K. B. Horsfal, Millionaire
When I awoke, the sun was streaming through the porthole upon my face.
It was early morning,--Saturday morning I remembered.
From the thud, thud, of the engines and the steady rise and fall, I
knew we were still at sea. I stretched my limbs, feeling as a god must
feel balancing on the topmost point of a star; so refreshed, so
invigorated, so buoyant, so much in harmony with the rising sun and the
freshness of the early day, that, to be exact, I really had no feeling.
I sprang to the floor of my cabin and dressed hurriedly in my anxiety
to be on deck; but, at the door, I encountered my little Irish steward.
He eyed me suspiciously, as if I had had intentions of evading my
morning ablution,--so I swallowed my impatience, grabbed a towel and
made leisurely for the bathroom, where I laved my face and hands in the
cold water, remained inside for a sufficiently respectable time, then
ran off the water and, finally, made my exit and clambered on deck.
As I paced up and down, enjoying the beauties of the fast narrowing
firth, I no longer felt in doubt as to my ultimate destination. My
subconscious self, aided and abetted by the Irish steward, had already
decided that for me:--it was Canada, the West, the Pacific.
Soon after I had breakfasted, we reached the Tail of the Bank, and so
impatient was I to be on my long journey that I bade good-bye to my
little Irishman at Greenock, leaving him grinning and happy in the
knowledge that I was taking his advice and was bound for the Pacific
Coast.
In forty minutes more, I left the train at Glasgow and started in to a
hurried and moderate replenishing of my wardrobe, finishing up with the
purchase of a travelling bag, a good second-hand rifle and a little
ammunition.
I dispensed with my knapsack by presenting it to a newsboy, who held it
up in disgust as if it had been a dead cat. Despite the fact that I
was now on my own resources and would have to work, nothing could
induce me to part with my golf clubs. They were old and valued
friends. Little did I imagine then how useful they would ultimately
prove.
At the head office of the steamship company, I inquired as to the best
class of travelling when the traveller wished to combine cheapness with
rough comfort; and I was treated to the cheering news that there was a
rate war on between the rival Trans-Atlantic Steamship Companies and I
could purchase a second-cabin steamboat ticket for six pounds, while a
further eight pounds, thirteen shillings and four-pence would carry me
by Colonist, or third class, three thousand miles, from the East to the
Far West of Canada.
I paid for my ticket and booked my berth then and there, counted out my
remaining wealth,--ten pounds and a few coppers,--and my destiny was
settled.
With so much to tell of what befell me later, I have neither the time
nor the inclination to detail the pleasures and the discomforts of a
twelve days' trip by slow steamer across a storm-swept Atlantic,
battened down for days on end, like cattle in the hold of a
cross-channel tramp; of a six days' journey across prairie lands, in a
railway car with its dreadful monotony of unupholstered wooden seats
and sleeping boards, its stuffiness, its hourly disturbances in the
night-time in the shape of noisy conductors demanding tickets, incoming
and outgoing travellers and shrieking engines; its dollar meals in the
dining car, which I envied but could not afford; its well-nigh
unlightable cooking stoves and the canned beef and pork and beans with
which I had to regale myself en route.
Jaded, travel-weary and grimy, I reached the end of my journey. It was
late in the evening. I tumbled out of the train and into the first
hotel bus that yawned for me, and not once did I look out of the window
to see what kind of a city I had arrived at.
I came to myself at the entrance to a magnificent and palatial hotel;
too much so, by far, I fancied, for my scantily-filled purse. But I
was past the minding stage, and I knew I could always make a change on
the morrow, if so be it a change were necessary.
And then I began to think,--what mattered it anyway? What were a few
paltry sovereigns between one and poverty? Comforting thought,--a man
could not have anything less than nothing.
I registered, ordered a bath, a shave, a haircut, a jolly good supper
and a bed; and, oh! how I enjoyed them all! Surely this was the most
wonderful city in the world, for never did bath, or shave, or supper,
or bed feel so delicious as these did.
I swooned away at last from sheer pleasure.
The recuperative powers of youth are marvellously quick. I was up and
out to view the city almost as soon as the sun was touching the
snow-tipped tops of the magnificent mountain peaks which were miles
away yet seemed to stand sentinels at the end of the street down which
I walked. I was up and out long ere the sun had gilded the waters of
the broad inlet which separated Vancouver from its baby sister to the
north of it.
The prospect pleased me; there was freedom in the air, expanse,
vastness, but,--it was still a city with a city's artifices and,
consequently, not what I was seeking. I desired the natural life; not
the roughness, the struggle, the matching of crafty wits, the throbbing
blood and the straining sinews,--but the solitude, the quiet, the
chance for thought and observation, the wilds, the woods and the sea.
As I returned to breakfast, I wondered if I should find them,--and
where.
In the dining-room, during the course of my breakfast,--the first real
breakfast I had partaken of in Canada,--my attention was diverted to a
tall, well-groomed, muscular-looking man, who sat at a table nearby.
He looked a considerable bit on the sunny side of fifty. He was clean
shaven, his hair was black tinged with grey, and his eyes were keen and
kindly.
Every time I glanced in his direction, I found him looking over at me
in an amused sort of way. I began to wonder if I were making some
breach of Canadian etiquette of which I was ignorant. True, I had
eaten my porridge and cream without sprinkling the dish with a surface
of sugar as he had done; I had set aside the fried potatoes which had
been served to me with my bacon and eggs;--but these, surely, were
trivial things and of no interest to any one but myself.
At last, he rose and walked out, sucking a wooden toothpick. With his
departure, I forgot his existence.
After I had breakfasted, I sought the lounge room in order to have a
look at the morning paper and, if possible, determine what I was going
to do for a living and how I was going to get what I wanted to do.
I was buried in the advertisements, when a genial voice with a nasal
intonation, at my elbow, unearthed me.
It was my observer of the dining-room. He had seated himself in the
chair next to mine.
"Say! young man,--you'll excuse me; but was it you I saw come in last
night with the bag of golf clubs?"
I acknowledged the crime.
He laughed good-naturedly.
"Well,--you had courage anyway. To sport a golfing outfit here in the
West is like venturing out with breeches, a walking cane and a monocle.
Nobody but an Englishman would dare do it. Here, they think golf and
cricket should be bracketed along with hopscotch, dominoes and
tiddly-winks; just as I used to fancy baseball was a glorified kids'
game. I know better now."
I looked at him rather darkly.
"Oh!--it's all right, friend,--it takes a man to play baseball, same as
it takes a man to play golf and cricket. Golfing is about the only
vice I have left. Why, now I come to think of it, my wife clipped a
lot of my vices off years ago, and since that my daughter has succeeded
in knocking off all the others,--all but my cigars, my cocktails and my
golf. I'm just plumb crazy on the game and I play it whenever I can.
Maybe it's because I used to play it when I was a little chap, away
back in England years and years ago."
"I am glad you like the game," I put in. "It is a favourite of mine."
"I play quite a bit back home in Baltimore," he continued, "that's when
I'm there. My clubs arrived here by express yesterday. You see, it's
like this;--I'm off to Australia at the end of the week, on a business
trip,--that is, if I get things settled up here by that time. I am
crossing over from there to England, where I shall be for several
months. England is some place for golf, so I'm going to golf some, you
bet.
"I'm not boring you, young friend?" he asked suddenly.
"Not a bit," I laughed. "Go on,--I am as interested as can be."
"I believe there's a kind of a lay-out they call a golf course, in one
of the outlying districts round here. What do you say to making the
day of it? You aren't busy, are you?" he added.
"No! no!--not particularly," I answered. I did not tell him that in a
few days, if I did not get busy at something or other, I should starve.
"Good!" he cried. "Go to your room and get your sticks. I'll find out
all about the course and how to get to it."
The brusk good-nature of the man hit me somehow; besides, I had not had
a game for over three weeks. Think of it--three weeks! And goodness
only knew when I should have the chance of another after this one. As
for looking for work;--work was never to be compared with golf. Surely
work could wait for one day!
"All right!--I'm game," I said, jumping up and entering into the spirit
of gaiety that lay so easily on my new acquaintance.
"Good boy!" he cried, getting up and holding out his hand. "My name's
Horsfal,--K. B. Horsfal,--lumberman, meat-packer, and the man whose
name is on every trouser-suspender worth wearing. What's yours?"
"George Bremner," I answered simply.
"All right, George, my boy,--see you in ten minutes. But, remember, I
called this tune, so I pay the piper."
That was music in my ears and I readily agreed.
"Make it twenty minutes," I suggested. "I have a short letter to
write."
I wrote my letter, gave it to the boy to deliver for me and presented
myself before my new friend right up to time.
In the half hour's run we had in the electric tram, I learned a great
deal about Mr. K. B. Horsfal.
He had migrated from the Midlands of England at the age of seventeen.
He had kicked,--or had been kicked,--about the United States for some
fifteen years, more or less up against it all the time, as he
expressively put it; when, by a lucky chance, in a poverty-stricken
endeavour to repair his broken braces, he hit upon a scheme that
revolutionised the brace business: was quick enough to see its
possibilities, patented his idea and became famous.
Not content to rest on his laurels,--or his braces,--he tackled the
lumbering industry in the West and the meat-packing industry in the
East, both with considerable success. Now he had to sit down and do
some figuring when he wished to find out how many millions of dollars
he was worth.
His wife had died years ago and his only daughter was at home in
Baltimore.
Altogether, he was a new and delightful type to one like me,--a young
man fresh from his ancestral roof in the north of staid and
conventional old England.
He was healthy, vigorous, and as keen as the edge of a razor.
On and on he talked, telling me of himself, his work and his projects.
I got to wondering if he were merely setting the proverbial sprat; but
the sprat in his case proved the whale. Every moment I expected him to
ask me for some confidences in return, but on this point Mr. K. B.
Horsfal was silent.
We discovered our golfing ground, which proved to be a fairly good,
little, nine-holed country course, rough and full of natural hazards.
K. B. Horsfal could play golf, that I soon found out. He entered into
his game with the enthusiasm and grim determination which I imagined he
displayed in everything he took a hand in.
He seldom spoke, so intent was he on the proper placing of his feet and
the proper adjustment of his hands and his clubs.
Three times we went round that course and three times I had the
pleasure of beating him by a margin. He envied me my full swing and my
powerful and accurate driving; he studied me every time I approached a
green and he scratched his head at some of my long putts; but, most of
all, he rhapsodised on my manner of getting out of a hole.
"Man,--if I only had that trick of yours in handling the mashie and the
niblick, I could do the round a stroke a hole better, for there isn't a
rut, or a tuft, or a bunker in any course that I seem to be able to
keep out of."
I showed him the knack of it as it had been taught me by an old
professional at Saint Andrews. K. B. Horsfal was in ecstasies, if a
two-hundred-pound, keen, brusk, American business man ever allows
himself such liberties.
Nothing would please him but that we should go another round, just to
test out his new acquisition and give him the hang of the thing.
To his supreme satisfaction,--although I again beat him by the same
small margin,--he reduced his score for the round by eight strokes.
On our journey back to the city, he began to talk again, but on a
different tack this time.
"George,--you'll excuse me,--but, if I were you I would put that signet
ring you are wearing in your pocket."
I looked down at it and reddened, for my ring was manifestly old, as it
was manifestly strange in design and workmanship, and apt to betray an
identity.
I slipped it off my little finger and placed it in my vest pocket.
My companion laughed.
"'No sooner said than done,'" he quoted. "You see, George,--any one
who saw you come in to the hotel last night could tell you had not been
travelling for pleasure. The marks of an uncomfortable train journey,
in a colonist car, were sticking out all over you. Now, golf clubs and
a signet ring like that which you were sporting are enough to tell any
man that you have been in the habit of travelling luxuriously and for
the love of it."
I could not help admiring my new friend's method of deduction, and I
thanked him for his kindly interest.
"Not a bit," he continued, "so long as you don't mind. For, it's like
this,--I take it you have left home for some personal reason,--no
concern of mine,--you have come out here to start over, or rather, to
make a start. Good! You are right to start at the bottom of the hill.
But, from the look of you, I fancy you won't stick at anything that
doesn't suit you. You are the kind of a fellow who, if you felt like
it, would tell a man to go to the devil, then walk off his premises.
You see, I don't tab you as a milksop kind of Englishman exactly.
"Well,--out here they don't like Britishers who receive remittances
every month from their mas or pas at home, for they have found that
that kind is generally not much good. Hope you're not one, George?"
"No!" I laughed, rather ruefully, almost wishing I were. "With me, it
is sink or swim. And, I do not mind telling you, Mr. Horsfal, that it
will be necessary for me to leave the hotel to-morrow for less
pretentious apartments and to start swimming for all I am worth."
"Good!" he cried, as if it were a good joke. "How do you propose
starting in?"
"I have already commenced keeping an eye on the advertisements, which
seem to be chiefly for real estate salesmen and partners with a little
capital," I said.
"But, the fact is, I have made an application this morning for
something I thought might suit me. But, even if I am lucky enough to
be considered, the chances are there will be some flies in the
ointment:--there always are."
My friend looked at me, as I thought, curiously.
"To-morrow morning," I went on, "it is my intention to begin with the
near end of the business district and call on every business house, one
after another, until I happen upon something that will provide a start.
"I have no love for the grinding in an office, nor yet for the grubbing
in a warehouse, but, for a bit, it will be a case of 'needs must when
the devil drives,'--so I mean to take anything that I can get, to begin
with, and leave the matter of choice to a more opportune time."
"And what would be your choice, George?" he inquired.
"Choice! Well, if you asked me what I thought I was adapted for, I
would say, green-keeper and professional golfer; gymnastic instructor;
athletic coach; policeman; or, with training and dieting, pugilist. At
a pinch, I could teach school."
K. B. Horsfal grinned and looked out of the car window at the
apparently never-ending sea of charred tree stumps through which we
were passing.
"Not very ambitious, sonny!--eh!"
"No,--that is the worst of it," I answered. "I do not seem to have
been planned for anything ambitious. Besides, I have no desire to
amass millions at the sacrifice of my peace of mind. Why!--a
millionaire cannot call his life his own. He is at the beck and call
of everybody. He is consulted here and harassed there. He is dunned,
solicited and blackmailed; he is badgered and pestered until, I should
fancy, he wished his millions were at the bottom of the deep, blue sea."
"Lord, man!" exclaimed Mr. Horsfal, "but you have hit it right. One
would almost think you had been through it yourself."
"I have not," I answered, "but I know most of the diseases that attack
the man of wealth."
"Now, you have given me an idea of what you might _have_ to do. But to
get back to desire or choice;--what would it be then?" he inquired, as
the electric tram passed at last from the tree stumps and began to
draw, through signs of habitation, toward the city.
"If I had my desire and my choice, Mr. Horsfal, they would be: in such
a climate as we have here but away somewhere up the coast, with the sea
in front of me and the trees and the hills behind me; the open air, the
sunlight; contending with the natural,--not the artificial,--obstacles
of life; work, with a sufficiency of leisure; quiet, when quiet were
desired; and, in the evening as the sun went down into the sea or
behind the hills, a cosy fire, a good book and my pipe going good."
K. B. Horsfal, millionaire, patentee, lumberman and meat-packer, looked
at me, sighed and nodded his head.
"After all, my boy," he said, almost sadly, "I shouldn't wonder if that
isn't better than all the hellish wealth-hunting that ever was or ever
shall be. Stick to your ideals. Try them out if you can. As for
me,--it's too late. I am saturated with the money-getting mania; I am
in the maelstrom and I couldn't get out if I tried. I'm in it for
good."
Our conversation was brought to an abrupt ending, as Mr. Horsfal had to
make a short call at one of the newspaper offices, on some business
matter. We got out of the tram together. I waited for him while he
made his call, then we walked back leisurely to the hotel; happy,
pleasantly tired and hungry as hunters.
I was regaled in the dining-room as the guest of my American friend.
"Are you going to be in for the balance of the evening?" he asked, as I
rose to leave him at the conclusion of our after-dinner smoke.
"Yes!"
"Good!" he ejaculated, rather abruptly.
And why he should have thought it "good," puzzled me not a little as I
went up in the elevator.