“All right, Mother, all right. Anyhow, she got me to write your publisher man and ask him not to give you any satisfaction about those royalties, so's she could be the fust one to paralyze you with 'em. And,” with a frank outburst, “if you ain't paralyzed, Al, I own up that _I_ am. Three thousand poetry profits beats me. _I_ don't understand it.”
His wife sniffed. “Of course you don't,” she declared. “But Albert does. And so do I, only I think it ought to have been ever and ever so much more. Don't you, yourself, Albert?”
The author of The Lances of Dawn was still looking at the statement of its earnings.
“Approximately eighteen thousand sold at fifteen cents royalty,” he observed. “Humph! Well, I'll be hanged!”
“But you said it would be twenty-five cents, not fifteen,” protested Olive. “In your letter when the book was first talked about you said so.”
Albert smiled. “Did I?” he observed. “Well, I said a good many things in those days, I'm afraid. Fifteen cents for a first book, especially a book of verse, is fair enough, I guess. But eighteen thousand SOLD! That is what gets me.”
“You mean you think it ought to be a lot more. So do I, Albert, and so does Rachel. Why, we like it a lot better than we do David Harum. That was a nice book, but it wasn't lovely poetry like yours. And David Harum sold a million. Why shouldn't yours sell as many? Only eighteen thousand--why are you lookin' at me so funny?”
Her grandson rose to his feet. “Let's let well enough alone, Grandmother,” he said. “Eighteen thousand will do, thank you. I'm like Grandfather, I'm wondering who on earth bought them.”
Mrs. Snow was surprised and a little troubled.
“Why, Albert,” she said, “you act kind of--kind of queer, seems to me. You talk as if your poetry wasn't beautiful. You know it is. You used to say it was, yourself.”
He interrupted her. “Did I, Grandmother?” he said. “All right, then, probably I did. Let's walk about the old place a little. I want to see it all. By George, I've been dreaming about it long enough!”
There were callers that afternoon, friends among the townsfolk, and more still after supper. It was late--late for South Harniss, that is--when Albert, standing in the doorway of the bedroom he nor they had ever expected he would occupy again, bade his grandparents good night. Olive kissed him again and again and, speech failing her, hastened away down the hall. Captain Zelotes shook his hand, opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, repeated both operations, and at last with a brief, “Well, good night, Al,” hurried after his wife. Albert closed the door, put his lamp upon the bureau, and sat down in the big rocker.