I
Awake early, Bruce donned a freshly-pressed gray suit and went down to
breakfast. His immediate concern was to find employment, for in work,
he knew, lay his hope of happiness and peace. He had thrust into his
pocket letters from architects who had employed him in various cities
commending him as an excellent draughtsman; and he bore a letter
certifying to his good character and trustworthiness from the president
of the bank in his native town. He was not pressed by immediate need.
His travels had been inexpensive; in fact, he had a little more than
earned his way; and he had not only the fifty thousand dollars his
mother had left invested in securities, but he carried drafts for the
accumulated income--something over a thousand dollars--to tide him over
any possible difficulties in finding an opening that promised well for
the future. He had finished his breakfast, and lingered at the table,
deep in thought, when a young man who had just entered the dining-room
paused beside him.
“Is it or is it not Bruce Storrs?” he demanded. “I spotted you from the
door--didn’t think there could be another such head and shoulders.”
“Bud Henderson!”
Storrs was on his feet, wringing the hand of the young man, who was
regarding him with a pleased grin.
“You good old Indian! I was just about to go out and ask the nearest
cop where to find you! You’re the only man in town I know!”
“Thanks for the compliment. You might have warned me of your approach.
I’ll sit right here and eat while you unfold yourself.”
Henderson was short, lean and dark, with a curiously immobile face. His
lips smiled oddly without any accompanying expression of humor in his
rather small brown eyes. Without inquiring what had brought Storrs to
town, he began talking of their years together at Boston, where they
had been fellow students at the Tech. He had a dry, humorous way of
saying things, particularly when he talked of himself, which puzzled
strangers but delighted his friends. He was treating Storrs quite as
though there had been no break in their intercourse.
“Met some of our old Boston pals during the recent unpleasantness and
heard of you occasionally on the other side,” he was saying. “Frankly,
I’m not keen about war”--he was composedly eating a melon--“war is
fatiguing. I hope the great nations will behave for the rest of my
life, so I won’t be annoyed by having to go out and settle the row.”
“Here too, Bud; I got enough. I want to have a try at the arts of
peace.”
“So say we all. By the way, are you married yet?”
“No.”
“That’s bad. Marriage is an honorable estate; I’m rather keen about
it. I took me a wife as soon as I got back from France. Oh, Lord,
no! None of the girls we knew around Boston. Couldn’t afford them,
and besides it’s a mistake not to marry in your home town, and it’s
also easier when you’re a bloomin’ pauper. I married into one of the
strongest wholesale grocery houses in all these parts. I’ll drive you
by the warehouse, an impressive pile--one of the biggest concerns west
of Pittsburgh. Maybelle is the name of the lucky girl, and Maybelle
is the only child of the Conrad of Conrad, Buxton and Pettibone. A
wonderful girl--one of the really strong, powerful women of this great
nation. She’s out of town at present, playing a golf tournament for the
huckleberry association championship. That’s why I’m chasing downtown
for breakfast--cook’s on a vacation. You’ll meet Maybelle; she’s a
person, that girl! Married me out of pity; thinks I’m half-witted, and
right, at that!”
“Of course you’d have to marry a girl who’d make allowance for your
mental infirmities,” Bruce replied. “Getting on in your profession, I
suppose?”
“Hell, no! I chucked that. There are too many really capable electrical
experts, and after Maybelle’s father had tried me for six months in the
grocery and I failed to show any talent for distributing the well-known
Verbena Brand of canned stuff, he set me up in the automobile business.
Shameful to relate, I really make money. I handle the Plantagenet--one
of the worst cars on the market. You know it was a mistake--my feeling
that I was called to be another Edison or Marconi. I was really cut out
for the literary life--another sad case of mute, inglorious Milton.
I exercise my talents now designing ‘ads’ and come-on letters as a
lure to customers for the Plantagenet. Would you ride with kings? The
Plantagenet is the car that takes you out and brings you back. That’s
my latest slogan; you’ll find it glaring at you all over the landscape.”
“Oh, what a fall, my countryman!”
“Not at all. You know I always had a knack of making phrases. It’s a
gift, my boy. I suppose you’re here to figure on a new state-house or
perhaps a hospital for lame cats. I know nearly everybody in town, so
if I can be of use to you, just warble.”
“My aim isn’t so high,” said Bruce, who remembered Henderson as
somewhat eccentric but the kindest of souls. His manner of talking was
no indication of his true character. Bruce’s heart warmed to Henderson;
already the town seemed less strange, and he at once disclosed his
intention of establishing himself in the city, though without in the
least surprising the imperturbable Bud.
“Welcome!” he exclaimed with his mouth full of toast. “You shall be
our Michelangelo, our Sir Christopher Wren! I see, as in a dream,” he
went on as he thrust his fork into a poached egg, “I see our fair city
adorned with the noble fruits of the genius of Bruce Storrs, the prince
of architects. You will require a fleet of Plantagenets to whirl you
from one rising edifice to another. I might make you a special price on
six cars--but this must be confidential.”
“I really want to get into a good office, and I’m not expecting to be
taken right into the firm,” said Bruce, laughing. “It will take me a
year or two to get acquainted, and then I’d like to set up for myself.”
“Certainly a worthy ambition, Bruce. It’s a good thing I’m here on
the ground to give you the true dope on the people who count in this
teeming village. The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and
there’s danger of getting pinched between the old hard-boiled bunch
and the birds of gayer plumage who flew in when no one was looking
and insist on twittering sweetly on our tallest trees. Let me be your
social booster; no one better fitted. I’m the only scion of one of
our earliest and noblest families. My grandfather’s bank busted in
seventy-three with a loud bang and I had an uncle who was indicted for
embezzling public funds. He hid in Patagonia and died there in sinful
splendor at a ripe old age. Talk about the aristocracy--I’m it! I
derive a certain prestige among what you might call the paralytic group
from the fact that my ancestors were mixed up in all the financial
calamities that ever befell this town. But it’s the crowd that are the
spenders--build the lordly palaces and treat the Eighteenth Amendment
with the contempt it so richly deserves--that you want to train with.
Your profession is cursed with specialization and I’d warn you against
public work. Too much politics there for one of your fastidious nature.
Our best man in domestic architecture is Freeman--he’s a Tech man,
about seven years ahead of our class. He has a weakness for sun parlors
with antique Italian fountains that are made for him special by a
pottery right here in town. You’re sure to like Freeman; he’s a whist
fiend, but otherwise he’s a decent chap. His wife and Maybelle are
chums and we play around together a good deal.”
While listening to Henderson’s rambling talk Bruce had been turning
over the pages of a memorandum book. He asked about several architects
whose names he had noted. Henderson described them succinctly, praising
or deriding them for reasons which struck Bruce as not necessarily
final as to their merits.
“I don’t expect to land a job the first day,” said Bruce. “I may have
to go through the list before I find what I want.”
“Oh, Freeman will take you on,” replied Henderson easily. “But he
never does anything important without consulting his wife--one of
his eccentricities. My own system is to go ahead and tell Maybelle
afterward, being careful, of course, to conceal my mistakes.”
“You haven’t changed a bit,” laughed Bruce. “I wish I could view the
world as chipperly as you do.”
“My dear Bruce”--with his forefinger Henderson swept Storrs’s breakfast
check to his own side of the table with a single gesture--“never try
to view the whole world at one glance; it’s too damned big. All I see
at present on this suffering, sinning planet is a Plantagenet runabout
with Maybelle and me rolling through fields of asphodel. Everything
else is superfluous. My fellow creatures simply don’t exist except as
prospects for the Plantagenet.”
“Oh, rot! You’re the most unselfish biped I ever knew!”
“Superficially, yes; but it’s all on the surface. Let’s go out and
plant our feet firmly upon the city.”
He led the way to his car and drove to the Plantagenet salesroom and
garage. A young woman whom he introduced as Miss Ordway apparently ran
the whole establishment. Henderson said that she did. He sat down at
his desk and signed, without reading, a pile of letters which she had
written the day before, talking to her meantime, not of business, but
of a novel he had given her to read. Her attempts to interest him in
the fact that one of the salesmen wanted his assistance in rounding
up a certain difficult customer were provocative only of scornful
comments, but when she handed him a memorandum of an appointment with
the prospect at ten o’clock the next morning, he meekly thrust the
paper into his pocket and said all right; he’d see what he could do.
Miss Ordway was already busy with other matters; she seemed to make due
allowance for her employer’s peculiarities.
“This girl’s mighty firm with me,” he said in a tone perfectly audible
to Miss Ordway. “A cruel tyrant; but she really does get some work out
of me.”
He sat on the edge of his desk as he talked over the extension
telephone. Bruce inferred that he was speaking to Mrs. Freeman, and it
was evident from his tone that Bud had not exaggerated in speaking of
his intimacy with the architect and his wife.
“Maybelle’s pushing the pill somewhere and won’t be back for a
week. This being Friday, I’d like to be invited to your shanty for
the week-end.... Ah! That’s nice of you. And may I bring a little
friend?... Oh, a man, of course! And list, Dale, he’s an architect--a
Tech grad and everything pretty, and I want Bill to take him on--see?
Nice boy and perishing for a job. You fix it for me--that’s the
girl!... Oh! my friend isn’t fussy; we’ll both sleep on the grass....
What? Yes; I’ll bring some poison; my pet bootlegger broke through the
entanglements yesterday.”
“All set,” he remarked as he hung up the receiver. “Mighty nice girl,
Dale.”
Miss Ordway intercepted him on his way out to ask what she should do
about a claim for damages to a car belonging to a man named Smythe,
which had been scratched in the garage. The owner threatened to sue,
and Miss Ordway expressed the belief that the valued patron was not
bluffing.
“We took the stand it wasn’t done in our shop and we can’t weaken,”
said Henderson. “Also, we don’t want a row. Were my eyes deceiving me
or have I seen Smythe looking longingly at that blue touring car in
our front window? Yes? Well, suppose we send Briggs to call on him,
carrying the olive branch. Tell him to roll home in the blue car and
we’ll take his old junk and seven hundred berries cash on the counter.”
“I think we could get eight hundred on the deal.” Miss Ordway’s tones
were crisp and businesslike.
“Sold! I despise Smythe, but it’s worth a thousand to have him riding
in a Plantagenet. I’ll look in again at five.”