SETTLING.
The middle of July found Peter in New York, eager to begin his grapple
with the future. How many such stormers have dashed themselves against
its high ramparts, from which float the flags of “worldly success;” how
many have fallen at the first attack; how many have been borne away,
stricken in the assault; how many have fought on bravely, till driven
back by pressure, sickness or hunger; how few have reached the top, and
won their colors!
As already hinted, Peter had chosen the law as his ladder to climb
these ramparts. Like many another fellow he had but a dim comprehension
of the struggle before him. His college mates had talked over
professions, and agreed that law was a good one in New York. The
attorney in his native town, “had known of cases where men without
knowing a soul in a place, had started in and by hard work and merit
had built up a good practice, and I don’t see why it can’t be done as
well in New York as in Lawrence or Lowell. If New York is bigger, then
there is more to be done.” So Peter, whose New York acquaintances were
limited to Watts and four other collegians, the Pierces and their
fashionables, and a civil engineer originally from his native town, had
decided that the way to go about it was to get an office, hang up a
sign, and wait for clients.
On the morning after his arrival, his first object was a lodging.
Selecting from the papers the advertisements of several
boarding-houses, he started in search of one. Watts had told him about
where to locate, “so as to live in a decent part of the city,” but
after seeing and pricing a few rooms near the “Avenue,” about Thirtieth
Street, Peter saw that Watts had been thinking of his own purse, rather
than of his friend’s.
“Can you tell me where the cheaper boarding-houses are?” he asked the
woman who had done the honors of the last house.
“If it’s cheapness you want, you’d better go to Bleecker Street,” said
the woman with a certain contemptuousness.
Peter thanked her, and, walking away, accosted the first policeman.
“It’s Blaker Strate, is it? Take the Sixth Avenue cars, there beyant,”
he was informed.
“Is it a respectable street?” asked Peter.
“Don’t be afther takin’ away a strate’s character,” said the policeman,
grinning good-naturedly.
“I mean,” explained Peter, “do respectable people live there?”
“Shure, it’s mostly boarding-houses for young men,” replied the unit of
“the finest.” “Ye know best what they’re loike.”
Reassured, Peter, sought and found board in Bleecker Street, not
comprehending that he had gone to the opposite extreme. It was a dull
season, and he had no difficulty in getting such a room as suited both
his expectations and purse. By dinner-time he had settled his simple
household goods to his satisfaction, and slightly moderated the
dreariness of the third floor front, so far as the few pictures and
other furnishings from his college rooms could modify the effect of
well-worn carpet, cheap, painted furniture, and ugly wall-paper.
Descending to his dinner, in answer to a bell more suitable for a
fire-alarm than for announcing such an ordinary occurrence as meals, he
was introduced to the four young men who were all the boarders the
summer season had left in the house. Two were retail dry-goods clerks,
another filled some function in a butter and cheese store, and the
fourth was the ticket-seller at one of the middle-grade theatres. They
all looked at Peter’s clothes before looking at his face, and though
the greetings were civil enough, Peter’s ready-made travelling suit,
bought in his native town, and his quiet cravat, as well as his lack of
jewelry, were proof positive to them that he did not merit any great
consideration. It was very evident that the ticket-seller, not merely
from his natural self-assertion but even more because of his enviable
acquaintance with certain actresses and his occasional privileges in
the way of free passes, was the acknowledged autocrat of the table.
Under his guidance the conversation quickly turned to theatrical and
“show” talk. Much of it was vulgar, and all of it was dull. It was made
the worse by the fact that they all tried to show, off a little before
the newcomer, to prove their superiority and extreme knowingness to
him. To make Peter the more conscious of this, they asked him various
questions.
“Do you like—?” a popular soubrette of the day.
“What, never seen her? Where on earth have you been living?”
“Oh? Well, she’s got too good legs to waste herself on such a little
place.”
They would like to have asked him questions about himself, but feared
to seem to lower themselves from their fancied superiority, by showing
interest in Peter. One indeed did ask him what business he was in.
“I haven’t got to work yet,” answered Peter
“Looking for a place” was the mental comment of all, for they could not
conceive of any one entitled to practise law not airing his advantage.
So they went on patronizing Peter, and glorifying themselves. When time
had developed the facts that he was a lawyer, a college graduate, and a
man who seemed to have plenty of money (from the standpoint of
dry-goods clerks) their respect for him considerably increased. He
could not, however, overcome his instinctive dislike to them. After the
manly high-minded, cultivated Harvard classmates, every moment of their
society was only endurable, and he neither went to their rooms nor
asked them to his. Peter had nothing of the snob in him, but he found
reading or writing, or a tramp about the city, much the pleasanter way
of passing his evenings.
The morning after this first day in New York, Peter called on his
friend, the civil engineer, to consult him about an office; for Watts
had been rather hazy in regard to where he might best locate that. Mr.
Converse shook his head when Peter outlined his plan.
“Do you know any New York people,” he asked, “who will be likely to
give you cases?”
“No,” said Peter.
“Then it’s absolutely foolish of you to begin that way,” said Mr.
Converse. “Get into a lawyer’s office, and make friends first before
you think of starting by yourself. You’ll otherwise never get a
client.”
Peter shook his head. “I’ve thought it out,” he added, as if that
settled it.
Mr. Converse looked at him, and, really liking the fellow, was about to
explain the real facts to him, when a client came in. So he only said,
“If that’s so, go ahead. Locate on Broadway, anywhere between the
Battery and Canal Street.” Later in the day, when he had time, he shook
his head, and said, “Poor devil! Like all the rest.”
Anywhere between the Battery and Canal Street represented a fairly
large range of territory, but Peter went at the matter directly, and
for the next three days passed his time climbing stairs, and inspecting
rooms and dark cells. At the end of that time he took a moderate-sized
office, far back in a building near Worth Street. Another day saw it
fitted with a desk, two chairs (for Peter as yet dreamed only of single
clients) and a shelf containing the few law books that were the
monuments of his Harvard law course, and his summer reading. On the
following Monday, when Peter faced his office door he felt a glow of
satisfaction at seeing in very black letters on the very newly scrubbed
glass the sign of:
PETER STIRLING
ATTORNEY AND COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW.
He had come to his office early, not merely because at his boarding
place they breakfasted betimes, but because he believed that early
hours were one way of winning success. He was a little puzzled what to
do with himself. He sat down at his desk and thrummed it for a minute.
Then he rose, and spread his books more along the shelf, so as to leave
little spaces between them, thinking that he could make them look more
imposing thereby. After that he took down a book—somebody “On
Torts,”—and dug into it. In the Harvard course, he had had two hours a
week of this book, but Peter worked over it for nearly three hours.
Then he took paper, and in a very clear, beautifully neat hand, made an
abstract of what he had read. Then he compared his abstract with the
book. Returning the book to the shelf, very much pleased with the
accuracy of his memory, he looked at his watch. It was but half-past
eleven. Peter sat down at his desk. “Would all the days go like this?”
he asked himself. He had got through the first week by his room and
office-seeking and furnishing. But now? He could not read law for more
than four hours a day, and get anything from it. What was to be done
with the rest of the time? What could he do to keep himself from
thinking of—from thinking? He looked out of his one window, over the
dreary stretch of roofs and the drearier light shafts spoken of
flatteringly as yards. He compressed his lips, and resorted once more
to his book. But he found his mind wandering, and realized that he had
done all he was equal to on a hot July morning. Again he looked out
over the roofs. Then he rose and stood in the middle at his room,
thinking. He looked at his watch again, to make sure that he was right.
Then he opened his door and glanced about the hall. It was one blank,
except for the doors. He went down the two flights of stairs to the
street. Even that had the deserted look of summer. He turned and went
back to his room. Sitting down once more at his desk, and opening
somebody “On Torts” again, he took up his pen and began to copy the
pages literally. He wrote steadily for a time, then with pauses.
Finally, the hand ceased to follow the lines, and became straggly. Then
he ceased to write. The words blurred, the paper faded from view, and
all Peter saw was a pair of slate-colored eyes. He laid his head down
on the blotter, and the erect, firm figure relaxed.
There is no more terrible ordeal of courage than passive waiting. Most
of us can be brave with something to do, but to be brave for months,
for years, with nothing to be done and without hope of the future! So
it was in Peter’s case. It was waiting—waiting—for what? If clients
came, if fame came, if every form of success came,—for what?
There is nothing in loneliness to equal the loneliness of a big city.
About him, so crowded and compressed together as to risk life and
health, were a million people. Yet not a soul of that million knew that
Peter sat at his desk, with his head on his blotter, immovable, from
noon one day till daylight of the next.