The Fortune Hunter.
by Louis Joseph Vance.
I
FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. At.w.a.ter & Spaulding, importers of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard operator"s announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and att.i.tude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet superst.i.tion or two, and of the number of these the first was that he must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a poker-player"s: captains of industry were uniformly like that, Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.
Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he entered on the echo of Spaulding"s "Come!" He had apprehended the visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure with a blank face, the blanker for gla.s.ses whose lenses seemed always to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind; a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine"s vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove himself of some worth to the world--and, incidentally, to Nathaniel Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit inclinations and ill-a.s.sorted abilities, had unanimously turned out signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring him.
Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and with no animus to be discerned in his att.i.tude, provided Duncan with one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and confidence.
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened his expression and made it quite engaging.
"G"dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just get in, Duncan?"
"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with impartial interest; in that pause Duncan"s poor little hope died a natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got me--overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
"You haven"t wasted time."
"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired me to come home that you wanted my advice."
A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly surprised out of his pose. "_Your_ advice!..."
"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
"Well...." Spaulding admitted.
"Oh, don"t think I"m boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been sending you."
"You"ve had bad luck...."
"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who could earn them."
His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection, distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You"d think he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something, given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
"Duncan," he said, "what"s the trouble?"
"I thought you knew that; I thought that was why you called me in with my route half-covered."
"You mean--?"
"I mean I can"t sell your line."
"Why?"
"G.o.d only knows. I want to, badly enough. It"s just general incompetence, I presume."
"What makes you think that?"
Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
"You"ve tried--what else?"
"A little of everything--all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk, time-keeper, cashier--all of "em."
"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry"s a good friend. We roomed together at college. That"s why he stands for me."
"He says you only need the right opening--."
"And n.o.body knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it"s the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry"s been a prince to me. He"s found me four or five jobs with friends of his--like yourself. But I don"t seem to last. You see I was brought up to be ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day--and all that sort of thing. My father"s failure--you know about that?"
Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more freely than he would at any other time--suffering, in fact, from that species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down on his luck.
"That smash came when I was five years out of college--I"d never thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I"d always had more coin than I could spend--never had to consider the worth of money or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he"d an idea I"d turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education--and not so much of that that you"d notice it--and not a cent.... I was too proud to look to my friends for help in those days--and perhaps that was as well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a fish-market?"
"No." Spaulding"s eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny gla.s.ses.
"But what"s the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise, suddenly remembering himself.
"You"re not. Go on."
"I didn"t mean to; mostly, I presume, I"ve been blundering round an explanation of Kellogg"s kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual way--felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer through his misplaced interest in me."
"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I"m interested. About the fish-market?"
"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience--and the last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of finance--paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you know--one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too: didn"t have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great const.i.tution I"ve got."
He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.
"And then--?"
"Oh--?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
Since then he"s been finding me one berth after another. He"s a sure-enough optimist."
Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had a.s.suredly done his case no good by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet, somehow strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted confession.
"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.