be touting for no restaurant," I repeated, loudly. "You
are subject to my will, and I declare that you shall not appear of
record this evening until the time arrives for you to rescue Miss
Ffolliott again. If the reading public cannot conceive that you have
dined during that interval at some one of the thousands of
establishments provided for that purpose that do not receive literary
advertisement it may suppose, for aught I care, that you have gone
fasting."
"Thank you," said Van Sweller, rather coolly, "you are hardly courteous.
But take care! it is at your own risk that you attempt to disregard a
fundamental principle in metropolitan fiction--one that is dear alike to
author and reader. I shall, of course attend to my duty when it comes
time to rescue your heroine; but I warn you that it will be your loss if
you fail to send me to-night to dine at ----.*" [Footnote: * See
advertising column, "Where to Dine Well," in the daily newspapers.]
"I will take the consequences if there are to be any," I replied. "I am
not yet come to be sandwich man for an eating-house."
I walked over to a table where I had left my cane and gloves. I heard
the whirr of the alarm in the cab below and I turned quickly. Van
Sweller was gone.
I rushed down the stairs and out to the curb. An empty hansom was just
passing. I hailed the driver excitedly.
"See that auto cab halfway down the block?" I shouted. "Follow it. Don't
lose sight of it for an instant, and I will give you two dollars!"
If I only had been one of the characters in my story instead of myself I
could easily have offered $10 or $25 or even $100. But $2 was all I felt
justified in expending, with fiction at its present rates.
The cab driver, instead of lashing his animal into a foam, proceeded at
a deliberate trot that suggested a by-the-hour arrangement.
But I suspected Van Sweller's design; and when we lost sight of his cab
I ordered my driver to proceed at once to ----.* [* See advertising
column, "Where to Dine Well," in the daily newspapers.]
I found Van Sweller at a table under a palm, just glancing over the
menu, with a hopeful waiter hovering at his elbow.
"Come with me," I said, inexorably. "You will not give me the slip
again. Under my eye you shall remain until 11:30."
Van Sweller countermanded the order for his dinner, and arose to
accompany me. He could scarcely do less. A fictitious character is but
poorly equipped for resisting a hungry but live author who comes to drag
him forth from a restaurant. All he said was: "You were just in time;
but I think you are making a mistake. You cannot afford to ignore the
wishes of the great reading public."
I took Van Sweller to my own rooms--to my room. He had never seen
anything like it before.
"Sit on that trunk," I said to him, "while I observe whether the
landlady is stalking us. If she is not, I will get things at a
delicatessen store below, and cook something for you in a pan over the
gas jet. It will not be so bad. Of course nothing of this will appear in
the story."
"Jove! old man!" said Van Sweller, looking about him with interest,
"this is a jolly little closet you live in! Where the devil do you
sleep?--Oh, that pulls down! And I say--what is this under the corner of
the carpet?--Oh, a frying pan! I see--clever idea! Fancy cooking over
the gas! What larks it will be!"
"Think of anything you could eat?" I asked; "try a chop, or what?"
"Anything," said Van Sweller, enthusiastically, "except a grilled bone."
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