_Dear Father_:
Your little joke about being almost well and about broke at Carlsbad
strikes me as about the limit in sarcastic humor. It's always so easy
for millionaires to talk about being broke, that they're about the only
ones who do it. It's the same with clothes, you know. If I dressed like
Russell Sage, you wouldn't have me in the lard department ten minutes.
On the whole, I guess you'll get back somehow, even if you have to draw
on London for a thousand or two.
I don't mind telling you that I'm doing great work in my new position. I
don't know whether the manager of the lard section could do without me
or not, but I'm dead sure I could do without him, for a more pompous
ass never yet brayed in an office. He told me to-day that I ought to be
very thankful for the accident of birth, and I countered on him by
telling him he ought to be devilish glad my father was a good-natured
man. I think that when you get home, we'll revolutionize this
department. I can already see that there is great waste going on here;
the amount of hog fat they are putting into the lard is simply
scandalous.
While I think about it, I want to ask you if you can't find a good place
for my old college friend, Courtland Warrington. Court is a perfect
gentleman, and would be an ornament to the packing house, if you could
only manage to keep him out of Milligan's way. I think that wild
Irishman would kill him if he ever caught sight of his stockings. Of
course Courtland ought to have something that wouldn't grate on his
refined tastes and dignified style. Pasting labels on cans might do, but
I don't think sorting livers would appeal to him. Anyway, I rely on you
to fix up something nice and genteel for Court; he is very unfortunate
in having an unsuccessful father.
I'll tell the Beef House people to look up the export cattle business,
as you request, and tell it to 'em good and hard. If there's anything I
like to do it's to give orders to fellows that are not under me; I
believe this shows that I have the making of a successful business man
concealed within me. I'd like to know, however, what this General
Principle is you speak of as being in my department; up to now I never
thought there was any principle in it.
Don't worry that I am to become a golf maniac, dear dad. My first day on
the links was my last, and the article you saw in that Chicago paper
about my appearance as a putter was very misleading. The fact is that I
had gotten half around the promenade when I unfortunately allowed my
brassy-niblick, or something of that sort, to come into contact with my
caddy's head, and the game ended at the moment he was carried away on a
stretcher. The caddy's father, a bullet-headed Dutchman, who was utterly
unamenable to reason, had me arrested for assault and battery, and it
made terrible inroads into my surplus to get him to withdraw the charge
and to square the police reporters. No golf for Pierrepont, so you may
calm your perturbed spirit. If I want highballs, I know where I can
connect with 'em, and the place isn't a thousand miles from the packing
house, either. Curiously, they have a concoction there known as a
"Graham Fertilizer." I tried one, and I must say that the man who could
drink two must have a stomach of brass.
Speaking of the stomach reminds me of a banquet. I can't imagine how it
happened, but when the news leaked out that you had gone to Europe, so
soon after calling me in from the road, the impression gained currency
in some quarters that I had been placed in charge at the "House." You
will appreciate that it's a pretty leathery sort of a proposition to
have to go around denying a report that your own father has done the
square thing by you, and explaining that you are in reality only first
assistant manager of the lard department, and that a salt-pickled Celt
named Milligan is still so far above me that I get a crick in the neck
looking up at his exaltedness.
So I decided that the best thing I could do was not to deny the rumor
and to accept all the honors likely to be thrust upon me. This may be
obtaining distinction under false pretences, but it's less embarrassing
than confessing that one's father is so thoroughly under the domination
of a man who eats, drinks, sleeps and thinks pig, as to ignore the
claims of blood and heredity. What could I do, for instance, when a
number of friends proposed to give a banquet in my honor? If I had
refused they would have said that I was a hog myself, besides being in
the business; for people who get up banquets for other people are really
only seeking an excuse to give themselves a good time. How could I
disappoint them?
Anyway, the banquet came off on the appointed date. It was really an
elaborate affair, the sixty guests sitting at tables fairly buried in
flowers. It was doubtless thought to be a delicate compliment to the
guest of the evening--meaning your only--that a few feet down the table
at whose head I sat, and facing towards me, stood the life-sized figure
of a hog, done in white roses and with a pail of our lard in its mouth;
but I submit that there _are_ better appetizers than a reminder of the
source of our prosperity. I accepted the situation and swallowed the
pig--metaphorically, of course--with all the grace I could assume.
The menu card at my plate was an elegant affair, evidently handwork, and
was different in design from those of the others, although I was kept
too busy in conversation with my neighbors to read it. The service of
the dinner was perfect, the well-trained waiters moving noiselessly to
and fro and depositing the various courses without a word. A special
attendant had evidently been assigned to me and I appreciated the
distinction. The food that he served me, however, was, to say the least,
peculiar. The soup tasted queer--like medicine; the oysters were
replaced by curious tasting lumps served on shells, while the fish
course was fishy enough in smell, but tasteless.
I had eaten practically nothing, and when the _entrees_ brought me only
a spoonful of something that looked surprisingly like hash, I looked
around at the other fellows. I saw twinkling eyes, some of which fell
upon the plates in front of their owners. A glance at the plates of my
nearest neighbors showed that they were being served with quite
different food from that which reached me. I began to smell something
familiar, and surreptitiously glanced at my menu. The first thing that
struck my eye was this line in gilt letters at the bottom:
"This dinner prepared from recipes in Graham's celebrated booklet, '100
Dainty Dishes from a Can.'"
You should hear the roar that went up, as the crowd saw that I was no
longer shut out of their executive session. I could do no less than
order up a case of wine (which you, of course, will pay for and charge
to advertising account), and after that they let me have something to
eat. It's a terrible thing to have one's father's business chickens come
home to roost so frequently. I did not recover from this affair for two
days, which will explain the absence from the office, of which I have no
doubt Milligan has duly informed you.
I have had a hearty laugh over your story of Hank Smith and his attempt
to butt into Boston society with money, a brass band and fireworks. Hank
made the great mistake of thinking that noise would go very far on
Beacon street. And this just naturally reminds me of Baron Bonski, a
self-made social lion, who had Boston's upper-tendom on tiptoe about the
time I was a freshman in college. Bonski's method was the very
antithesis of Hank's, and it worked as long as he chose to have it.
The Baron floated gently into Boston one spring day, armed with letters
of introduction to a few of the _literati_ from men of prominence in
Europe. He straightway attended various "afternoons" of poets, artists
and Bohemian philosophers. He was a little chap with a sad, pale face,
dark and soulful eyes, a voice as mellow as new cider, and a gift of gab
unceasing as the flow of the tides. He hinted at tragic love affairs and
allowed it to get around that he had been expelled from Russia for
revolutionary work. He was modest and retiring, and the more he retired
at the literary functions the more people tumbled over themselves to dig
him out. He made a distinct hit without doing anything in particular,
except to look pensive and sow a crop of romantic rumors.
The Baron quickly got next the residence problem in Boston. He hired a
room in a side street, just far enough off Beacon street to be cheap,
and just near enough to catch the sacred aroma of that classic
thoroughfare. He filled up his place with Oriental toggery, and kept it
lighted dimly and religiously with queer Eastern lanterns. A mysterious
odor always hung over the apartment. Here the Baron began to receive the
swells at five o'clock teas, over which he presided with a huge samovar.
The thing was so new, so captivating, so full of charm, that half the
society women in town, including Mrs. "Bob" Tiller, the leading lady of
the whole bunch, used to drop in quite informally.
They do say that the Baron became pretty well acquainted with the
interiors, not to speak of boudoirs, of a good many of the great houses
in town, and that his living expenses were pretty small during his first
year in Boston.
But in an evil hour Baron Bonski fell. He decided that he wanted more
money, and he could conceive no better way of getting it than by writing
novels. He found a publisher easily enough, and then he used his
knowledge of society people for his books. He paraded the foibles of his
friends under thin disguises, and even trotted out Mrs. "Bob" as one of
his leading characters.
The novels were pretty poor stuff, on the whole, but they got everybody
hot, and the Baron's social star went down behind the horizon with a
thud. Then his creditors began to worry him, his later books failed,
ugly stories about his fraudulent title got around, and finally a
brother novelist lampooned _him_. At last the town, which had warmed
toward him at first, got too hot to hold him, and he resigned in favor
of the next impostor.
I simply mention the Baron's case to show you that you can get into
Boston society all right by knowing just how to do it, but that you've
got to stick to your original _rôle_ if you want to stay there.
You will be gratified to learn that the little difficulty with Verbena
Philpot and her pa is at an end. Although, when I asked your advice on
how to meet the absurd charge, you politely informed me that it was my
breach-of-promise suit, I know you will be glad not to find this
particular Verbena blooming beneath your roof-tree. When you refused to
aid me with your vast experience, I went to see George Damon, who
graduated from Harvard Law in my sophomore year. I told him the facts
and he looked so solemn that I made up my mind that all was over, and I
tried to decide between Canada and South America as a place of
residence. He never even laughed when I told him that old man Philpot
had the reputation of bribing the drivers of rural conveyances to lose a
tire off a wheel when they were driving by his place with an eligible
stranger as passenger.
"You won't marry the girl?" he asked. With as much courtesy to Verbena
as I could at the time command, I replied in the negative.
"How much can you give to settle the thing?" came next. I said almost
any sum, but it would have to be in expectancy, for you had definitely
declared yourself against any appropriation to take up mortgages for
indigent farmers with beguiling daughters.
"But you must get out of this without publicity," he said. "You'd be the
laughing stock of the town."
I admitted it sadly and he said he would do what he could. He began by
writing letters, but Papa Philpot was evidently too old a bird to be
caught by legal chaff. It was settle up, or marry and settle down, and
that settled it. Finally, Damon told me that there was only one chance
for me. He would go down to Doolittle's Mills and see the old man in
person and try and argue him out of it. I was deeply grateful that he
should make it such a personal matter, but he said it wasn't much, he
needed a vacation anyway.
Well, he went about three weeks ago and I accompanied him to the
railroad station in a great state of nervousness. Three days later I
received a letter from him stating that, although he had not sounded the
old man yet, he had some hopes. Two other letters reached me within the
next week, but no definite result had been attained.
Then I heard no more and for the last fortnight I have dreamt of bridal
wreaths that changed into halters and wedding-cake with iron bars
embedded in the frosting. Yesterday I received this telegram:
"NIAGARA FALLS, Sept 19.