THE AMBITIONS OF MR. AMIDON
No other branch of commerce is as fascinating as the wholesale drug
business. A drug stock embraces ten thousand small items, and the
remote fastnesses of the earth are raked to supply its necessities.
The warehouses are redolent of countless scents that pique a healthy
curiosity; poppy and mandragora and all the drowsy sirups of the world
are enlisted in its catalogue. How superior to the handling of the
grosser commodities of the wholesale grocery line! How infinitely more
delightful than distributing clanging hardware or scattering broadcast
the unresponsive units of the dry-goods trade!
Such, at least, were Jerry Amidon’s opinions. Jerry knew his way around
the store--literally. He could find the asafœtida without sniffing his
way to it. He had acquired a working knowledge of the pharmacopœia, and
under Eaton’s guidance he purchased a Latin grammar and a dictionary,
over which he labored diligently in the midnight hours. His curiosity
was insatiable; he wanted to know things!
“Assistant to the President” was the title bestowed upon him by
his fellow employees. By imperceptible degrees he had grown into
a confidential relationship with Copeland that puzzled the whole
establishment. The latest shifts had been unusually productive of
friction, and Amidon had found his new position under the credit man
wholly uncomfortable. Having asserted his authority, Copeland gave no
heed to the results. The credit man was an old employee, very jealous
of his prerogatives, and he had told Jerry in blunt terms that he had
nothing for him to do. The auditor thereupon pounced upon him and set
him to work checking invoices.
Jerry wrote a good hand and proved apt, and as a result of this contact
with the office he absorbed a vast amount of information pertaining
to the business to which, strictly speaking, he was not entitled.
Copeland, seeing him perched on a stool in the counting-room, asked
him what he was doing there, and when Jerry replied that he was just
helping out for a day or two, Copeland remarked ironically that he
guessed he’d better stay there; that he’d been thinking for some time
that fresh blood was needed in that department.
No one else entered Copeland’s office with so much assurance. If Jerry
hadn’t been so amiable, so willing to help any one who called for his
assistance, he would have been cordially hated; but Jerry was a likable
fellow. He prided himself on keeping cheerful on blue Mondays when
everybody else about the place was in the doldrums.
The auditor sent him to the bank frequently, and he experienced a
pleasurable sensation in walking briskly across the lobby of the
Western National. He knew many of the clerks he saw immured in the
cages; some of them were members of the Little Ripple Club, and he made
a point of finding out just what they did, and incidentally the amount
of their salaries, which seemed disgracefully inadequate; he was doing
quite as well himself. He liked to linger in the bank lobby and talk to
people. He had hit on the happy expedient of speaking to men whether
he knew them or not; he argued that in time they would ask who he was,
which was a surer way of impressing himself upon them than through
formal introductions.
Ambition stirred in the bosom of Jeremiah A. Amidon. He lavished his
admiration upon the “big” men of the “street”--in the main they were
hard workers, and he was pretty well persuaded of the virtue and reward
of industry.
Nearly all the leading manufacturers and merchants were stockholders
in banks. The fact that Copeland enjoyed no such distinction troubled
Jerry. He studied the stock-list, hoping to see something some day that
he could buy.
The local stock exchange consisted of three gentlemen calling
themselves brokers. Whenever they met by chance on the steps of the
Western National or in a trolley going home, the exchange was in
session. The “list” must be kept active, and when there were no
transfers the brokers could trade a few shares with one another to
establish a price. These agitations of the local bourse would be duly
reported on the market page of the newspapers--all but the number of
shares changing hands! “A better tone prevailing”; “brisk demand for
tractions”; “lively trading in industrials” would soberly greet the eye
of students of local financial conditions.
Foreman, one of the brokers, who had been haunting the store for
several days looking for Copeland, accosted Jerry in the bank one
afternoon.
“Your boss doesn’t sit on his job much,” Foreman remarked. “I’m getting
tired chasing him.”
“He’s off motoring with Kinney--they’re looking for a place to start
another cement mill. Why don’t you call for me when you honor the
house?”
“Oh, my business with Copeland is too trifling to trouble you about,”
the broker remarked ironically. “You haven’t any money, have you?”
Jerry bent his ear to catch the jingle of coin inside the cages.
“Oh, if you want to borrow, Copeland-Farley ain’t a pawnshop.”
“I guess C-F doesn’t _lend_ much; it’s the biggest borrower on the
street,” said Foreman.
“Every big jobber is a heavy borrower. It’s a part of the game,” Jerry
replied. Foreman’s anxiety to find Copeland had piqued his curiosity.
“Of course, if your business with the boss can wait--”
“It’s a trifling matter, that will probably annoy him when I mention
it. I’ve got twenty shares of Copeland-Farley for sale. I thought he
might want to pick ’em up.”
“Must be a mistake,” replied Jerry indifferently; “there’s never any of
our stock for sale.”
“No; I suppose you’ve got most of it yourself downstairs in the safety
vault!”
“Come through and pour the dope!” said Jerry, grinning cheerfully.
“Well, I’ve got ’em all right. An old party named Reynolds up at Fort
Wayne had twenty shares and his executors wrote me that Copeland ought
to have a chance to buy ’em. I’ve worn myself out trying to find your
boss. I don’t know who’d buy if he didn’t. The things you hear about
your house are a little bit scary: trade falling off; head of the
company drinking, gambling, monkeying with outside things, like Kinney
cement--”
“Well, well!” Jerry chirruped; “you’re just chuck full of sad tidings.”
“Of course, you know it all; but maybe you don’t know that Corbin &
Eichberg are cutting into your business. There will be an involuntary
consolidation one of these days and Copeland-Farley will be painted off
the sign.”
“You’re the best little booster I’ve heard sing this week! What’ll you
take for the stock?”
“Par.”
“Sold! Bring your papers here to-morrow at two and I’ll give you the
money.”
Jerry had heard some one say that it was what you can do without money
that proves your mettle in business. He had one thousand dollars, that
represented the savings of his lifetime. The second thousand necessary
to complete the purchase he borrowed of Eaton--who made the advance not
without much questioning.
“Very careless on Copeland’s part, but to be expected of a man who
takes only a fitful interest in his business. You have about one
thousand dollars! All right; I’ll lend you what you need to buy the
stock. But keep this to yourself; don’t turn in the old certificate for
a new one--not at present. Wait and see what happens. Copeland needs
discipline, and he will probably get it. Kinney and Copeland seeing
much of each other?”
“Well, they’re off on a business trip together.”
“I mean social affairs. They haven’t been driving peaceful citizens
away from the Country Club by their cork-popping quite so much, have
they? I thought not; that’s good. The general reform wave may hit them
yet.”
“On the dead, I think Copeland’s trying to cut out the early morning
parties,” said Jerry earnestly. “He’s taken a brace.”
“If he doesn’t want to die in the poorhouse at the early age of fifty,
he’d better!” Eaton brushed an imaginary speck off his cuff as he
asked, “How much did your boss give you of the five thousand you got
back for him out of that poker game?”
Amidon fidgeted and colored deeply.
“Just another of these fairy stories!”
“Your attempt to feign ignorance is laudable, Amidon. But my
information is exact. Rather neat, particularly lifting him right out
of the patrol wagon, so to speak. And recovering the check; creditable
to your tact--highly so!”
Jerry grinned.
“Oh, it was dead easy! You see, after helping the gang lick you in the
primaries last May, they couldn’t go back on me.”
“If you turned your influence to nobler use, this would be a very
different world! Let us go back to that Corrigan matter--you remember?”
asked Eaton, filling his pipe. “You probably noticed that the gentleman
who was arrested for murder down there was duly convicted. His lawyer
didn’t do him much good. No wonder! I never saw a case more miserably
handled--stupid beyond words.”
“You wasn’t down there!” exclaimed Jerry, sitting up straight.
“_Were_, not _was_, Amidon! I should think you’d know I’d been in the
wilderness from my emaciated appearance. Believe I did say I was going
to Pittsburg, but I took the wrong train. Met some nice chaps while I
was down there,--one or two friends of yours, road agents, pirates,
commercial travelers, drummers,--I beg your pardon!”
Jerry was moved to despair. He would never be able to surround himself
with the mystery or practice the secrecy that he found so fascinating
in Eaton. He had not imagined that the lawyer would bother himself
further about Corrigan. He had read of the conviction without emotion,
but it would never have occurred to him that a man so busy as Eaton or
so devoted to the comforts of life would spend three days in Belleville
merely to watch the trial of a man in whom he had only the remotest
interest.
“They soaked him for manslaughter. I guess he got off easy!”
“He did, indeed,” replied Eaton. “When did you see Nan last?”
“I’ve been there once since you took me, and the old man sent down word
he wanted to see me. He was feeling good and lit into me about the
store. Wanted to know about everything. Some of the fellows Copeland
has kicked out have been up crying on Farley’s doorstep and he asked
me how the boss came to let them go. He sent Nan out of the room so he
could cuss better. He’s sure some cusser!”
“Amidon!” Eaton beat his knuckles on the desk sharply, “remember you
are speaking English!”
“You’d better give me up,” moaned Jerry, crestfallen.
“You are doing well. With patience and care you will improve the
quality of your diction. No reference to the Corrigan matter, I
suppose,--either by Farley or Nan?”
“Not a word. It was the night I read about the end of the trial, but
nothing was said about it.”
“She needn’t have worried,” Eaton remarked. “She was a very foolish
little girl to have drawn her money out of the bank to hand over to a
crooked lawyer.”
“I suppose you coaxed the money back--”
“Certainly not! It might have been amusing to gather Harlowe in for
blackmail; but you can see that it would have involved no end of
newspaper notoriety; most disagreeable. I had the best opportunities
for observing that fellow in his conduct of the case; in fact, I had
a letter to the judge and he asked me to sit with him on the bench.
There’s little in the life or public services of Jason E. Harlowe that
I don’t know.” He lifted his eyes to the solid wall of file-boxes.
“H-66 is filled with data. Jason E. Harlowe,” he repeated musingly. “If
I should die to-night, kindly direct my executor to observe that box
particularly.”
“I’ve heard of him; he ran for the legislature last year and got
licked.”
“By two hundred and sixteen votes,” added Eaton.
“What’s your guess about that thousand bucks? Corrigan must have put
Harlowe up to it.”
“He did not,” replied Eaton, peering for a moment into the bowl of his
pipe. “It was Mr. Harlowe’s idea--strictly so. And I’m ready for him
in case he shows his hand again. Farley has some relations down that
way, a couple of cousins at Lawrenceburg. Do you follow me? Harlowe
may have something bigger up his sleeve. He ranges the whole Indiana
shore of the Ohio; business mostly criminal. The more I’ve thought of
that thousand-dollar episode, the less I’ve liked it. I take a good
deal of interest in Nan, you know. She’s a little brash and needs a
helping hand occasionally. Not that I’m called upon to stand _in loco
parentis_, but there’s something mighty appealing in her. For fear you
may misunderstand me, I assure you that I am not in love with her, or
in danger of being; but her position is difficult and made the more
so by her impulsive, warm-hearted nature. And it has told against
her a little that the Farleys were never quite admitted to the inner
circle here. This is a peculiar town, you know, Amidon, and there’s a
good deal of caste feeling--deplorable but true! You and I are sturdy
democrats and above such prejudices, but there are a few people amongst
us who never forget what you may call their position. Unfortunate, but
it’s here and to be reckoned with.”
“Well, I guess Nan’s as good as any of them,” said Amidon doggedly.
“She is! But it’s the elemental strain in her that makes her
interesting. She’s of the race that believes in fairies; we have to
take that into account.”
Amidon nodded soberly. He had seen nothing in Nan to support this
proposition that she believed in fairies, but the idea pleased him.
Eaton’s way of speaking of women was another thing that impressed
Jerry. It was always with profound respect, and this was unfamiliar
enough in Jerry’s previous existence; but combined with this
reverential attitude was a chivalrous anxiety to serve or protect them.
The girls Jerry had known, or the ones he particularly admired, were
those endowed with a special genius for taking care of themselves.
“Nan,” Eaton was saying, “needs plenty of air. She has suffered from
claustrophobia in her life with the Farleys. Oh, yes; claustrophobia--”
He paused to explain the meaning of the word, which Jerry scribbled
on an envelope that he might remember it and use it somewhere when
opportunity offered.
“I’m glad Farley talked to you. You will find that he will ask to see
you again, but be careful what you say to him about the store. He’ll be
anxious to worm information out of you, but he’s the sort to distrust
you if you seemed anxious to talk against the house or the head of it,
much as he may dislike him.”
“I guess that’s right,” said Jerry. “He asked about the customers on
the route I worked last year and seemed to know them all--even to the
number of children in the family.”
“You’ve been back once since we called together? Anybody else
around--any signs that Nan is receiving social attentions?”
“I didn’t see any. She’d been reading ‘Huck Finn’ to the old gent when
I dropped in.”
“Isolated life; not wholesome. A girl like that needs to have people
about her.”
“Well,” Jerry ejaculated, “she doesn’t need a scrub like me! I felt
ashamed of myself for going; and had to walk around the block about
seven times before I got my nerve up to go in. It’s awful, going into a
house like that, and waiting for the coon to go off to see whether the
folks want to see you or not.”
“The trepidation you indicate is creditable to you, Amidon. Your social
instincts are crude but sound. Should you say, as a student of mankind
and an observer of life, that Nan is pining away with a broken heart?”
“Well, hardly; she was a lot cheerfuler than she was that first time,
when you went with me.”
“Thanks for the compliment! Of course, you get on better without me.
’Twas always thus! Well, that first time was hardly a fair example of
my effect upon womankind. The air was surcharged with electricity; Nan
had made a trifling error of judgment and had been brought promptly to
book. I’ve always rather admired people who follow their impulses;
it’s my disposition to examine my own under the microscope. Don’t check
yourself too much: I find your spontaneity refreshing, particularly
now that your verbs and nouns are more nearly in agreement. You say
Copeland and Kinney are off motoring, to look at a new factory?” He
lifted his eyes to one of the file-boxes absently. “I wish they’d wait
till we get rid of that suit over Kinney’s patents before they spread
out. The case ought to be decided soon and there are times--”
He rose quickly, walked to the shelves and drew down a volume in
which he instantly became absorbed. Then he went back to his desk and
refilled his pipe deliberately.
“I think,” he remarked, “that we shall win the case; but you never can
tell. By the way, what is your impartial judgment of the merits of
Corbin & Eichberg--rather wide-awake fellows, aren’t they?”
As Jerry began to express scorn by a contemptuous curl of the lip and
an outward gesture of his stiffened palm, Eaton reprimanded him sharply.
“Speak judicially; no bluster; none of this whang about their handling
inferior goods. The fact is they are almost offensively prosperous and
carry more traveling men after ten years’ business than Copeland-Farley
with thirty years behind them.”
“Well,” Jerry replied meekly, “I guess they are cutting in a little;
Eichberg had made a lot of money before he went into drugs and they’ve
got more capital than C-F.”
“That increases the danger of the competition. Eichberg is a pretty
solid citizen. For example, he’s a director in the Western National.”
“I guess that won’t help him sell any drugs,” said Amidon, who resented
this indirect praise of Corbin & Eichberg.
“Not directly; no.” And Eaton dropped the subject with a finality Jerry
felt bound to accept.
Foreman had intimated that in due course Copeland-Farley would
be absorbed by Corbin & Eichberg; possibly the same calamity was
foreshadowed in Eaton’s speculations.
Before he returned to his boarding-house Jerry strolled into the
jobbing district and stood for some time on the sidewalk opposite
Copeland-Farley’s store. His twenty shares of stock gave him an exalted
sense of proprietorship. He was making progress; he was a stockholder
in a corporation. But it was a corporation that was undoubtedly going
to the bad.
It was quite true that Corbin & Eichberg were making heavy inroads
upon Copeland-Farley trade. They were broadening the field of their
operations and developing territory beyond the farthest limits to which
Copeland-Farley had extended local drug jobbing. It was not a debatable
matter that if Copeland persisted in his evil courses the business
would go by the board.
Copeland hadn’t been brought up to work; that was his trouble, Jerry
philosophized. And yet Copeland was doing better. As Jerry thought of
him his attitude became paternal. He grinned as he became conscious of
his dreams of attempting--he, Jeremiah Amidon--to pull Billy Copeland
back from the pit for which he seemed destined, and save the house of
Copeland-Farley from ruin.
He crossed the street, found the private watchman sitting in the open
door half asleep, roused him, and gave him a cigar he had purchased for
the purpose.
Then he walked away whistling cheerfully and beating the walk with his
stick.