Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-11

II his typewriter. The keys flew. They
f. beat steady tattoo like machine
gum rakng the paper from one edge
to the other as letters maSSed into
words and words heightened to lines. He was
working with a grim persistence, as he had
worked for weeks, and must still work for
weeks. stern, memorable task, without res
pite. He must 60 on and on for what seemed
an interminable time. He was quite unaware
that the tension mounting within him had
reached its limit, that catastrophe was at hand.
that it awaited him at the end of the very
next line.
Then you really love me?" Eleanor exclaimed
in kind Of awe. The starry light in her blue
eyes deepened. +. Godfrey had typed. He
had reached the big love scene in his story.
and he liked to do these fervent passages at
top speed, touching up any shaky wording
afterward. Now he shot the carriage back.
Love you!" Raymond's words were like
cares upon her cheek as he held her close
Geoffrey paused for fatal instant. He read
the line over. 1t was terrible Then suddenly
something snapped within him. In a wave of
utter revulsion he brought both fists down upon
the keys in one tremendous, vindictiye blow.
The type bars leaped forward and piled upon
each other in tangled mass
y
LIE leaned back and surveyed the ruin. And
then he laughed-loudly, idiotically. He
felt five years younger.
So this was what had BEEN fermenting within
him for weeks slowly gathering to bursting
point. At first his writing had seemed only
more irksome than usual. Serials were apt to
take it out of you when you had to deliver
an instalment of 10000 words every week. And
this one had proved exceedingly recalcitrant
and hard to get on with. He had lost his bear
ings more than once and let his story wander
into impossible blind alleys from which it
could be extricated only by tearing up of
many typed sheets. Along with this wasted
effort he had come to feel violent loathing
for every character in the tale. Even the
starry-eyed Eleanor. whom he had thought at
the start to be a charming creature, and to-
ward whom he had cherished secret tender
ness, now ELECTED nothing but his smoldering
contempt. She was brainleSS and ridiculous
mink, whom he would have delighted to kill
of in the story-had he dared He was also
heartily sick of the tall. virile, blond Raymond
lwho had Viking blood in his veins). and the
dark and cunning Duplain-he was sick of the
whole silly pack of them and this romantic
tange in which they had become preposter-
ously involved.
There had followed violent urge to chuck
It all and take him of to Atlantic City for a
few weeks rest. The SEA air would soothe his
nerves and dispel this jaded feeling. Even the
sight Of the typewriter revolted him. He had
come to loathe its unfeeling mechanical COM
plexity, its cold efficiency. Machines! How he
hated them! And this enforced slavery to
them. If he could only escape from it all and
for few weeks breathe like free man!
But with eight instruments yet to be delivered
under his contract. that was out of the ques-
ton He didn't dare pause, no matter how
tagged out he felt Every seven days he was
compelled to have more copy ready for that
memorable magazine, which went to press every
week It, too, was like monstrous, unfeeling
machine, insistently demanding to be fed. He
had once viewed its gigantic presses in opera
ton: whirring underground rooms, endless bolts
of paper speeding like feet white ribbons
through vast completely of rollers, an acrid
odor Of printers ink filling the air. He, too,
was part of that great, intricate machine; he
must continue to revolve because all the other
wheels were revolving.
He confessed his plight to the editor when
he called with his weekly instalment Not .nat
he hoped for reprieve or even sympathy from
that overworked individual, whose eyes looked
almost f1shlike behind large spectacles. He,
too, was merely part of that diabolcal ma
chine which couldn't stop, which never would
stop. For there were numerous rival publica-
tons, each of them likewise monster machine,
In lfe-and-death competition with one an
other Together they all made sort of mon
ster supermachine, in still yaster universe of
machines. The thought made one giddy
The editor shooting a swift glance at the
dark rings under Geoffrey's eyes, had privately