The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

Ray had no doubt that Kane was the court of final resort which the case / against his novel had been appealed to, and he thought it hard that he / should have refused to give it a last chance, or even to look at it / again. Surely it was not so contemptible as that, so hopelessly bad that / a man who seemed his friend could remember nothing in it that would make / it valuable in a second reading. If the fault were not in the book, then / it must be in the friend, and Ray renounced old Kane by every means he / could command. He could not make it an open question; he could only / treat him more and more coldly, and trust to Kane's latent sense of / guilt for the justification of his behavior. But Kane was either so / hardened, or else regarded his own action as so venial, or perhaps / believed it so right, that he did not find Ray's coldness intelligible.

"My dear young friend," he frankly asked, "is there anything between us / but our disparity of years? That existed from the first moment of our / acquaintance. I have consoled myself at times with the notion of our / continuing together in an exemplary friendship, you growing older and / wiser, and I younger and less wise, if possible, like two Swedenborgian / spirits in the final state. But evidently something has happened to / tinge our amity with a grudge in your mind. Do you object to saying just / what property in me has imparted this unpleasant discoloration to it?"

Ray was ashamed to say, or rather unable. He answered that nothing was / the matter, and that he did not know what Kane meant. He was obliged to / prove this by a show of cordiality, which he began perhaps to feel when / he reasoned away his first resentment. Kane had acted quite within his / rights, and if there was to be any such thing as honest criticism, the / free censure of a friend must be suffered and even desired. He said this / to himself quite heroically; he tried hard to be ruled by a truth so / obvious.

In other things his adversity demoralized him, for a time. He ceased to / live in the future, as youth does and should do; he lived carelessly and / wastefully in the present. With nothing in prospect, it was no longer / important how his time or money went; he did not try to save either. He / never finished his poem, and he did not attempt anything else.

In the midst of his listlessness and disoccupation there came a letter / from Hanks Brothers asking if he could not give a little more social / gossip in his correspondence for the _Echo_; they reminded him that / there was nothing people liked so much as personalities. Ray scornfully / asked himself, How should he, who knew only the outsides of houses, / supply social gossip, even if he had been willing? He made a sarcastic / reply to Hanks Brothers, intimating his readiness to relinquish the / correspondence if it were not to their taste; and they took him at his / word, and wrote that they would hereafter make use of a syndicate / letter.

It had needed this blow to rouse him from his reckless despair. If he / were defeated now, it would be in the face of all the friends who had / believed in him and expected success of him. His motive was not high; it / was purely egoistic at the best; but he did not know this; he had a / sense of virtue in sending his book off to a Boston publisher without / undoing the inner wrappings in which the last New York publisher had / returned it.

Then he went round to ask Mr. Brandreth if he knew of any literary or / clerical or manual work he could get to do. The industrial fury which / has subdued a continent, and brought it under the hard American hand, / wrought in him, according to his quality, and he was not only willing / but eager to sacrifice the scruples of delicacy he had in appealing to a / man whom he had sought first on such different terms. His only question / was how to get his business quickly, clearly, and fully before him.

Mr. Brandreth received him with a gayety that put this quite out of his / mind; and he thought the publisher was going to tell him that he had / decided, after all, to accept his novel.

"Ah, Mr. Ray," Mr. Brandreth called out at sight of him, "I was just / sending a note to you! Sit down a moment, won't you? The editor of / _Every Evening_ was in here just now, and he happened to say he wished / he knew some one who could make him a synopsis of a rather important / book he's had an advanced copy of from the other side. It's likely to be / of particular interest in connection with Coquelin's visit; it's a study / of French comic acting from Molière down; and I happened to think of / you. You know French?"

"Why, yes, thank you -- to read. You're very kind, Mr. Brandreth, to think / of me."

"Oh, not at all! I didn't know whether you ever did the kind of thing / the _Every Evening_ wants, or whether you were not too busy; but I / thought I'd drop an anchor to windward for you, on the chance that you / might like to do it."

"I should like very much to do it; and" --

"I'll tell you why I did it," Mr. Brandreth interrupted, radiantly. "I / happened to know they're making a change in the literary department of / the _Every Evening_, and I thought that if this bit of work would let / you show your hand -- See?"

"Yes; and I'm everlastingly" --

"Not at all, not at all! " Mr. Brandreth opened the letter he was / holding, and gave Ray a note that it inclosed. "That's an introduction / to the editor of the _Every Evening_, and you'll strike him at the / office about now, if you'd like to see him."

Ray caught with rapture the hand Mr. Brandreth offered him. "I don't / know what to say to you, but I'm extremely obliged. I'll go at once. " He / started to the door, and turned. "I hope Mrs. Brandreth is well, / and -- and -- the baby?"

"Splendidly. I shall want to have you up there again as soon as we can / manage it. Why haven't you been at Mrs. Chapley's? Didn't you get her / card?"