The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1902-10-17
CHAPTER II.

The fruit steamer "Adelantado,"
outward bound, fell away from her
mornings; forged slowly ahead. until
the current caught and swung her
prov riyerward; and. circling majes-
tically in midstream, began to pass the
lights of the city as she steamed at
half speed down the river.
cambridge was on deck when the
steamer left her berth, and, remem-
boring the stuffy little stateroom he
had inspected earlier in the day, was
minded to go aft and finish his cigar in
the open air. Acct rdingly he found a
settee on the portquarter and sat
down to watch the lights wheel past In
orderly procession as the Adelantado
swept around the great crescent
which gives the city its unofficial name.
While the conf Portable feeling of ella
ton. born of his unexpected bit ofgood
fortune, was still uppermost to lend
complacency to his reflections, he YET
found time to be honestly sorry for
the man from whom he had just part
ed. Sorry, but not greatly apprehen-
sive. He had known Griswold in New
York, and was not unused to his So
cialistic vGgaries. To be sure, his theo-
ries were incendiary and subversive of
all civilized dogma; but at bottom.
Griswold the man was nothing worse
than an impressionable enthusiast
who had tormented himself into fan
cied condition of utter ruthlessness by
dwelling overmuch upon the wrongs OF
others.
So cambridge thought; and he knew
his opinion was shared with frank
unanimity by all of Griswold's friends,
who agreed in calling him Utopian, al
truistic, visionary. What milder epi-
thets could be applied to man who,
with sufficient literary talent-not to
say genius-to make himself work
ing name in the ordinary way, must
needs run amuck and write novel
with purpose!-a novel, moreover, in
which the purpose SO overshadowed
the story as to make the book mere
preachment.
AS matter OF course. the publishers tn
would have nothing to do with ths
book. cambridge remembered with
considerable satisfaction that he had
prophesied it's failure, and had given
Griswold no little good advice while it
was in the process of writing. But
Griswold being to the full as obstinate
as he was impressionabl had refused
to be counseled, and now the conse-
quences of his stubbornness were upon
him. He had said truly that his liter
ary gift was novelistic and nothing
else; and here he was, pennilesss and
desperate, with . dead book on his
hands, and with no chance to write
another, even if he were SO minded,
since one cannot write fasting.
Thus cambridge reflected, and was
sorry that Griswold's invincible pride
had kept him from accepting friendly
stop-gap in his extremity. Yet he
smiled in spite Of his sympathy. 1t
was amusing to think of Griswold,
who, as long as his slender patrimony
had lasted, had been emphatically
man not of the people, posing as an an
archist, and up in arms against the
world. None the less, he was to be
pitied.
"Poor devil! he is in the doldrums
now, and isn't quite responsible for
what he says or thinks-or for what he
thinks he thinks" said the journalist
to himself. Just the same, l wish
had made him take that-Why, how
are YOU, Griffin? Where in the mis-
chief did you drop from?"
1t was the inevitable steamer ac-
ouaintance who is always at hand to
prove the exceeding narrowness of the
world, and cambridge made room for
him on the settee.
81 didn't drop, walked in. More
than that, kept step with you all the