Kitabı oku: «Mixed Faces», sayfa 8
CHAPTER X
At the end of three days, Mr. Martin, professing much gratitude and pleasure for the hospitality shown him, departed for the South. At the end of four days, Mr. Gollop, making the excuse of urgent business, entrained for New York. Not that Mr. Gollop, having regard for the expressio falsi as compared with the suppressio veri, was strictly a prevaricator or that he told the exact truth, because he had slipped four whole days up his sleeve for his own entertainment; four whole days in which he had not the slightest intention of visiting his firm; four whole days that he intended to devote to art research, and exploration – exploration of a wilderness known as MacDougall Alley. So accurately did he time his movements that he invaded MacDougall Alley at just eleven a.m., which he considered a proper hour to find an aspiring artist at work while the light was most perfect and amenable. He was not disappointed, which he regarded as proof of acumen; but he was surprised by his surroundings. No bare-walled studio, this, but a rather luxurious place. With a real rug on the floor, and real chairs to sit upon, and a cosy seat, and electric lights instead of bare boards, benches, charcoal brazier and tallow dips stuck in the necks of bottles blown for better contents.
"See here! What troubles you, Bill Jones? Have I done anything you didn't like?" demanded Mary Allen, as she extricated her thumb from the hole of a palette on which oil paints proved that she had forsaken for the moment her love of water colors.
"Why – why – I don't understand!" exclaimed Jimmy, helplessly.
"Don't understand? I thought you promised to write?"
"I did," admitted Jimmy; "but, you see, I was so busy and there were so many people to talk to in my most seductive manner, and there were so many things to be done, including people, that I clean overlooked it! I did! I confess. But – I'm going to be here now at least a week," he added hopefully, and not without insinuation.
"Hope you enjoy your visit," she said, and added rather maliciously, "I am entirely engrossed in my work – this week."
He stared at her with a face as frankly dejected as that of a hurt boy; then, his ever-present bouyancy reasserting itself, queried, "That's good. By the way, do you ever use models?"
"Of course," she replied.
"Well, I've got nothing to do this week," he replied enthusiastically. "I'll sit for you as a study in Disappointment, Flat-busted, or Return from the Races. The title doesn't matter, because I'll be such an excellent study for any sort of man whose hopes have all been knocked flatter than a pancake."
"I know you can be gloomy enough when you wish to be," she said, relenting a trifle; "but you're the first man I ever had promise to write me a letter that I admitted I should welcome, and then had the impudence to forget me. The one thing a woman can't forget is to be forgotten."
Jimmy felt decidedly perturbed by this statement. He wondered what she would say if he boldly admitted that he had in reality forgotten her very name and where she came from, and then followed it with a confession that since the first day he had met her in New York some months ago, he had made amends by thinking of her continuously throughout his spare time. But he did not dare. He feared banishment, and that, he concluded, desperately, would be worse than death. Something of his mental distress must have been observable, for the girl suddenly relented, smiled a trifle and then said, "Well, perhaps I can indulge myself – not you, understand? – by going somewhere."
She regained her palette, and turned toward her easel with a businesslike air, quite as if she were a painter for a livelihood, and said, "Now suppose you run along and let me work. You can come back here for me at – say – one o'clock, and take me to luncheon; that is – if you're not too busy!"
And Jimmy, transported with delight, made a vast pretense of business and hastened away, lest she change her mind. He had the wisdom to let well enough alone, and knew that time is the best medicine for annoyance. But he was there in MacDougall Alley, – just the same – with marvelous punctuality.
And there can be no question that he was a master host when it came to luncheons, dinners, suppers, or midnight lunch counters. With him it was an art, cultivated to the highest point of efficiency. Moreover, timorous and fearful lest he blunderingly lose his advantages, he did not press his suit too far and, as a result, Mary Allen forgot his seeming neglect. There was but one embarrassing moment when, after a moment's silence she said, "Do tell me, is there anything at all new down home? Dad is so uncommunicative that he never has much to say about the town itself, and everyone else is too busy to write me."
"Nothing new that I noticed when I was there last," said Jimmy. "Of course, being on the road all the time I'm – well – I'm so busy that – ummmh! Isn't that our waiter? Some of those pears over there on that other table look good enough to eat and – wish we could get some strawberries! Do you like hot-house grapes?"
He might have gone through an entire horticultural catalogue, had not his roving eyes at that moment suddenly been arrested by something that caused them to open widely and fix themselves. The something was a keen-looking man seated at another table who was glaring at time with a steady and highly interrogative look. For once Mr. James Gollop's cheery self-confidence deserted him and he was highly distressed; for the keen-faced man happened to be his employer and his employer up to that moment believed one James Gollop was out on the road some hundred or so miles from New York looking after the interests of the Columbus Chocolate Company. Jimmy recovered sufficiently to bow and the bow was somewhat frigidly acknowledged. Jimmy's wits worked fast – very fast.
"Pardon me, won't you please," he addressed Mary Allen; "but there is a man sitting over there to whom I wish to speak for just an instant. Got to make an appointment with him, and this is opportune."
"Certainly," replied the lady, and Jimmy got up, crossed to his employer, and without giving the latter a chance to say anything, thrust out his hand and said, "Howdydo, Mr. Falkner. Howdydo! Got in off the run early this trip and was coming down to see you as soon as I had lunch."
"Oh, you were, were you?" dryly remarked his "boss," and the unhappy Jimmy distinguished a tone of sarcasm. "Very kind of you, I'm sure. We've been wanting to hear from you for several days. I'll expect you at just three o'clock this afternoon."
Stunned by this unusual lack of cordiality, Jim said, "Very well, sir, I'll be there," and with as much dignity as he could command, turned and walked back to his table, but wondered heavily, what on earth he had done; what was wrong; whether some prominent customer had gone bankrupt or if Falkner merely had a grouch.
"I thought you went to see a friend, but you look as if you had been talking with an undertaker," commented his guest.
"And that's just the way I feel about it," admitted Jimmy. "Because I've got to meet him at three o'clock this afternoon, and I had anticipated the pleasure of going somewhere with you."
"The mean old thing!" she exclaimed, impulsively, and Jimmy's heart bumped at the knowledge that she, too, was disappointed.
"But," he suggested, hopefully, "if I called for you at the studio at about six o'clock couldn't we dine together?"
And when she accepted his invitation with unconcealed enthusiasm, his spirits again soared and he forgot even the baleful presence of Falkner for a time, and when he did remember him, discovered that his "kill joy" had gone.
Promptly at three o'clock he breezed into his firm's offices with all habitual cheeriness, exchanged a swift run of badinage with those he met, and was ushered into the manager's office. Falkner did not meet him with the customary smile of welcome.
"Well," he said, "you seem to have raised a devil of a row out West, and if you can offer any explanation at all for such conduct I'm prepared to listen to it before we go any further. If you think that's the kind of advertising a reputable firm wants you're about as poor a guesser as ever traveled on a mileage book."
"Why – why – what's up?" blurted Jimmy.
"What's up? You've got a nerve to ask that!" roared the manager, banging his fist on the top of his desk. "Here, look at these!"
He handed Jim a small sheaf of sheets consisting of letters and telegrams. The first was from a jobbing firm:
"Cancel order given your man Gollop. Sorry, but entire board of directors are Republican and resent Yimville affair."
A second was from another firm which had been one of Jim's best customers and read:
"Advise Gollop not to make this territory again until Yimville affair blows over. Granger's supporters buzzing like live hornets."
A more portentous looking document bearing the heading of the "State Republican Committee Headquarters" bore the concise statement that unless an immediate, full, and public apology was forthcoming from one James Gollop for impersonating the Hon. J. Woodworth-Granger at an important political meeting in the city of Yimville were not immediately forthcoming, legal action would be taken for damages, on the ground of misrepresentation, false pretense and willful intent to damage the reputation and political career of one of the most distinguished men in the state. Another letter was a round robin, signed by several firms, demanding the immediate discharge of "that contemptible practical joker, James Gollop," and still another was from no less person that the Judge of the Fourth District Court, in which what was said of the same James Gollop was enough to wither that unfortunate individual. Someone had sent a stack of newspaper clippings three inches in thickness, from which Jimmy gathered that it had taken but a day or two to pick up his trail and expose him beyond all possible dispute.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy, aghast, and wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead. "I didn't have any idea of kicking up such a fuss as that. I just blundered into a chance to have some fun with that pompous old rooster that hated me because we looked so much alike and – " In the midst of all his woes he could not suppress a laugh of amusement.
"So you still think it's a joke, do you?" snorted the irate manager, exasperated by this further evidence of irresponsibility. "Well, you'll not think so any longer. I'll attend to that. You turn your samples in and go to the cashier with your expense account. You're fired! Maybe you can understand that! Fired! F-I-R-E-D!"
"You needn't have troubled to spell it out," remonstrated Jimmy. "I get you. But – hang it all, man! – you might at least put me into some new territory. I didn't mean anything by it. I'll admit I was a chump; but I can sell stuff, and you know it."
He stopped and stared at the floor with a face so frankly troubled and perplexed that the manager for the moment forgot his wrath. The boy in Jimmy Gollop was never more manifest than at that moment. There was something very appealing about him that Falkner could not fail to discern.
"Jimmy," he said, gravely, "I'm sorry, but it has to be done. What on earth made you such a fool? You must have been crazy!"
"I sort of reckon I must have been," admitted Jimmy, dolefully. "But – honestly! – I didn't mean to do any real damage to that old stiff Granger, and certainly not to the firm. The firm? Why Mr. Falkner, I've stuck up for it for nearly ten years because it has treated me white, and because it's an honest firm that makes honest goods. But – well – all I can do is to square matters up as best I can. You people have been very good to me. Very good and very kind. I've drawn your money and, – prospered, and so I'll write the public apology or confession, or whatever you call it, that those chaps out there demand, and take all the blame. And I'll write to every customer that has communicated with you and tell 'em that, although I'm out and gone, the orders were solicited in good faith and that it's not fair to make you suffer for that fool joke of mine. I'm done with jokes of all sorts from now on. I'll do anything except this – I'll not write one word of apology to that man Granger!"
Falkner looked out of the window as if troubled, and then said, with a sigh of regret, "Well, Jim, I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. You're the best man we ever had out, and – by Jove! – I'll put that into writing so you can have something to show, and you can use me personally as a reference when you strike someone else for territory. But, mind you, I shall have to tell them confidentially the reasons why we had to let you go."
"Of course! That's only fair," said Jimmy, his sober common sense impelling him to this admission.
"And – when this tempest blows by, you can have any other territory that comes open, Jim," volunteered Falkner; "that is – provided that you cut the jokes out. Surely you've had fun enough by now to last you a lifetime!"
"I have! I have!" assented Jimmy lugubriously. "I've played the biggest joke of all on myself. By heck! I've joked myself out of my own job, and that's the limit. Joe Miller never did that and Mark Twain, Josh Billings, Bill Nye and George Ade, none of 'em ever reached that height of humor. The only difference between us is that they got cash for their jokes, whereas all the pay I get is the boot and the chance to go yelping down the street with a washboiler tied to my tail. Well, if a fellow puts grease on the front door steps he shouldn't squeal if he forgets and falls down himself."
It was not until he stood outside the main entrance to the building that he had a full sense of homelessness. It was not until then that he knew what it meant to be without anchorage. It seemed to him that all of those who hurried past in the winter's twilight had something to do and that he alone was adrift. He alone had dipped into the depths of folly and he alone had proved irresponsible. And his employment just then meant much to him. Subconsciously, he had builded with such confidence. He was now aware that he had based all upon a permanency of income that he had conceived to be fixed. His home, his mother's contentment, his dreams of winning life companionship with the only girl he had ever loved, seemed to have depended upon the employment he had lost. And now all was gone! Swept away. He was a most forlorn and melancholy optimist as he stood there in the early twilight of winter, confusedly considering his position.
"Well," he thought at last, "they can't keep a good man down," and then after a moment's further reflection added, "But they can give him an awful wallop!"
The staring eye of an illuminated clock reminded him that MacDougall Alley was some distance away and he suffered a peculiar mixture of sadness and gladness as he began his journey. It seemed to him that he was a different person from the James Gollop who had happily invaded MacDougall's artistic precincts that morning from the James Gollop who was now disconsolately making his way thither. That Gollop of the morning had been happy and bright because he had a job; but this Gollop of the evening, jobless, and with a black mark against him that was too notorious to escape the amused attention of all possible employers in his line, was but a sad dog. It required conscious mental effort on his part to assume a cheerful demeanor when he climbed the studio stairs. He wished that he dared tell the "Candy Girl" all about it, but decided that it would be ungenerous to bother anyone else with his woes, and any indecision in this regard was ended before the evening was over because she was so frankly and unaffectedly happy that he hadn't the heart to say anything that might possibly mar it. Yet, even whilst they sat in a theater listening to a most cheerful musical comedy the sober and responsible side of his mind was weighing necessities. The first of these, he knew, must be economies; for he anticipated that it might be a considerable time before he could again be earning an income, and there was always the little home down in Baltimore and its occupant to be considered first, and his own pleasures must be relegated to a secondary place. He was therefore rather heart-broken, but firm in his final explanation that night as he parted from her in front of the Martha Putnam Hotel.
"That business session I had this afternoon," he said, trying to keep his voice from betraying his trouble, "has unfortunately upset all my plans. I can't have that little four days vacation I had been planning."
"What? How horrid!" exclaimed the girl. "I – I thought we were to – "
Her disappointment and distress were so manifest that Mr. James Gollop had a first-class fight with himself to keep from blurting out the truth there in the hotel rotunda and telling her that on the next morning he was starting on what promised to be a long hunt for employment. But he escaped such confession by saying that he had great hopes of returning to New York within a few days. In fact he actually predicted that it would be so. And after all, the only lie he told was embodied in that word "Return."
CHAPTER XI
Mr. James Gollop discovered in the course of the following three days that although most business men enjoy a joke, their sense of humor is so deficient that they don't care to combine jest and business. His ill-fame had preceded him, and in addition thereto, it was the off-season, and vacancies few.
"We'd like to have you, Jim," said one sales manager, "but the trouble is that we should want you to take up the territory where you are well known, and that, of course, is impossible."
Others told him to call later in the season. Others who would have given him samples were firms of such small caliber that he could not see any future, and several were willing to take him on commission sales only. The only thing that helped him was that prodigious store of optimism which impelled him after each rebuff to hope for a change just around the corner.
It was when he felt at rather low ebb that he passed, rather disconsolately, the Flat Iron Building and remembered Martin. Having no other place to go, he decided to call upon that shrewd gentleman and gather from such a source of hard common sense fresh courage. He turned in through the big swinging door that let a gust of winter into each compartment as it whirled, trundled it around and belched it into the great hallway, and somewhat absent-mindedly collided with a man who was coming out.
"Hello! She bumps!" said Jimmy good-naturedly and then – "Why – why it's you, is it, Mr. Martin? I was just coming up to your offices to see if by chance you happened to be in."
There was no mistaking the heartiness of the hand grasp that caught his.
"Well, we can go up now," said Martin, cheerfully. "In fact, I've been thinking about you quite a lot. Been rather eager to see you again. But – hold on! – the office is anything but a confidential resort. Suppose you come with me to the Engineers' Club where we can have a nice quiet talk."
Jimmy, feeling as if he had at least one friend left in the world, readily accepted, and thought it rather lucky that they were the only men in the club lounge room; felt that the chairs were very comfortable, and the atmosphere summery.
"How are things with you?" asked Martin shrewdly eyeing him through the first blue smoke screen of a cigar.
"Oh, so-so," replied Jimmy, evasively.
"Everything all right?"
"In a way. In a way."
"Chocolate business flourishing?"
"It was – up to a week ago."
"But now? How about now, Gollop?"
For a moment Jim scarcely knew what to answer, and looking up from an overly prolonged inspection of his cigar caught the humorous, quizzical twinkle in the friendly, keen eyes of his host.
"By jingoes!" he exclaimed, "you know something! You've heard the news. You know I've been fired."
"Yes, I do know it," answered Martin, with a grin. "I was – rather curious to learn how you took it. Suppose you tell me all about it. I'm your friend, you know. We've shared salt. I've been entertained in your mother's home. Now cut loose."
Jimmy laughed, sobered, shook his head and said, "You see, that's where the worst of the trouble is unknown. I can't – well, I can't worry Maw. She doesn't know it yet. I've been trying to get another job before I broke the news to her and – well, I haven't succeeded! Those worth while are afraid of me, or else have no opening. For the moment I'm the under dog; but – I'm not whipped!"
And then he told the whole story to Martin, who listened, asked an occasional question, smiled as if at some secret thought, and finally remarked, "Your story agrees with what I've heard. But that man Granger must have been a vindictive brute to carry it so far. By the way, did you say your firm gave you the letter he wrote? Let's see it."
Jimmy took it from his pocketbook and gave it to the wise old man, who stuck glasses on his nose awry, and at an angle well down toward the point, and scanned the missive.
"Humph! Sounds like that sort of man," he commented, as he handed it back. "What do you think of it?"
Jim considered the question for a time.
"At first I was sore because he couldn't take a joke. Then I remembered what kind of a man he appeared to be when I met him, and decided that it was just his way. Not a fault, you know, but something he couldn't help. Men are not all alike. Personally I can't keep a grudge. Life's too short for that. I never try to play, even, in a malicious way. If a man really hurts me, I 'most always think of his side of it, and if I decide I'm in the wrong, go to him and say so. If I think I'm in the right, – just forget him. If he gets the best of me in business, I congratulate him. That's part of the game. This chap Granger really never did me much harm and I think maybe that I, without really intending it, did him quite a lot. So I did the best I could to square it."
"How?" asked Martin with another one of those quizzical glances of his.
"I wrote to all the newspapers I could get knowledge of out there, and said that I was the guilty man; that I had played a fool joke under the impulse of the moment and that the Judge was in no wise responsible for anything at all that I said any more than he was for my actions."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, I suppose that was the most of it."
Mr. Martin laughed and shook his head, and then said, in a kindly voice, "No, that wasn't all you wrote. I read some of your communications as they were printed. You not only apologized for your practical joke, but you ended by the declaration that you regarded Judge Granger as a man worthy of confidence, and asserted that if you were a resident of his constituency you would vote for him. I call that pretty forgiving."
"But – you see I had done him an unmerited injury," said Jimmy, soberly. "And so I did all I could to undo it. It was merely playing a white man's game."
"In spite of the fact that he had cost you your livelihood and done all he could to hurt you?"
"Oh, that had nothing to do with it! I did him an injury, and – I did the best I could to undo it."
Martin sat and looked at him admiringly, for a time, and then asked, "But what are you going to do now that all your trade is aware of your predicament, and are afraid to employ you?"
"I'll be hanged if I know!" Jimmy admitted, with an air of gravity. "But – I'll keep on trying. You can bet on that! I'll find some way out of it, even if I have to begin again in some other line. They all of them have to admit that I'm honest – that's an asset that nobody can dispute. We can't all be brilliant and honest at the same time. Some men are brilliant but fail to gain confidence. Other men are honest but can't be brilliant. I'm honest but haven't proved brilliant, or unbrilliant, so I've got the best of the situation – up to date. Someone, therefore, will give me a chance. So I'm not discouraged. Maybe it's because I've got imagination. When things go dead wrong with me, I just imagine that they're not so bad, after all. Cowards and pessimists are the only ones to whom imagination is a curse. Why – even a crippled dog has dreams of hunting in his sleep, and he wakes up with hope!"
Jimmy's host seemed to ponder over this crude philosophy for a time as if bemused by its possibilities, and then suddenly straightened himself in his chair and leaned forward.
"Do you remember what you said to me in the train one day as to a man's having faith in whatever he sold? And you talked about an automobile called the Sayers car? You do, eh? Well, here's something that may interest you. The Sayers Automobile Company is going to reorganize its sales organization. It wants a man with imagination who will take hold of that department. It seeks a man with ideas – none of the old, worn out, hackneyed stuff, but – a man with original ideas that will prove good. The Martin Company handles its advertising. Do you think – really and honestly think – that you could reorganize its sales department and bring to it additional success if I recommend you to the Sayers people?"
"You bet your life I could!" asserted Jimmy. "I've thought about that car a lot. And in the last few days when nobody seems to want me, I have wondered if it wouldn't be a good move for me to get into the line of motor cars."
Martin seemed to ponder over the situation for a moment and then said, with a sly grin, "Of course the first step for you to take would be to go out to the Sayers works, meet Sayers and his superintendent, make a study of the sales methods they have been employing, and then put before them a full outline of what you propose. If they like it, they will probably give you a chance to demonstrate what you can do. And if you do get the place, and make good, I believe old Sayers is just the sort of man who would appreciate your work and make it mighty well worth your while to stay with him permanently. But I tell you this much, that he believes in efficiency and will have no one around him who can't deliver the goods. Now do you want to tackle it?"
"I do! I do!" replied Jimmy with fervency, stopped, and then emitted a groan and said, "But good Lord! The Sayers plant is out near Princetown, and Princetown is the home of Judge Granger, and – they'd lynch me if I showed up there – that is, unless I could get the infuriated populace to make another mistake of identity and hang the Judge in the belief that he was me!"
"Um-mh! Granger lives in Princetown, eh? That's rather awkward, isn't it? What do you propose?"
Jimmy thought a moment and slapped his leg with an air of cheerfulness.
"I've got it. I'll do as I did before – hide all of my face I can. I'll wear big blue glasses, and grow a mustache and get my hair dyed black. And if I can arrange it I'll go through Princetown like greased lightning, and stop at the works while there."
Martin chuckled with amusement and then said, "I think Sayers would send a car to meet you at the train if we wrote him when you were coming, and I have no doubt that you could find some place to stop out near the works. Did you notice if there were any houses near the plant?"
"Yes, lots of them. Neat little places, most of them. Sort of a model city, I should say."
"You are at least observant," commented Martin, and then promptly arose, went to a writing desk and wrote for a time, whilst Jimmy's spirits soared up and up until he was glad that he had been foisted out of the chocolate trade.
"Sayers knows I belong to this club," said Martin, returning to his seat; "so will think nothing of my letter being written on club, rather than business stationery. Besides I shall confirm these letters along with other matters, when I return to the office. Now here is a letter to old Tom Sayers, and another to Mr. Holmes, his general superintendent. Letters of introduction – both – as you can see. I think they will suffice to put you in right, and then it's up to you to formulate a general plan for a selling organization that will suit Sayers. If you can't show him something to catch his approval, you'll have wasted your time. If you can, it's almost certain that you'll be given a chance to show what you can do. But – mind you! – he's been probing around on this matter for some time, and has probably had all sorts of schemes suggested and proposed, and you've got to show something that is better than anyone else has put forward. In that way it's sort of competitive. And – see here! – if I were you I'd not wait to grow a mustache and get my hair dyed and all that rot; but waste no time at all in getting out there lest someone beats you to the place."
"Good!" said Jimmy, promptly. "You just wire them that I'm coming. I remember the timetables. You tell them to send a car to meet me at a train that arrives in Princetown at ten o'clock to-morrow morning! I'm going to start west on the train that leaves the Pennsylvania station in just thirty-five minutes from now."
"Oh, that means an all-night ride and a breakneck connection, doesn't it? There's no such rush as all that," expostulated Martin.
"There's no such thing as too quick action when looking for a job," declared Jimmy with all his accustomed energy. "Good-by, and thank you – ever so much. I'm off to try to make good! Good-by!"
Martin looked at him approvingly as if this was the sort of hustling he liked, and accompanied him out to the street. Jimmy bolted into the traffic, dodged under horses' noses, disregarded the shouts of drivers and traffic policemen, mounted a slowly moving taxi, shouted instructions to the driver from the running board, and the last that Martin saw of him was a hand waved through an open window.
"Well," soliloquized Martin after this breathless chase, "if he moves that fast when at work it would take a cyclone to catch him. It strikes me that he's going to land that job, all right!"
