"Thanks," I said, "the ground floor is no place for me."
"Don"t misunderstand me," said Ellesworth. "This is a big thing. It"s an idea I"ve been working on for some time,--making refined sugar from the huckleberry crop.
It"s a certainty. I can get you shares now at five dollars. They"ll go to five hundred when we put them on the market,--and I can run you in for a block of stock for promotion services as well. All you have to do is to give me right now a hundred dollars,--cash or your cheque,--and I can arrange the whole thing for you."
I smiled.
"My dear Ellesworth," I said, "I hope you won"t mind if I give you a little bit of good advice. Why not drop all this idea of quick money? There"s nothing in it. The business world has grown too shrewd for it. Take an ordinary decent job and stick to it. Let me use my influence," I added, "to try and get you into something with a steady salary, and with your brains you"re bound to get on in time."
Ellesworth looked pained. A "steady job" sounded to him like a "ground floor" to me.
After that I saw nothing of him for weeks. But I didn"t forget him. I looked about and secured for him a job as a canva.s.sing agent for a book firm at a salary of five dollars a week, and a commission of one-tenth of one per cent.
I was waiting to tell him of his good luck, when I chanced to see him at the club again.
But he looked transformed.
He had on a long frock coat that reached nearly to his knees. He was leading a little procession of very heavy men in morning coats, upstairs towards the private luncheon rooms. They moved like a funeral, puffing as they went.
I had seen company directors before and I knew what they were at sight.
"It"s a small club and rather inconvenient," Ellesworth was saying, "and the horizon of some of its members rather narrow," here he nodded to me as he pa.s.sed,--"but I can give you a fairly decent lunch."
I watched them as they disappeared upstairs.
"That"s Ellesworth, isn"t it?" said a man near me. It was the same man who had asked about him before.
"Yes," I answered.
"Giving a lunch to his directors, I suppose," said my friend; "lucky dog."
"His directors?" I asked.
"Yes, hadn"t you heard? He"s just cleaned up half a million or more,--some new scheme for making refined sugar out of huckleberries. Isn"t it amazing what shrewd ideas these big business men get hold of? They say they"re unloading the stock at five hundred dollars. It only cost them about five to organize. If only one could get on to one of these things early enough, eh?"
I a.s.sented sadly.
And the next time I am offered a chance on the ground floor I am going to take it, even if it"s only the barley floor of a brewery.
It appears that there is such a place after all.
9.--The Hallucination of Mr. b.u.t.t
It is the hallucination of Mr. b.u.t.t"s life that he lives to do good. At whatever cost of time or trouble to himself, he does it. Whether people appear to desire it or not, he insists on helping them along.
His time, his company and his advice are at the service not only of those who seek them but of those who, in the mere appearances of things, are not asking for them.
You may see the beaming face of Mr. b.u.t.t appear at the door of all those of his friends who are stricken with the minor troubles of life. Whenever Mr. b.u.t.t learns that any of his friends are moving house, buying furniture, selling furniture, looking for a maid, dismissing a maid, seeking a chauffeur, suing a plumber or buying a piano,--he is at their side in a moment.
So when I met him one night in the cloak room of the club putting on his raincoat and his galoshes with a peculiar beaming look on his face, I knew that he was up to some sort of benevolence.
"Come upstairs," I said, "and play billiards." I saw from his general appearance that it was a perfectly safe offer.
"My dear fellow," said Mr. b.u.t.t, "I only wish I could.
I wish I had the time. I am sure it would cheer you up immensely if I could. But I"m just going out."
"Where are you off to?" I asked, for I knew he wanted me to say it.
"I"m going out to see the Everleigh-Joneses,--you know them? no?--just come to the city, you know, moving into their new house, out on Seldom Avenue."
"But," I said, "that"s away out in the suburbs, is it not, a mile or so beyond the car tracks?"
"Something like that," answered Mr. b.u.t.t.
"And it"s going on for ten o"clock and it"s starting to rain--"
"Pooh, pooh," said Mr. b.u.t.t, cheerfully, adjusting his galoshes. "I never mind the rain,--does one good. As to their house. I"ve not been there yet but I can easily find it. I"ve a very simple system for finding a house at night by merely knocking at the doors in the neighborhood till I get it."
"Isn"t it rather late to go there?" I protested.
"My dear fellow," said Mr. b.u.t.t warmly, "I don"t mind that a bit. The way I look at it is, here are these two young people, only married a few weeks, just moving into their new house, everything probably upside down, no one there but themselves, no one to cheer them up,"--he was wriggling into his raincoat as he spoke and working himself into a frenzy of benevolence,--"good gracious, I only learned at dinner time that they had come to town, or I"d have been out there days ago,--days ago--"
And with that Mr. b.u.t.t went bursting forth into the rain, his face shining with good will under the street lamps.
The next day I saw him again at the club at lunch time.
"Well," I asked, "did you find the Joneses?"
"I did," said Mr. b.u.t.t, "and by George I was glad that I"d gone--quite a lot of trouble to find the house (though I didn"t mind that; I expected it)--had to knock at twenty houses at least to get it,--very dark and wet out there, --no street lights yet,--however I simply pounded at the doors until some one showed a light--at every house I called out the same things, "Do you know where the Everleigh Joneses live?" They didn"t. "All right," I said, "go back to bed. Don"t bother to come down."
"But I got to the right spot at last. I found the house all dark. Jones put his head out of an upper window.
"Hullo," I called out; "it"s b.u.t.t." "I"m awfully sorry,"
he said, "we"ve gone to bed." "My dear boy," I called back, "don"t apologize at all. Throw me down the key and I"ll wait while you dress. I don"t mind a bit."
"Just think of it," continued Mr. b.u.t.t, "those two poor souls going to bed at half past ten, through sheer dullness! By George, I was glad I"d come. "Now then," I said to myself, "let"s cheer them up a little, let"s make things a little brighter here."
"Well, down they came and we sat there on furniture cases and things and had a chat. Mrs. Jones wanted to make me some coffee. "My dear girl," I said (I knew them both when they were children) "I absolutely refuse. Let ME make it." They protested. I insisted. I went at it,--kitchen all upset--had to open at least twenty tins to get the coffee. However, I made it at last. "Now," I said, "drink it." They said they had some an hour or so ago. "Nonsense,"
I said, "drink it." Well, we sat and chatted away till midnight. They were dull at first and I had to do all the talking. But I set myself to it. I can talk, you know, when I try. Presently about midnight they seemed to brighten up a little. Jones looked at his watch. "By Jove," he said, in an animated way, "it"s after midnight."
I think he was pleased at the way the evening was going; after that we chatted away more comfortably. Every little while Jones would say, "By Jove, it"s half past twelve,"
or "it"s one o"clock," and so on.
"I took care, of course, not to stay too late. But when I left them I promised that I"d come back to-day to help straighten things up. They protested, but I insisted."
That same day Mr. b.u.t.t went out to the suburbs and put the Joneses" furniture to rights.
"I worked all afternoon," he told me afterwards,--"hard at it with my coat off--got the pictures up first--they"d been trying to put them up by themselves in the morning.
I had to take down every one of them--not a single one right,--"Down they come," I said, and went at it with a will."