The merchant"s response was cold and prompt. He did not look at Richling, but took a sample vial of mola.s.ses from a dirty mantel-piece and lifted it between his eyes and the light, saying:--
"You can"t do any such thing. I don"t want you."
"Sir," said Richling, so sharply that the merchant looked round, "if you don"t want me I don"t want you; but you mustn"t attempt to tell me that what I say is not true!" He had stepped forward as he began to speak, but he stopped before half his words were uttered, and saw his folly.
Even while his voice still trembled with pa.s.sion and his head was up, he colored with mortification. That feeling grew no less when his offender simply looked at him, and the man at the desk did not raise his eyes. It rather increased when he noticed that both of them were young--as young as he.
"I don"t doubt your truthfulness," said the merchant, marking the effect of his forbearance; "but you ought to know you can"t come in and take charge of a large set of books in the midst of a busy season, when you"ve never kept books before."
"I don"t know it at all."
"Well, I do," said the merchant, still more coldly than before. "There are my books," he added, warming, and pointed to three great canva.s.sed and black-initialled volumes standing in a low iron safe, "left only yesterday in such a snarl, by a fellow who had "never kept books, but knew how," that I shall have to open another set! After this I shall have a book-keeper who has kept books."
He turned away.
Some weeks afterward Richling recalled vividly a thought that had struck him only faintly at this time: that, beneath much superficial severity and energy, there was in this establishment a certain looseness of management. It may have been this half-recognized thought that gave him courage, now, to say, advancing another step:--
"One word, if you please."
"It"s no use, my friend."
"It may be."
"How?"
"Get an experienced book-keeper for your new set of books"--
"You can bet your bottom dollar!" said the merchant, turning again and running his hands down into his lower pockets. "And even he"ll have as much as he can do"--
"That is just what I wanted you to say," interrupted Richling, trying hard to smile; "then you can let me straighten up the old set."
"Give a new hand the work of an expert!"
The merchant almost laughed out. He shook his head and was about to say more, when Richling persisted:--
"If I don"t do the work to your satisfaction don"t pay me a cent."
"I never make that sort of an arrangement; no, sir!"
Unfortunately it had not been Richling"s habit to show this pertinacity, else life might have been easier to him as a problem; but these two young men, his equals in age, were casting amused doubts upon his ability to make good his professions. The case was peculiar. He reached a hand out toward the books.
"Let me look over them for one day; if I don"t convince you the next morning in five minutes that I can straighten them I"ll leave them without a word."
The merchant looked down an instant, and then turned to the man at the desk.
"What do you think of that, Sam?"
Sam set his elbows upon the desk, took the small end of his pen-holder in his hands and teeth, and, looking up, said:--
"I don"t know; you might--try him."
"What did you say your name was?" asked the other, again facing Richling. "Ah, yes! Who are your references, Mr. Richmond?"
"Sir?" Richling leaned slightly forward and turned his ear.
"I say, who knows you?"
"n.o.body."
"n.o.body! Where are you from?"
"Milwaukee."
The merchant tossed out his arm impatiently.
"Oh, I can"t do that kind o" business."
He turned abruptly, went to his desk, and, sitting down half-hidden by it, took up an open letter.
"I bought that coffee, Sam," he said, rising again and moving farther away.
"Um-hum," said Sam; and all was still.
Richling stood expecting every instant to turn on the next and go. Yet he went not. Under the dusty front windows of the counting-room the street was roaring below. Just beyond a gla.s.s part.i.tion at his back a great windla.s.s far up under the roof was rumbling with the descent of goods from a hatchway at the end of its tense rope. Salesmen were calling, trucks were trundling, shipping clerks and porters were replying. One brawny fellow he saw, through the gla.s.s, take a herring from a broken box, and stop to feed it to a sleek, brindled mouser. Even the cat was valued; but he--he stood there absolutely zero. He saw it.
He saw it as he never had seen it before in his life. This truth smote him like a javelin: that all this world wants is a man"s permission to do without him. Right then it was that he thought he swallowed all his pride; whereas he only tasted its bitter brine as like a wave it took him up and lifted him forward bodily. He strode up to the desk beyond which stood the merchant, with the letter still in his hand, and said:--
"I"ve not gone yet! I may have to be turned off by you, but not in this manner!"
The merchant looked around at him with a smile of surprise, mixed with amus.e.m.e.nt and commendation, but said nothing. Richling held out his open hand.
"I don"t ask you to trust me. Don"t trust me. Try me!"
He looked distressed. He was not begging, but he seemed to feel as though he were.
The merchant dropped his eyes again upon the letter, and in that att.i.tude asked:--
"What do you say, Sam?"
"He can"t hurt anything," said Sam.
The merchant looked suddenly at Richling.
"You"re not from Milwaukee. You"re a Southern man."
Richling changed color.
"I said Milwaukee."
"Well," said the merchant, "I hardly know. Come and see me further about it to-morrow morning. I haven"t time to talk now."