a phrase or sentence here and there—now and then a scene—that we liked. As for the rest of them,” he suddenly made a horrible downward gesture with a clenched fist and pointing thumb, “it was thumbs down, my boy! Done for! No good…. That’s what they thought of you, my boy. And that,” he snarled suddenly, glaring round him, “that is what they’ve thought of me all these years—of me, the greatest composer that they have, the man who has done more for the cause of American music than all the rest of them combined—me! me! me! the prophet and the seer!” he fairly screamed, “thumbs down! Done for! No good any more!”
Then he grew suddenly quiet, and leaning toward Ten Eyck with a gesture of horrible clutching intimacy, he whispered: “And that’s what they’ll always think of you, my boy—of anyone who has a grain of talent—Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!” Peering into Ten Eyck’s white face, he shook him gently by the arm, and cackled softly a malevolent tenderness, as if the evidence of the anguish that his words had caused had given him a kind of paternal affection for his victim. “That’s what they said about your play, all right, but don’t take it too seriously. It’s live and learn, my boy, isn’t it?—profit by criticism—a few hard knocks will do you no harm. Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!”
And turning, satisfied with the anguish he had caused, he thrust out his yellowed face with a vulture’s movement of his scrawny neck, and smacking his envenomed lips with relish, drew noisily inward with slobbering suction on a spoon of soup.
As for Ten Eyck, all hunger now destroyed by his sick shame and horror and despair, he turned, began to toy nervously with his food, and forcing his pale lips to a trembling and uncertain smile, tried desperately to compel his brain to pay attention to something that was being said by the man across the table who was the guest of honour for the day, and whose name was Hunt.
Hunt had been well known for his belligerent pacifism during the war, had been beaten by the police and put in jail more times than he could count, and now that he was temporarily out of jail, he was carrying on his assault against organized society with more ferocity than ever. He was a man of undoubted courage and deep sincerity, but the suffering he had endured, and the brutal intolerance of which he had been the victim, had left its mutilating mark upon his life. His face was somehow like a scar, and his cut, cruel-looking mouth could twist like
