Enoch Crane

It was my father’s practise, in planning a novel, first to prepare a most complete synopsis from beginning to end--never proceeding with the actual writing of the book until he had laid out the characters and action of the story--chapter by chapter.

This synopsis, which closely resembled the scenario of a play, he kept constantly enriching with little side-notes as they occurred to him--new ideas and points of detail.

So spirited were these synopses, and so clearly did they reflect the process of his mind, that by the few who saw them in the course of publishing consultations, or friendly confidence, they were remembered often after the finished novel had obliterated its constructive lines.

A scheme like this he had prepared for “Enoch Crane”--a story which, like “Felix O’Day,” he had very much at heart. Once he had begun a novel it occupied his whole mind. He lived--as it were--with the characters he was developing, to the exclusion of all other work. He would talk to me constantly of their welfare or vicissitudes, and was often in grand good-humor when any of them had proved themselves worthy by their wit, their courage, or their good breeding. They all seemed to be old personal friends of his, whom by some chance I had never met.

My father had written three chapters of “Enoch Crane” when his brief illness came. Thus there has remained to me as a legacy of his unquenchably youthful spirit an unfinished novel, which to reach his readers needed to be wrought out on the lines he had so carefully laid down with that untiring enthusiasm with which he undertook everything; and this--his last story--it has been my privileged task to complete.

F. BERKELEY SMITH. NEW YORK, 1916.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Lamont was again beside her pleading to take her home Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

“I forbid you,” he cried, facing him savagely, “to drag that child’s name before this company” 210

“Well, neighbor, ain’t a minute late, am I?” 230

“Tell me you love me,” he insisted 298

ENOCH CRANE

CHAPTER I

Joe Grimsby stood on the door-mat--a very shabby and badly worn door-mat, I must say--trying to fit his key into the tiny slit which, properly punctured, shot back the bolt which loosened the door, admitting him to the hallway leading to his apartment on the third floor of No. 99 Waverly Place.

“Somebody must have--no, here it is. Hello, Moses, is that you? I was just going to put my knee against it and----”

The old negro janitor bowed low.

“I wouldn’t do dat, sir; ’spec’ yo’ hand is a little unstiddy. You young gemmen gets dat way sometimes, ’specially when so much is goin’ on. Hold on till I turn up de gas. It gets dark so early, can’t find yo’ way up-stairs in de broad daylight, let alone de evenin’. I jes’ lighted a fire in yo’ room.”

“Bully for you, Moses. And don’t forget to come up-stairs when I ring. Mr. Atwater in yet?”

“No, sir; not as I knows on. Ain’t seen nuffin’ of him. ’Spec’ he’s a little mite how-come-you. I seen in de papers dat bofe on yo’ was at de big ball last night. Matilda was a-readin’ it out while I was a-brushin’ yo’ shoes.”

The young architect waved his hand in reply and mounted the stairs, his strong, well-knit frame filling the space between the wall and the banisters. He had mounted these same stairs in the small hours of the morning, but if he was at all fatigued by his night’s outing, there was no evidence of it in his movements. He was forging his way up, his coat thrown back, arms swinging loose, head erect, with a lifting power and spring that would have done credit to a trained athlete.