“Well, you’re a good one!” yelped Dick in his high, almost falsetto voice when I came in. I could see that he had been sitting before his open window, which commanded Broadway, where he had been no doubt meditating—your true romancer. “Where the hell have you been keeping yourself? You’re a dandy? We’ve been looking for you for weeks. We’ve been down to your place a dozen times, but you wouldn’t let us in. You’re a dandy, you are! McCord has some more of those opera cartoons done. Why didn’t you ever come around, anyhow?”
“I’m working down on the _Republic_ now,” I replied, blushing, “and I’ve been busy.”
“Oho!” laughed Dick, slapping his knees. “That’s a good one on you! I heard about it. Those shows written up, and not one in town! Oho! That’s good!” He coughed a consumptive cough or two and relaxed.
I laughed with him. “It wasn’t really all my fault,” I said apologetically.
“I know it wasn’t. Don’t I know the _Globe_? Didn’t Carmichael get me to work the same racket for him? Ask Hazard. It wasn’t your fault. Sit down. Peter’ll be here in a little while; then we’ll go out and get something.”
We fell to discussing the attitude of the people on the _Globe_ after I had left. Wood insisted that he had not heard much. He knew instinctively that Mitchell was glad I was gone, as he might well have been. Hartung had reported to him that McCullagh had raised Cain with Mitchell and that two or three of the boys on the staff had manifested relief.
“You know who they’d be,” continued Wood. “The fellows who can’t do what you can but would like to.”
I smiled. “I know about who they are,” I said.
We talked about the world in general—literature, the drama, current celebrities, the state of politics, all seen through the medium of youth and aspiration and inexperience. While we were talking McCord came in. He had been to his home in South St. Louis, where he preferred to live in spite of his zest for Bohemia, and the ground had all to be gone over with him. We settled down to an evening’s enjoyment: Dick went for beer; Peter lit a rousing pipe. Accumulated short stories were produced and plans for new ones recounted. At one point Peter exclaimed: “You know what I’m going to do, Dreiser?”