YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN. Thomas Wolfe

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      During this period of his life some canvassers at a local election, had looked for Tim to enrol him in the interest of their candidate, but they had been unable to find out where he lived. He had not; lived, of course, with any member of his family for years, and investigation failed to disclose that he had a room anywhere. The question then began to go round: “Where does Tim Wagner live? Where does he sleep?” No one could find out. And Tim’s own answers, when pressed for information, were slyly evasive.

      One day, however, the answer came to light. The motor-car had come, and come so thoroughly that people were even getting buried by motor-car. The day of the horse-drawn hearse had passed for ever. Accordingly, one of the local undertaking firms had told Tim he could have their old horse-drawn hearse if he would only take it off their premises. Tim had accepted the macabre gift and had parked the hearse in his lot. One day when Tim was absent the canvassers came back again, still persistent in their efforts to learn his address so they could enrol him. They noticed the old hearse, and, seeing that its raven curtains were so closely drawn that the interior was hidden from view, they decided to investigate. Cautiously they opened the doors of the hearse. A cot was inside. There was even a chair. It was completely furnished as a small but adequate bedroom.

      So at last his secret had been found out. Henceforth all the town knew where he lived.

      That was Tim Wagner as George had known him fifteen years ago. Since then he had been so constantly steeped in alcohol that his progressive disintegration had been marked, and he had lately adopted the fantastic trappings of a clown of royalty. Everyone knew all about him, and yet — the fact was incredible! — Tim Wagner had now become the supreme embodiment of the town’s extravagant folly. For, as gamblers will stake a fortune on some moment’s whimsey of belief, thrusting their money into a stranger’s hand and bidding him to play with it because the colour of his hair is lucky, or as racetrack men will rub the hump upon a cripple’s back to bring them luck, so the people of the town now listened prayerfully to every word Tim Wagner uttered. They sought his opinion in all their speculations, and acted instantly on this suggestions. He had become — in what way and for what reason no one knew — the high priest and prophet of this insanity of waste.

      They knew that he was diseased and broken, that his wits were always addled now with alcohol, but they used him as men once used divining rods. They deferred to him as Russian peasants once deferred to the village idiot. They now believed with an absolute and unquestioning faith that some power of intuition in him made all his judgments infallible.

      It was this creature who had just alighted at the kerb a little beyond George Webber and Sam Pennock, full of drunken majesty and bleary-eyed foppishness. Sam turned to him with a movement of feverish eagerness, saying to George abruptly:

      “Wait a minute! I’ve got to speak to Tim Wagner about something! Wait till I come back!”

      George watched the scene with amazement. Tim Wagner, still drawing the gloves off of his fingers with an expression of bored casualness, walked slowly over towards the entrance of McCormack’s drug-store — no longer were his steps short and quick, for he leaned heavily on his cane — while Sam, in an attitude of obsequious entreaty, kept at his elbow, bending his tall form towards him and hoarsely pouring out a torrent of questions:

      “ . . . Property in West Libya . . . Seventy-five thousand dollars . . . Option expires tomorrow at noon . . . Joe Ingram has the piece above mine . . . Won’t sell . . . Holding for hundred fifty . . . Mine’s the best location . . . But Fred Bynum says too far from main road . . . What do you think, Tim? . . . Is it worth it?”

      During the course of this torrential appeal Tim Wagner did not even turn to look at his petitioner. He gave no evidence whatever that he heard what Sam was saying. Instead, he stopped, thrust his gloves into his pocket, cast, his eyes round slyly in a series of quick glances, and suddenly began to root into himself violently with a clutching hand. Then he straightened up like a man just coming out of a trance, and seemed to become aware for the first time that Sam was waiting.

      “What’s that? What did you say, Sam?” he said rapidly. “How much did they offer you for it? Don’t sell, don’t sell!” he said suddenly and with great emphasis. “Now’s the time to buy, not to sell. The trend is upwards. Buy! Buy! Don’t take it. Don’t sell. That’s my advice!”

      “I’m not selling, Tim,” Sam cried excitedly. “I’m thinking of buying.”

      “Oh — yes, yes, yes!” Tim muttered rapidly. “I see, I see.” He turned now for the first time and fixed his eyes upon his questioner. “Where did you say it was?” he demanded sharply. “Deepwood? Good! Good! Can’t go wrong! Buy! Buy!”

      He started to walk away into the drug-store, and the lounging idlers moved aside deferentially to let him pass. Sam rushed after him frantically and caught him by the arm, shouting:

      “No, no, Tim! It’s not Deepwood! It’s the other way . . . I’ve been telling you . . . It’s West Libya!”

      “What’s that?” Tim cried sharply. “West Libya? Why didn’t you say so? That’s different. Buy! Buy! Can’t go wrong! Whole town’s moving in that direction. Values double out there in six months. How much do they want?”

      “Seventy-five thousand,” Sam panted. “Option expires tomorrow . . . Five yeas to pay it up.”

      “Buy! Buy!” Tim barked, and walked off into the drug-store.

      Sam strode back towards George, his eyes blazing with excitement.

      “Did you hear him? Did you hear what he said?” he demanded hoarsely. “You heard him, didn’t you? . . . Best damned judge of real estate that ever lived . . . Never known to make a mistake! . . . ‘Buy! Buy! Will double in value in six months!’ . . . You were standing right here”— he said hoarsely and accusingly, glaring at George —“you heard what he said, didn’t you?”

      “Yes, I heard him.”

      Sam glanced wildly about him, passed his hand nervously through his hair several times, and then said, sighing heavily and shaking his head in wonder:

      “Seventy-five thousand dollars’ profit in one deal! . . . Never heard anything like it in my . . . life! Lord, Lord!” he cried. “What are we coming to?”

      Somehow the news had got round that George had written a book and that it would soon be published. The editor of the local paper heard of it and sent a reporter to interview him, and printed a story about it.

      “So you’ve written a book?” said the reporter. “What kind of a book is it? What’s it about?”

      “Why — I— I hardly know how to tell you,” George stammered. “It — it’s a novel ——”

      “A Southern novel? Anything to do with this part of the country?”

      “Well — yes — that is — it’s about the South, all right — about an Old Catawba family — but ——”

      LOCAL BOY WRITES ROMANCE OF THE OLD SOUTH

      George Webber, son of the late John Webber and nephew of Mark Joyner, local hardware merchant, has written a novel with a Libya Hill background which the New York house of James Rodney & Co. will publish this autumn.

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