old face. “—Ah-h,” he rasped bitterly, “—my wife and I liked some things in that play of yours that Professor Hatcher put on in his Playshop…. My wife and I liked one or two speeches in that play,” he rasped, “but”—for a moment a fox’s glittering of malevolent triumph shone in his eyes as he drove the fine blade home “—no one else did!—No one else thought it was any good at all!” he cackled malevolently. “I heard people saying all around me that they hated it,” he gloated, “—that you had no talent, no ability to write, and had better go back where you came from—live some other kind of life—or kill yourself,” he gloated—“That’s the way it is, my boy!—Nothing but defeat and misery and despair for such as you in life!… That has been my lot, too,” he cackled vindictively, rubbing his dry hands in glee. “They’ve always hated what I did—if I ever did anything good I was lucky if I found two people who liked it. The rest of them hated it,” he whispered wildly. “There’s no hope for you—so die, die, die,” he whispered, and cackling with malevolent triumph, he rubbed his dry hands gleefully.
“Meeker, for God’s sake,” the boy cried, turning to the elegant figure of the clergyman, who would be carefully arranging around his damned luxurious neck the rich folds of a silk blue scarf—“Meeker, do you feel this way about it, too?… Is that your opinion?… Do you find nothing good in what I do?”
—“You see, old chap, it’s this way,” Meeker answered, in his soft voice, and drew with languor on one of his expensive straw-tipped cigarettes—“You have lots of ability, I am sure”—here he paused to inhale meditatively again—“but don’t you think, old boy, it’s critical rather than creative?—now with Jim here it’s different,” he continued, placing one hand affectionately on Hogan’s narrow shoulders—“Jim here’s a great genius—like Shelley—with a great gift waiting for the world”—Here Hogan lowered his pale weak face with a simpering smile of modesty, but not before the boy had seen the fox’s glitter of vindictive triumph in his pale dull eyes—“but you have nothing of that sort to give. Why don’t you try to make the best of what you have?” he said with hateful sympathetic urbanity and put the cigarette to elegant and reflective lips again.
“Hogan,” the boy cried hoarsely, turning to the poet, “—is that your answer, too? Have you no word of hope for me?—but no, you damned, snivelling, whining upstart—you are gloating at your rotten little triumph, aren’t you? I’d get nothing out of you, would I?”
“Come on, Jim,” said Meeker quietly. “He’s becoming abusive…. The kind
