Frank Norris Remembered

43. Edwin Lefevre

43 / Edwin Lefevre George Edwin Lefevre (1871–1943) was a journalist and stockbroker whose Wall Street Stories, published in 1901 by McClure, Phillips & Co., was a collection of stories treating market speculations of the kind that Norris dealt with in The Pit. As did fraternity brother George Gibbs and journalist G. D. Moulson, Le­ fevre tutored Norris on the intricacies of speculation in commodities. Arthur Bartlett Maurice (1873–1946), himself a journalist and editor of the Bookman, knew both Lefevre and Norris. Source: Arthur Bartlett Maurice. The New York of the Novelists (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1917), 45–46. [. . .] In connection with Mr. Lefevre’s Wall Street experiences there is a graphic little story concerning him and the late Frank Norris. During Mr. Norris’s last year in New York the two were close friends, and it was at one time agreed between them that Mr. Lefevre should revise the proofs of Mr. Norris’s story, The Pit, in all the chapters relating to the wheat market, receiving due credit in the preface for his share of the work. As it turned out, they never succeeded in coming together for that purpose, and the plan was abandoned. But frequently, at Norris ’s request, Mr. Lefevre explained the intricacies of the stock markets, speculations , corners and the like; and one night he found himself launched upon an eloquent description of a panic. He described the pandemonium reigning on the floor of the Exchange, the groups of frenzied, yelling brokers, the haggard faces of men to whom the next change of a point or two meant ruin. And then he followed one man in particular through the events of the day, and pictured him groping his way blindly out from the gallery, a broken, ruined man. So far, Mr. Lefevre had told only what he had seen, all too of­ ten, with his own eyes. But at this point, carried away by his own story, he yielded to the temptation to fake a dramatic conclusion, and he told how the man was still striding restlessly, aimlessly along the corridor, when the elevator shot past and some one shouted “Down!” and the ruined man, his mind still bent upon the falling market, con- Part 4. Professional Years / 181 tinued his nervous striding, gesticulating fiercely and repeating audibly, “Down! down! down!” “There you are!” interrupted Mr. Norris, springing up excitedly. “There you are! That is one of those things that no novelist could invent!” And yet, added Mr. Lefevre in telling the story, “it was the one bit of fake in my whole description.” [. . .] ...