It was ten-thirty of a brilliant morning just two days later that a buoyant young figure swung into an elevator in the great office building that housed the Berg, Shriner Advertising Company. Just one more grain of buoyant swing and the young man"s walk might have been termed a swagger. As it was, his walrus bag just saved him.
Stepping out of the lift he walked, as from habit, to the little unlettered door which admitted employes to the big, bright, inner office. But he did not use it. Instead he turned suddenly and walked down the hall to the double door which led into the reception room. He threw out his legs stiffly and came down rather flat-footed, the way George Cohan does when he"s pleased with himself in the second act.
"Hel-lo, Mack!" he called out jovially.
Mack, the usher, so called from his Machiavellian qualities, turned to survey the radiant young figure before him.
"Good morning, Mr. McChesney," he made answer smoothly. Mack never forgot himself. His keen eye saw the little halo of self-satisfaction that hovered above Jock McChesney"s head. "A successful trip, I see."
Jock McChesney laughed a little, pleased, conscious laugh. "Well, raw-thah!" he drawled, and opened the door leading into the main office. He had been loath to lose one crumb of the savor of it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""Well, raw-thah!" he drawled"]
Still smiling, he walked to his own desk, with a nod here and there, dropped his bag, took off coat and hat, selected a cigarette, tapped it smartly, lighted it, and was off down the big room to the little cubby-hole at the other end. But Sam Hupp"s plump, keen, good-humored face did not greet him as he entered.
The little room was deserted. Frowning, Jock sank into the empty desk chair. He cradled his head in his hands, tilted the chair, pursed his mouth over the slender white cylinder and squinted his eyes up toward the lazy blue spirals of smoke--the very picture of content and satisfaction.
Hupp was in attending some conference in the Old Man"s office, of course. He wished they"d hurry. The business of the week was being boiled-down there. Those conferences were great cauldrons into which the day"s business, or the week"s, was dumped, to be boiled, simmered, stirred, skimmed, cooled. Jock had never been privileged to attend one of these meetings. Perhaps by this time next week he might have a spoon in the stirring too--
There came the murmur of voices as a door was opened. The voices came nearer. Then quick footsteps. Jock recognized them. He rose, smiling. Sam Hupp, vibrating electric energy, breezed in.
"Oh--h.e.l.lo!" he said, surprised. Jock"s smile widened to a grin.
"You back?"
"h.e.l.lo, Hupp," he said, coolly. It was the first time that he had omitted the prefix. "You just bet I"m back."
There flashed across Sam Hupp"s face a curious little look. The next instant it was gone.
"Well," said Jock, and took a long breath.
"Mr. Berg wants to see you."
Hupp plunged into his work.
"Me? The Old Man wants to see me?"
"Yes," snapped Hupp shortly. Then, in a new tone, "Look here, son.
If he says--" He stopped, and turned back to his work again.
"If he says what?"
"Nothing. Better run along."
"What"s the hurry? I want to tell you about--"
"Better tell him."
"Oh, all right," said Jock stiffly. If that was the way they treated a fellow who had turned his first real trick, why, very well. He flung out of the little room and made straight for the Old Man"s office.
Seated at his great flat table desk, Bartholomew Berg did not look up as Jock entered. This was characteristic of the Old Man.
Everything about the chief was deliberate, sure, unhurried. He finished the work in hand as though no other person stood there waiting his pleasure. When at last he raised his ma.s.sive head he turned his penetrating pale blue eyes full on Jock. Jock was conscious of a little tremor running through him. People were apt to experience that feeling when that steady, unblinking gaze was turned upon them. And yet it was just the clear, unwavering look with which Bartholomew Berg, farmer boy, had been wont to gaze out across the fresh-plowed fields to the horizon beyond which lay the city he dreamed about.
"Tell me your side of it," said Bartholomew Berg tersely.
"All of it?" Jock"s confidence was returning.
"Till I stop you."
"Well," began Jock. And standing there at the side of the Old Man"s desk, his legs wide apart, his face aglow, his hands on his hips, he plunged into his tale.
"It started off with a bang from the minute I walked into the office of the plant and met Snyder, the advertising manager. We shook hands and sparked--just like that." He snapped thumb and finger. "What do you think! We belong to the same frat! He"s "93.
Inside of ten minutes he and I were Si-washing around like mad. He introduced me to his aunt. I told her who I was, and all that. But I didn"t start off by talking business. We got along from the jump. They both insisted on showing me through the place.
I--well,"--he laughed a little ruefully,--"there"s something about being shown through a factory that sort of paralyzes my brain. I always feel that I ought to be asking keen, alert, intelligent questions like the ones Kipling always asks, or the j.a.ps when they"re taken through the Stock Yards. But I never can think of any. Well, we didn"t talk business much. But I could see that they were interested. They seemed to,"--he faltered and blushed a little,--"to like me, you know. I played golf with Snyder that afternoon and he beat me. Won two b.a.l.l.s. The next morning I found there"s been a couple of other advertising men there. And while I was talking to Snyder--he was telling me about the time he climbed up and m.u.f.fled the chapel bell--that fellow Flynn, of the Dowd Agency, came in. Snyder excused himself, and talked to him for--oh, half an hour, perhaps. But that was all. He was back again in no time. After that it looked like plain sailing. We got along wonderfully. When I left I said, "I expect to know you both better--""
"I guess," interrupted the Old Man slowly, "that you"ll know them better all right." He reached out with one broad freckled hand and turned back the page of a desk memorandum. "The Athena account was given to the Dowd Advertising Agency yesterday."
It took Jock McChesney one minute--one long, sickening minute--to grasp the full meaning of it all. He stared at the ma.s.sive figure before him, his mouth ludicrously open, his eyes round, his breath for the moment suspended. Then, in a queer husky voice:
"D"you mean--the Dowd--but--they couldn"t--"
"I mean," said Bartholomew Berg, "that you"ve scored what the dramatic critics call a personal hit; but that doesn"t get the box office anything."
"But, Mr. Berg, they said--"
"Sit down a minute, boy." He waved one great heavy hand toward a near-by chair. His eyes were not fixed on Jock. They gazed out of the window toward the great white tower toward which hundreds of thousands of eyes were turned daily--the tower, four-faced but faithful.
"McChesney, do you know why you fell down on that Athena account?"
"Because I"m an idiot," blurted Jock. "Because I"m a double-barreled, corn-fed, hand-picked chump and--"
"That"s one reason," drawled the Old Man grimly. "But it"s not the chief one. The real reason why you didn"t land that account was because you"re too darned charming."
"Charming!" Jock stared.
"Just that. Personality"s one of the biggest factors in business to-day. But there are some men who are so likable that it actually counts against them. The client he"s trying to convince is so taken with him that he actually forgets the business he represents. We say of a man like that that he is personality plus.
Personality is like electricity, McChesney. It"s got to be tamed to be useful."
"But I thought," said Jock, miserably, "that the idea was not to talk business all the time."
"You"ve got it," agreed Berg. "But you must think it all the time.
Every minute. It"s got to be working away in the back of your head. You know it isn"t always the biggest noise that gets the biggest result. The great American hen yields a bigger income than the Steel Trust. Look at Miss Galt. When we have a job that needs a woman"s eye do we send her? No. Why? Because she"s too blame charming. Too much personality. A man just naturally refuses to talk business to a pretty woman unless she"s so smart that--"
"My mother," interrupted Jock, suddenly, and then stopped, surprised at himself.
"Your mother," said Bartholomew Berg slowly, "is one woman in a million. Don"t ever forget that. They don"t turn out models like Emma McChesney more than once every blue moon."
Jock got to his feet slowly. He felt heavy, old. "I suppose," he began, "that this ends my--my advertising career."
"Ends it!" The Old Man stood up and put a heavy hand on the boy"s shoulder. "It only begins it. Unless you want to lie down and quit. Do you?"