a dreamy speculation on the girl’s home life, when he was suddenly
pulled up by the percussion of Mr. Hylam’s voice. He realized that the
great man was speaking to him. He was saying:
“Let’s see, what’s your name?”
“Thomas Pinwell, sir,” he answered, and stood up.
“_What_ name?” repeated the big man.
“Pinwell--Thomas Pinwell,” he said in a rather louder voice.
Mr. Hylam looked irritably among some papers and sighed. He then
continued dictating a letter to the stenographer. When that was finished
he got up, and went out of the room. He was absent about ten minutes,
and then came hurrying in with some more papers. He called out as he
walked:
“Jackson, have you got that statement from Jorrocks, Musgrove &
Bellwither?”
One of the clerks jumped up and said:
“I’ll find it, sir.”
The clerk took some time to do this, and in the meanwhile Mr. Hylam
dictated another report to the young lady. Then the clerk brought the
statement, and he and Mr. Hylam discussed it at some length. He gave the
clerk some further instructions, which were twice interrupted by the
telephone bell. When this was finished, Mr. Hylam again caught sight of
the little man by the door. He looked at him with surprise, and said:
“Let’s see, what’s your name?”
“Pinwell--Thomas Pinwell, sir,” he answered patiently.
Mr. Hylam again sighed and fingered a lot of papers in pigeon-holes. At
that moment there was a knock, and a boy in buttons entered and said:
“There’s Mr. Curtis, of Curtis, Tonks & Curtis, called.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Hylam. “Yes. All right. Er--ask him to come in. I
want to see him.” He turned to the telephone, and asked some one to put
him on to some one else, and while waiting with the receiver to his ear,
his eye once more caught sight of the little man by the door. He called
out to him:
“Oh!--er--just wait outside a minute, Mr.--er--Hullo! is that you,
Thomson?”
Finding himself temporarily dismissed, Mr. Pinwell took up his hat and
went into the outer office. There was a tall, elderly man with a
fur-lined overcoat standing there, and he was immediately shown in. He
remained with Mr. Hylam just one hour. At the end of that time, one of
the directors called and went out to lunch with Mr. Hylam. A clerk gave
Mr. Pinwell the tip that he had better call back about four o’clock. He
said he would do so. He had had thirty years’ experience in the
furnishing trade, and he knew that “business was business.” One had to
be patient, to conform to its prescripts. A gentleman like Mr. Hylam
lived under continual pressure. He was acting according to his
conscience in the best interests of the firm. One had to take one’s
chance with him. After all, it would be very nice to get the job. He had
been out so long, and he was not so young as he used to be. He thought
of his placid wife and the two children. They were indeed getting into a
very penurious state. He understood that the salary would be thirty
shillings per week, and a small royalty on the sales. Not a princely
emolument but it would make all the difference. Besides, what might not
the royalties amount to? If he worked hard and energetically he might
make between two and three pounds per week--who knows? He went into an
äerated bread shop and had a cup of tea and a piece of seed cake, and
read the morning paper. He stayed there as long as he dare, and then
went for a stroll round the streets. At four o’clock precisely he
presented himself at the managerial office at Dollbones once more. Mr.
Hylam had not returned. They expected him every minute. There were five
other people waiting to see him. At half-past four Mr. Hylam came in,
smoking a cigar. He was accompanied by another gentleman. They walked
right through the waiting crowd and went into the inner office and shut
the door. As a matter of fact, Mr. Pinwell did not see the manager at
all that day. So great was the congestion of business in the trimming,
gimp, embroidery, and button business that afternoon that he was advised
by one of the least aggressive clerks, at about a quarter to six, to try
his luck in the morning. It was a quarter-past three on the following
afternoon that he eventually obtained his interview with Mr. Hylam, and
it was from his point of view entirely satisfactory. Mr. Hylam said:
“Let’s see. You told me your name?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered. “Thomas Pinwell.”
Mr. Hylam seemed at last to find the papers he desired. He said:
“Er--just come here. Show me your references.”
Mr. Pinwell approached the great desk deferentially. On it was a chart
of London with one section shaded red. Mr. Hylam read the references
carefully and then asked one or two searching questions. At last he
said:
“Well, now, look here. This is your section. Go to Mr. Green, and he
will give you the cards and samples. Then go to Rodney in the Outer
London department upstairs, and he will give you a list of several
hundred furnishing houses with the names of the buyers and a few
particulars. Everything else you must find out. The salary is thirty
shillings a week and two per cent. on sales completed. Settlement
monthly. Good-day, Mr.--er--”
He turned to the telephone, and Mr. Pinwell’s heart beat rapidly. He had
really got a job again! As he walked to the door he had a vision of the
expression of delight on his wife’s face as he told her the news. He
visualized a certain day in a certain month when he would bring home a
lot of sovereigns and buy the children things. Two per cent.! For every
hundred pounds’ worth of orders, two golden sovereigns of his very own!
It seemed too good to be true!
His wife indeed did share with him the comforting joys of this new vista
of commercial prosperity. They occupied now two rooms in Camling Town,
and Tom had been out so long there was no immediate prospect of a
removal. But the rent was now secure and just the barest necessities of
life, and everything depended on the two per cent. commission. He was to
start on the following Monday, and the intervening days were filled with
active preparations. There were shirts to mend, an overcoat to be
stitched, a pair of boots to have the heels set up, and three new
collars to be bought. These were vital things pertinent to the active
propaganda of the bread-winner. Other things were urgent,--a new piece
of oil-cloth for the bedroom, some underclothes for the girls, and
several small debts--but all these things _could_ wait, at any rate a
month or two, till the commissions started coming in. For Mrs. Pinwell
herself there never seemed necessities. She always managed to look
somehow respectable, and, as Mr. Pinwell once remarked to a neighbor,
“My wife is a marvel, sir, with a string bag. She always believes in
bringing the things home herself. She goes out into the High Street,
Camling Town, on a Saturday night, and I assure you, sir, it’s
surprising what she will bring back. She will make a shilling go further
than many of them would half-a-crown. She is a remarkable woman. It
surprises me how she manages to bargain, being so unassuming, so
diffident, as it were, in the home.”
There was nothing, then, missing in the necessary equipment of Mr.
Pinwell as he set out with his leather case of samples on the following
Monday. It was a cold, bright day, and he enjoyed the exercise of
walking. He was not by nature a pushful man and he found the business of
calling on people whom he did not know somewhat irksome. Fortunately he
was by temperament patient and understanding, and he made allowances
when people were rude to him, or kept him waiting indefinitely and then
gave him no orders. “It’s all in the way of business,” he thought as he
shuffled out of the shop and sought the next street.
At the end of the first week he explained to his wife:
“You see, my dear, there’s a lot of spade-work to be done yet. I’m
afraid Flinders, who had the round before me, must have neglected it
disgracefully. It all requires working up again. One has to get to
_know_ people, the right people, of course. They seem prejudiced against
one like, at first.”
“Was that Mr. Flinders who used to--” began Mrs. Pinwell in a whisper.
“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid he drank. It was a very distressing story,
very distressing indeed. They say he drank himself to death. A very
clever salesman too--very clever! They tell me he worked this district
up splendidly, and then gradually let it go to pieces.”
“Dear, dear! I can’t think how people do such things?” murmured Mrs.
Pinwell.
“It was a great recommendation in my case,” continued her husband, “that
I was a teetotaler. Mr. Hylam made a great point of that. He asked me
several times, and read the letter of Judkins & Co. vouching for my
honesty and sobriety for a period of twenty-two years. He seemed very
pleased about that.”
At the end of the first month the orders that Mr. Pinwell had secured
for Dollbones were of a negligible character. He felt discouraged--as
though conscious of there being something fundamentally wrong in his
method of doing business--but his wife cheered him by expressing her
view that it would probably take _months_ before his initial spade-work
would take effect.
He started on his rounds a little earlier after that, and stayed a
little later. He became more persistent and more patient. He went back
again and again to see people who seemed inaccessible. He tried to be a
little more assertive and plausible in his solicitations, but at the end
of the second month there was little improvement in his returns, and his
commissions amounted to scarcely enough to pay for the new oil-cloth in
the sitting-room.
The optimism of Mrs. Pinwell was in no way affected by this failure, but
a more alarming note was struck by Mr. Rodney of the “Outer London
Department.” He told Mr. Pinwell that Mr. Hylam was _not at all
satisfied_ with his work so far, and he would have to show greater
energy and enterprise during the ensuing month, or the firm would be
impelled to try a new traveler for that district, one who could show
better results.
Mr. Pinwell was very alarmed. The idea of being “out” again kept him
awake at night. It was a very serious thing. He put in longer hours
still, and hurried more rapidly between his calls. He increased his
stock of samples till they amounted to a very considerable weight. He
made desperate appeals for orders, ringing the changes on various ways
of expressing himself. But at the end of the next week there was still
no improvement on the pages of his order-book. There was one firm in
particular who caused him considerable heart-burning--Messrs. Carron and
Musswell. These were quite the biggest people in the neighborhood, and
had five different branches, each doing a prosperous business. Mr.
Pinwell for the life of him could not find out how to get into the good
graces of this firm. No one seemed to know who bought for them, and he
was referred from one person to another, and sent dashing from one
branch to another, all to no purpose.
He had one friend who had a small retail business of his own, a Baptist
named Senner, who gave him small orders occasionally. He went into Mr.
Senner’s shop one Friday, and feeling thoroughly tired and discouraged,
he poured out his tale of woe to Mr. Senner. Mr. Senner was a large
doleful man, to whom the sorrows of others were as balm. He listened to
Mr. Pinwell’s misfortunes in sympathetic silence, breathing heavily. At
the end of the peroration his son entered the shop. He was a
white-faced, dissipated-looking young man who wore lavender ties and
brushed his hair back. One might have imagined that he would have been a
source of disappointment to Mr. Senner, but quite the contrary was the
case. The son had a genius for concealing his vices from his father, and
his father had a great opinion of the boy’s intelligence and character.
He certainly had a faculty of securing orders for his father’s business.
On this occasion Mr. Senner turned to his son and said:
“Harry, who buys for Carron & Musswell?”
The son looked at Mr. Pinwell and fidgeted with his nails. Then he
grinned weakly and said:
“Oh, you want to get hold of Clappe.”
Mr. Pinwell came forward and said:
“Oh, indeed! I’m really very much obliged to you. It’s very kind! Mr.
Clappe, you say? Dear me! yes. Thank you very much. I’ll go and ask for
Mr. Clappe.” And he shook the young man’s hand.
The young man continued grinning in rather a superior manner, and at
that moment Mr. Senner’s attention was attracted by a customer who
entered the shop. Mr. Pinwell picked up his bags and went out. He had
not gone more than a dozen yards when he became aware of Senner junior
at his side. The young man still grinned, and he said:
“I say, you know, it’s no good your going to Carron & Musswell’s and
asking for Clappe. You’ll never get hold of him in that way.”
“Really!” exclaimed Mr. Pinwell. “Now tell me, what would you suggest?”
The young man sniffed and looked up and down the street, and a curiously
leery expression came over his face. Then he said:
“I expect I could fix it for you all right, Pinwell. You’d better come
with me into the bar of the ‘Three Amazons’ after lunch. I’ll introduce
you. Of course, you know, Mr. Pinwell,--er--you know, business is
business. We always like to oblige our friends, and so on--”
He looked at Mr. Pinwell furtively and bit his nails. For the moment Mr.
Pinwell could not catch the drift of these smiles and suggestions, but
he had been in the upholstery line for twenty-seven years, and it
suddenly dawned upon him that of course the young man was suggesting
that if he introduced him, and business came out of it, he would expect
a commission or a bonus. He was quite reasonable. He had a sort of
ingrained repugnance to these things himself, but he knew that it was
done in business. It was quite a usual thing. Some of the best firms--He
took the young man’s hand and said:
“Er--of course--Mr. Senner, I shall be very pleased to accommodate you.
It’s--er--only natural, only natural of course. Business is business.
Where shall I meet you?”
The appointment was made for the corner of Mulberry Road at half-past
two; and at that hour Mr. Pinwell arrived with two heavily laden bags.
He walked by the side of the young man down the street, and then crossed
over into the High Road. Right opposite them was a large gaudy public
house called “The Three Amazons,” and they crossed over to it. A feeling
of diffidence and shyness came over Mr. Pinwell. He had only entered a
public house on about three occasions in his life, and then under some
very stringent business demands, or else to get a bottle of brandy when
his wife was very ill. Nevertheless he followed the young man through a
passage and entered the saloon bar, in the corner of which he deposited
his bags. The bar was fairly crowded with business men, but there was
one figure that by its personality immediately arrested Mr. Pinwell’s
attention. He was a very big man in a new shiny top-hat with a curl to
it. He was leaning heavily against the center of the bar, and was
surrounded by three or four other men who seemed to be hanging on his
words. He had a large red face and small, dark, expressionless eyes. The
skin seemed to be tight and moist, and to bind up his features in
inelastic bags, except round the eyes, where it puckered up into dark
yellowish layers of flesh. His hands were fat and stiff and blue like
the hands of a gouty subject. His gray hair curled slightly under the
brim of his hat, and his clothes were ponderously impressive from the
silk reveres of his tail coat to the dark-brown spats that covered his
square-toed boots. As they entered, this impressive individual looked in
their direction and gave young Mr. Senner a faint nod, and then
continued his conversation.
“That’s Clappe,” whispered Mr. Pinwell’s cicerone, and dusted the knees
of his trousers. He then added:
“We’d better wait a bit.”
They stood there in the corner of the bar, and the young man produced a
silver cigarette-case and offered its contents to Mr. Pinwell, an overt
act of kindness which that gentleman appreciated but did not take
advantage of. They waited there twenty minutes before an opportunity
presented itself of making any approach to the great man. But in the
meantime Mr. Pinwell watched the conversation with considerable
interest. The four men stood very close together, smoking, and speaking
in thick whispers. He was alarmed at moments by the way in which one
would hold a glass of whisky-and-water at a perilous angle over the
waistcoat of another, while fumbling with a cigarette in the unoccupied
hand. He could not hear the conversation, but occasional sentences
reached him: “It’s the cheapest line there is.” “Here! I tell you where
you can get--” “D’you know what they paid last year?” “I ’ad ’im by the
short ’airs that time.” “’E says to me--”
It occurred to Mr. Pinwell that there was something distressing about
this scene, something repelling and distasteful, but he consoled himself
with the reflection that after all business had to be conducted somehow.
Money had to be made to pay for the streets and the lamp-posts, and the
public baths and the battleships. “Business is not always pleasant,” he
reflected, “but it has to be done.”
At the end of twenty minutes two of the men went away and left Mr.
Clappe talking apathetically to the remaining man.
“Now’s our chance,” said Senner junior, and he walked across the bar. He
seized on a lull in the conversation to step forward and touch Mr.
Clappe on the arm.
“Er--excuse me, Mr. Clappe,” he said. “This is my friend Mr. Pinwell, of
Dollbones.”
The big man glanced from Senner junior to Mr. Pinwell and gave that
gentleman an almost imperceptible nod. He then sighed, breathed heavily,
and took a long drink from the glass in front of him.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Clappe,” said Pinwell nervously.
“I’ve heard about you. I’m with Dollbones, you know, _the_ Dollbones. We
have--er--several very good lines just now.”
The great Clappe fixed him with his lugubrious eyes and suddenly said in
a thick voice:
“What’ll you drink?”
It is curious that Mr. Pinwell with all his experience should have been
taken back by this hospitable request. He stammered and said:
“Oh! thank you very much, sir. I don’t think I’ll--at least, I’ll
have--er--a lime-juice and soda.”
And then Mr. Clappe behaved in a very extraordinary way. An expression
of utter dejection came over his face. He puffed his cheeks out and
suddenly muttered, “Oh, my God!”
And then he rolled round and _deliberately turned his back on Mr.
Pinwell and his friend_! It was a very trying moment. Mr. Pinwell was at
his wit’s end how to act, and Senner junior did not help him in any way.
On the contrary he seemed to be taking Mr. Clappe’s side. He gave a sort
of snigger of disgust, and called across the bar in a jaunty voice:
“Johnny Walker and soda, please, Miss Parritt.”
Mr. Pinwell gaped ineffectually at the back of the great man, and
hesitated whether to make any further advance. But he was relieved of
the necessity of coming to a decision by the act of Mr. Clappe himself,
who slowly drained the remnants of refreshment in his glass, and then
walked heavily out of the bar, without looking round.
In the meantime young Senner had acquired his drink, and was feverishly
tapping the end of a cigarette on the rail. He took a long drink and
spluttered slightly, and then, turning on Mr. Pinwell, he said:
“What particular brand of blankety fool are you?”
“I beg your pardon?” exclaimed Mr. Pinwell, amazed.
“I tell you,” said the young man, “you’re a particular type of blankety
fool. You’ve missed the chance of yer life! Don’t you know when a man
like Clappe asks yer to have a drink yer a blankety fool not to? D’you
know that man places thousands and thousands of pounds a year for Carron
& Musswell? Thousands, I tell yer! It don’t matter to ’im where he
places the orders. He puts it all out among ’is pals. You ’ad a chance
of being a pal, and you’ve muffed it!”
“But--but--but--” spluttered Mr. Pinwell. “I really--I--had no
idea. I said I would have a drink. It was only that I ordered
a--er--non-alcoholic drink. I really can’t--”
“Psaugh!”
Young Mr. Senner swirled the whisky round in his glass and drank it at a
gulp. Then he muttered:
“Gawd! Asking Clappe for a lime-juice and soda!”
Mr. Pinwell thought about this meditatively. He wondered whether he had
been in the wrong. After all, people all had their notions of the way to
conduct business. Business was a very big thing. It had “evolved”--that
was the word!--evolved out of all sorts of complicated social
conditions, supply and demand, and so on. A man perhaps who had been in
the habit of taking alcoholic refreshment and expecting others to--it
might perhaps be difficult for him to understand.
“Don’t you never drink?” suddenly exclaimed Mr. Senner.
“I--er--occasionally have a glass of stout,” murmured Mr. Pinwell. “Last
Christmas my wife’s sister brought us a bottle of canary sac. I have no
particular taste for--er--things of this sort--”
“Anyway,” said Mr. Senner, “you’re not under any bally pledge?”
“Oh, dear me, no!” exclaimed Mr. Pinwell.
“Well, then,” answered his youthful adviser. “I should advise you next
time Clappe or any one like him asks you to have a drink, lap it up like
a poodle and stand him a quick one in return.”
Mr. Pinwell surveyed his friend over the rim of his glasses, and thought
for some minutes. Then he said:
“I’m afraid Mr. Clappe is not likely to ask me to have a drink again.”
But the young man of precocious experience answered:
“If you come in here to-morrer, I’ll bet yer he’ll have forgotten who
you are.”
It was all a very astounding experience, and that night in bed Mr.
Pinwell gave the matter long and serious consideration. If his
circumstances had been normal he would have hardly thought about it for
five consecutive minutes, but his circumstances were anything but
normal. They were somewhat desperate. He was on his last month’s trial.
If he should be out again!... Both the children wanted new clothes, and
Eileen’s boots were all to pieces. And then there was that bill of
Batson’s for three pounds seventeen shillings, for which payment was
demanded by the seventeenth; there were other bills less urgent perhaps
but--the little man kept turning restlessly in bed and even in his
sleep he made febrile calculations.