Kitabı oku: «Mixed Faces», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XIII

"This," growled the Judge, glaring at Jimmy, "is an outrage!"

"Agreed!" retorted Jimmy, at first sufficiently annoyed to have wished that he and the Judge were in some situation where they might punch each other's heads, and then, reverting to his habitual good humor, smiling and finally emitting a chuckle. "You do seem to get in my way a lot. Honestly, you've no idea what an annoyance you are to me."

"Annoyance to you? That's good!" growled the Judge. "I annoy you!"

"You do! You do!" retorted Jimmy. "I suppose you've caused me more trouble one time and another than any other man I ever met. Isn't it about time we buried the hatchet and forgot all about that joke of mine up at Yimville? I've apologized in every way I could think of."

As if the reference to Yimville had proved unfortunate, the Judge's face flushed with anger and he bent forward and shook a threatening finger at Jimmy and declared, "I never make terms with a malefactor. If you had an idea that I am the type of man to use as the butt for a silly, asinine jest, I'll teach you to think differently. Mark that and remember it!"

"Oh, come now!" Jimmy protested. "That's no way to look at things. It's unbecoming of a man of your importance to cherish animosity for an insignificant chap like I am. If we can't be friends, you might at least be big enough to leave me alone."

The Judge snorted with contempt.

"How far are you going?" he finally growled, after a prolonged inspection of the imperturbable Jimmy.

"Baltimore. Why? Like to get off where I do so you can keep with better company than yourself? You can get off there if you wish. I don't own the town."

This seemed the final straw to the camel's burden; for the Judge suddenly popped up in his seat, called to the Pullman conductor who happened to be standing at a little distance down the aisle, and when the latter approached asked, "Isn't there any possible way of exchanging my berth for another?"

"Yes, do help him out, Conductor," implored Jimmy with marked solicitude. "He doesn't like me a bit."

The Pullman potentate stared at the two men incredulously, now that he noted their physical similarity, and, accepting it as a banter, remarked, "Can't see why twin brothers should disagree."

"I'll not brook any of your impudence," thundered the Judge in such unmistakable anger that the conductor speedily became apologetic, and consulted his book.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said; "a stateroom reservation ordered for Harmonsville has been canceled. You are going through to Washington, aren't you? Well, you can have that on payment of the extra fare."

"Let him have it. I'll pay the difference if he's at all short," Jimmy urged, hopefully. "It's very kind of you, Conductor, because he's not feeling at all well. What he needs is a long rest."

"What you need is a jail," growled the Judge, and ordered his luggage removed to the vacant stateroom.

"See that the windows are closed, Conductor," said Jimmy. "He catches cold so easily. Frightfully delicate and sensitive. Been that way since he was but a dear little child. Do take care of him, won't you?"

But the Judge, purple with anger, stalked majestically away from his tormentor without arriving at any adequate reply, and Jimmy was left alone. In the gray, cold dawn of four o'clock the next morning, as Jim followed the porter out, he paused behind just long enough to rap loudly on the Judge's stateroom door and to explain, "Baltimore. I'm leaving you now. Pleasant journey!"

But presumably from the Judge's remarks, this little parting courtesy was not appreciated, although it afforded the cheerful Jimmy some amusement as he made his way out of the station. Indeed, considering that inhospitable hour of the morning, he was made fairly happy by what the Judge said. Furthermore, to palliate the dreariness of the winter morning, was the thought that now he could break the news of his discharge to his mother because he could couple it with a hopeful prospect.

For two whole days, and considerable portions of the nights, Jimmy plunged headlong into his proposed organization of a sales and publicity department for the Sayers Company, and his lively imagination stimulated itself as his enthusiasm grew. Expert salesman that he was, and untrammeled by traditions of the motor car trade, his originality found full vent, and, all unaware of it, he proposed plans that would have been seized upon by any progressive and daring firm in the automobile industry. In fact "he builded better than he knew"; but, after his manuscript had been duly typed and mailed, he suffered anxious hours thinking of how this or that part of his scheme might have been improved, and went through all that mental agony with which every composer reviews his completed work when too late for alteration. At the end of the second day's wait he became fearful, and at the end of the third day was beginning to lose hope. On the fourth day he said, somberly, "Well, Maw, I reckon it was a flivver! I've got to get back to New York to-morrow and look for a job in my own line."

His optimism was being sorely tried; but his courage was still unweakened. It was while he was packing his suit case on the following morning that a telegram came.

"Meet me at Engineers' Club at noon to-morrow, Martin."

Even the message offered small consolation or encouragement; but it was his way to hope for the best, so he whistled bravely as he left his home. He put in all his spare time, after arrival in New York, in visiting automobile agencies and studying as far as possible their selling methods, and he absorbed information as a dry sponge thrown into a whirlpool absorbs water. He made notes in his memorandum book after each visit and soliloquized, "If nothing comes of the Sayers thing, I'll have learned a whole lot more than I ever knew about this car business, and some day it might prove worth while. I can at least walk up to a motor car now and look it in the face and shake its hand as if we were old acquaintances; I used to take off my hat to a taxicab, but now I regard 'em as errand boys running here and there through the streets. This car line is a mighty big game, after all."

And it was with this feeling that he entered the Engineers' Club and was met in the hallway by Martin, who had just arrived.

"On time, I see – I like that," was the elder man's greeting. "Now, first of all, we shall have lunch, because I'm hungry. I never talk business during meals. I believe in relaxation."

"But – but – what's the use in eating when there's anything more important to do?" asked Jimmy, eager to hear Martin's verdict.

"Nothing is as important as eating when one is hungry," was his host's remark, and Jimmy had to be content. "Hope you had a nice trip out to Princetown?" was Martin's next remark, and Jimmy gave him a highly humorous account of what that nice trip was like, much to Martin's amusement.

"This – this Granger person does seem to bear you a grudge," he commented. "Have you made any attempt to calm him down by rubbing his ears, or stroking his fur the right way?"

And then Jimmy became serious and said, "Yes, I did try to get him to bury the hatchet when I met him on the train," and detailed that unhappy conversation. "You see," he added, boyishly, "I didn't care much what he thought of me; but I thought it was my duty to get the whole affair wiped off the slate if Mr. Sayers decided to give me a chance. It wouldn't be fair to Mr. Sayers to have a man of the Judge's influence angry with one of the company's employees. If I get that place, I've got to fill it well. I've just naturally got to do it!"

"Um-m-mh! Do you intend to tell Sayers all about it?"

"Of course I do."

"But – but suppose, after he heard the story, he declined to employ you?"

"I can't help that," said Jimmy ruefully. "It wouldn't be fair and honest to take the place unless he knew all about my reputation out there."

"Is it your habit to confide all your mistakes to your employer?" his host asked, as if surprised.

"Of course," asserted Jimmy. "When I work for a man, I'm his and whether he likes it or not he's more or less responsible for what I do. And, what's more, I feel responsible for him. If anything fails in the goods I sell, I'm as hurt over it as if I had made 'em. I worked for one man I didn't like, and he didn't like me; but we got along for the sole reason that we both believed in his line of stuff because it was honest. It was the only thing we ever did agree on. And I suppose I'd have been with him yet if he hadn't sold out to a company that began to make inferior stuff to add to the profits."

After luncheon they found a secluded corner and Martin said, "Well, young man, now we shall get down to brass tacks. I read that report you made and I can think of a few objections you might have to meet before you can get the position, and there are some other points that might come up and require explanation."

And then, with shrewdness, he began his discussion of Jimmy's plan, and no expert investigator could have made a more exhaustive examination than he did. Jimmy's wits were sharpened by this catechism, and his ideas improved and grew apace. He even admitted that he had studied the sales methods of other firms and apparently gained the elder man's approval for his activity and judgment.

The afternoon daylight had waned before they realized the passage of time, and Martin consulted his watch and said, "So far we seemed to have threshed this matter out pretty thoroughly; but there's one very important detail you've neglected, and that is to state what you expect in the way of salary."

"By jingoes!" exclaimed Jimmy, straightening in his seat. "I forgot all about that. Do you know, I got so interested in working out this project that I never so much as gave the pay part of it a thought?"

Martin laughed as if delighted by such an absurdity.

"Well," he remarked, "if that's the way you handle your private affairs it doesn't look promising for whoever employs you. No, I'll retract that, and on second thought reverse that judgment. I'll say that if you invariably put your employer's interests before your own your sole chance to succeed is to become a member of any firm you work for. I suggest that you put that up to – Sayers."

"Don't quite get you," said Jimmy, as if puzzled. "You aren't having fun with me, are you?"

"I am not," asserted the shrewd old business man. "I'm in earnest."

"But mightn't Mr. Sayers think I had an awful nerve? Perhaps he'd not give me a chance at all and – I want that job because I'd like to prove that there's a little more to me than a comic supplement. I need money, but about the biggest reward a man can get is the absolute conviction that he made good."

Martin studied Jim's face with a look of warm approbation, but Jimmy, entirely unaware of the scrutiny, stared into the fireplace with eyes that seemed glowing with big dreams.

"If I thought Mr. Sayers wouldn't think me a fool," he said, almost as if to himself, "I'd like to have him give me a chance with these schemes of mine on this basis: That I'd go to work for him for my bare living expenses – I'd work for just half the salary I got from the Columbus people – and that he would give me a percentage and all the increase of sales. And – I'd like to take that payment in stock in the business, so that if I did make a big success of it, I'd feel thereafter, year by year, that I was hustling for myself as well as the Sayers Company."

"You know that it's not an ordinary corporation, don't you?" Martin asked. "No? Well it's the closest corporation I know. Sayers owns seventy-five per cent of it. His daughter is the next largest stockholder, and his superintendent has practically all the remainder which, by the way, was given him as a bonus for efficient work."

"Phew!" exclaimed Jimmy. "I didn't know Mr. Holmes was a stockholder, or I'd have been more circumspect. Good Lord! I criticised the selling organization and roasted it from top to bottom, and even told him one or two things I thought might improve his plant. Just my luck! I'll never get sense enough to keep my mouth shut about things over which I enthuse."

"There's where you are wrong. The superintendent has given you the biggest boost I ever knew one man to give another. He says you are the livest wire he ever met and that the plant must have you at any price; says that he never met a man in his life whose head was so filled with new and original ideas and that half the time you had him dazed with trying to keep up with you. So, you see, it paid you to be frank and outspoken with him at least, and – Sayers thinks a lot of what that superintendent says! I can tell you that."

He stopped, relighted his half-burned cigar, appeared to consider for a time while Jimmy, waiting his friendly advice, watched him eagerly, and then said, "Well, Gollop, I'll tell you something more. I've been authorized to go fully into this thing with you, and to decide it. The job is yours, on the terms you propose, save for this. You shall draw exactly the same salary that the Columbus Company paid you. You shall have a full year in which to prove that your management of your department is good, or a failure. If you succeed, you're made for life. If you fail you can expect nothing at all in the way of leniency from old Tom Sayers, because he's as hard hearted an old wretch as ever began at the very bottom and worked himself to wherever he now is by hard knocks and worshiping efficiency."

Jimmy suddenly gasped, and then impulsively reached forward and clutched the elder man's hand in both his own.

"I'm not going to fail," he said, simply, "because that would be a slam on your judgment and – you've been mighty kind to me, Mr. Martin and – I can't throw down a friend. If for no other reason on earth I'll make good or bust myself trying, just because you got me the chance. I mean it! I do! And – " He hesitated and then added, almost timidly – "I'm so desperately eager to make a big success of this that – would you mind, if I get worried, or doubtful – like a chap does sometimes if – if I came to you for advice? You're so deucedly sane and wise, and the only thing I seem to lack is plain horse sense!"

He was so ingenuous, so frankly in earnest, so open in his gratitude and admiration, that Martin, square-jawed, taciturn, and repressed, turned away to hide the sudden flash of liking that warmed his eyes.

"I'll take it as a favor if you'll ask my advice," he replied. "In fact, I'll probably give you a darned sight more advice than you'll either like or follow. Well, what are you going to do now?"

"Send a wire to my mother," said Jimmy, "You see, Maw's worried, and – it'll make her so happy that I can't put that off for another minute. Do you mind if I tell her that I got the job through your kindness?"

"If you wish," said Martin, with a smile. "You can step to the desk over there and find a form, and I'll have it sent from here."

Jimmy rushed to the desk and returned in a few minutes, with a jubilant face. Martin took the message outside to have it sent and was compelled to read it to settle a question of the count of words and read this eulogium:

"Martin finest man on earth. Never knew any so good and kind. Got Sayers job for me on better terms than I could dare ask for. Glorious chance. Martin will help me make good. Marvelous fund common sense. Can't fail when he so kind and friendly. Writing long letter. Love. God bless you. Jimmy."

"Lack of gratitude certainly isn't one of his failings," thought Martin; but somehow his face appeared neither harsh nor cynical, from which it might be surmised that he was not at all displeased. He sauntered back, rejoined his guest, and then said. "When do you propose to begin work?"

"I've already begun," said Jimmy, looking up at him. "Been thinking about it since you left. But – I can't see just how I'm to do it until I can meet Mr. Sayers and tell him all about Judge Granger. I think I should go back to Princetown first of all and get full knowledge from the superintendent of our technical advantages over all other cars. And if I go back there Granger will have me pinched! Isn't it rotten luck? What a chump I was! That man hates me because we look alike. It's not my fault at all. I didn't make his lookings. If I had, I'd have tried to make a better job of it. It seems to me that either he or I will have to change his face. He ought to wear whiskers. A Judge without whiskers isn't any good, anyhow, I reckon. So here I am with the biggest chance of my life, and it's all mucked up because I can't get that chap to forget that I helped him out with a single speech I made for him up at Yimville. Why, if he had sense enough to appreciate it, I gave him more free advertising than he ever had before in all his life! That apology of mine should have made more votes for him than he'd ever have grabbed through his own eloquence. I wouldn't harm him for anything and yet he hates me. I tried to make it up when I met him. I went the limit. But he was so sore he wouldn't even think of sleeping in the same section with me, although I had the upper berth and never snore nor talk in my sleep! He's a big man and I'm a slob; but all of that doesn't seem to count with him. He can't forgive me because we look alike. If I were in his place I'd feel sorry for the other chap. I'd hold conference with him about our mutual predicament. I'd send him clippings from interesting folks who make things for noses and tell how to grow eyebrows and how to flatten ears and make wide grins into sweet, diminutive smiles. I'd put him next to people who change gray eyes into brown ones, and purple eyes into greens. What on earth am I to do to get a passport into his state from J. Woodworth-Granger so I can keep my job?"

He spoke almost tearfully, as if contemplating an unsurmountable obstacle, but Martin appeared unimpressed by his woe. Indeed, he chuckled as if amused.

"It might take time," he said, "to persuade the judge; but – suppose you leave it to me. I have an idea that I can do it within a week or ten days, or at least gain an armistice. And you needn't worry about Sayers. I'll tell him how the matter stands. You can put in your time for a week or two scouting around car agencies here in New York, and in the meantime, can consider yourself employed. Meet me here to-morrow at three o'clock."

Jimmy experienced several paradoxes in his surroundings when he stepped briskly out of the skyscraper wherein he had been entertained. It was nearly five o'clock in a dark afternoon, but the universe seemed filled with sunshine; heavy flakes were falling softly, but they appeared rose petals; men and women wore overcoats but the air was benignantly soft and warm; each sputtering arc light had a rainbow or a beautiful halo; street cars clanged, taxis honk-honked, the wheels of trucks screeched and ground across paving blocks and metal rails; but the whole blended into a strange triumphal march as if performed by some immense band of music. Mr. James Gollop had to fight an impulse to sing, dance, shout and altogether conduct himself with the improprieties that are chronicled against one King David, who played on timbrels and recklessly jazzed himself out of his job. Unlike King David, he came to his senses in time to commune with himself and to admonish himself.

"Steady, Jimmy! Steady! Whoa there! Back up! Ca'm yourself! Ca'm yourself. You've got the job, but there's a lot of work to be done before you become part owner of the finest car on earth, the peerless wonder of the transportation world, the winged victory of the roads. Don't let your head swell, James. Better keep it solid bone than have it turn into a toy balloon; because the latter can be pricked with a bare bodkin."

But nevertheless his happiness was so great, his hopes so high, his dreams so insurgent, that he longed, most fervently, to share his glad news with someone. As he said to himself, "If I can't tell someone pretty soon, I'll just naturally blow up! That's all there is to that!"

And evidently the "someone" he wished to make his confidant was pretty well known in the back of his head, for he suddenly hurried out to the nearest corner and boarded a car that would take him into old New York.

As the car came under the big electric sign reading "Gonfaroni's" it shone up there in the heavens like a lighthouse to a homecoming mariner, and he blithely stepped off and hastened down the side street to the entrance of MacDougall Alley. It was dark, chill and deserted. Lights shone through the cracks of one window at the far end, but the studio which was his Mecca was rayless.

Jimmy stood for a long time in front of it, staring up at its darkened windows, and derided himself for his pangs of disappointment.

"This can't go on any longer," he told himself, savagely. "To-morrow I've just got to know Mary Allen's real name. I'm a big enough man now – prospectively at least – to dare to walk into that Martha Putnam hotel, glare at the ogress who guards the pearly gates, and tell her to send my card up to Miss So-and-so and to step lively. Here I am, just bubbling over with glad news like a tin tea kettle on a red hot stove spouting steam, and I can't go uptown to that hotel and send up my card because I've never had the courage to ask her real name. I've been a coward all along, but now it's got to stop."

Nevertheless he did return to the uptown precincts and for a long time stood guard in front of the distinguished woman's caravanserai, hoping against all common sense that Mary Allen might appear. He remembered reading an article in a Sunday newspaper on telepathy, and stood across the street frowning at the Martha Putnam and concentrating his mind on the object of his adoration, and beseeching her to come to the elevator, and thence down into the cold street in response to his great desire. But somehow the telepathy stuff didn't work at all according to propaganda. He shut his eyes and tried more earnestly until aroused by a voice. "Hey! You can't sleep in that doorway. Move on! Wiggle your stumps!"

A fat policeman stood regarding him. Jimmy was discouraged, for he knew that any policeman, anywhere, is an unfeeling wretch, who, if he met the great god Cupid on the street, would promptly arrest that light of the world for indecent exposure and perhaps carry him to the nearest station by the tips of his golden wings as if he were but a vagrant chicken destined for the sergeant's pot.

"Come! Fade away!" the enemy ordered, belligerently.

And Mr. James Gollop, crestfallen, faded.