“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Over to England,” he said. “There is a firm in Liverpool that have
advertised that they want an agent here, and I’m going over to apply for
the job.”
“Can’t you do it by letter?” I asked.
“That’s just it,” said Robinson, with a chuckle, “all the other men
will apply by letter. I’ll go right over myself and get there as soon or
sooner than the letters. I’ll be the man on the spot, and I’ll get the
job.”
He was quite right. He went over to Liverpool, and was back in a
fortnight with English clothes and a big salary.
But I cannot recommend his story to my friends. In fact, it should not
be told too freely. It is apt to be dangerous.
I remember once telling this story of Robinson to a young man called
Tomlinson who was out of a job. Tomlinson had a head two sizes too big,
and a face like a bun. He had lost three jobs in a bank and two in a
broker’s office, but he knew his work, and on paper he looked a good
man.
I told him about Robinson, to encourage him, and the story made a great
impression.
“Say, that was a great scheme, eh?” he kept repeating. He had no command
of words, and always said the same thing over and over.
A few days later I met Tomlinson in the street with a valise in his
hand.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m off to Mexico,” he answered. “They’re advertising for a Canadian
teller for a bank in Tuscapulco. I’ve sent my credentials down, and
I’m going to follow them right up in person. In a thing like this, the
personal element is everything.”
So Tomlinson went down to Mexico and he travelled by sea to Mexico
City, and then with a mule train to Tuscapulco. But the mails, with his
credentials, went by land and got there two days ahead of him.
When Tomlinson got to Tuscapulco he went into the bank and he spoke to
the junior manager and told him what he came for. “I’m awfully sorry,”
the junior manager said, “I’m afraid that this post has just been
filled.” Then he went into an inner room to talk with the manager. “The
tellership that you wanted a Canadian for,” he asked, “didn’t you say
that you have a man already?”
“Yes,” said the manager, “a brilliant young fellow from Toronto; his
name is Tomlinson, I have his credentials here--a first-class man. I’ve
wired him to come right along, at our expense, and we’ll keep the job
open for him ten days.”
“There’s a young man outside,” said the junior, “who wants to apply for
the job.”
“Outside?” exclaimed the manager. “How did he get here?”
“Came in on the mule train this morning: says he can do the work and
wants the job.”
“What’s he like?” asked the manager.
The junior shook his head.
“Pretty dusty looking customer,” he said. “Shifty looking.”
“Same old story,” murmured the manager. “It’s odd how these fellows
drift down here, isn’t it? Up to something crooked at home, I suppose.
Understands the working of a bank, eh? I guess he understands it a
little too well for my taste. No, no,” he continued, tapping the papers
that lay on the table, “now that we’ve got a first-class man like
Tomlinson, let’s hang on to him. We can easily wait ten days, and the
cost of the journey is nothing to the bank as compared with getting a
man of Tomlinson’s stamp. And, by the way, you might telephone to the
Chief of Police and get him to see to it that this loafer gets out of
town straight off.”
So the Chief of Police shut up Tomlinson in the calaboose and then sent
him down to Mexico City under a guard. By the time the police were done
with him he was dead broke, and it took him four months to get back to
Toronto; when he got there, the place in Mexico had been filled long
ago.
But I can imagine that some of my readers might suggest that I have
hitherto been dealing only with success in a very limited way, and that
more interest would lie in discussing how the really great fortunes are
made.
Everybody feels an instinctive interest in knowing how our great
captains of industry, our financiers and railroad magnates made their
money.
Here the explanation is really a very simple one. There is, in fact,
only one way to amass a huge fortune in business or railway management.
One must begin at the bottom. One must mount the ladder from the lowest
rung. But this lowest rung is everything. Any man who can stand upon it
with his foot well poised, his head erect, his arms braced and his eye
directed upward, will inevitably mount to the top.
But after all--I say this as a kind of afterthought in conclusion--why
bother with success at all? I have observed that the successful people
get very little real enjoyment out of life. In fact the contrary is
true. If I had to choose--with an eye to having a really pleasant
life--between success and ruin, I should prefer ruin every time. I have
several friends who are completely ruined--some two or three times--in
a large way of course; and I find that if I want to get a really
good dinner, where the champagne is just as it ought to be, and where
hospitality is unhindered by mean thoughts of expense, I can get it best
at the house of a ruined man.