The plans that men make in the belief that the knowledge and wisdom of
the adult mind knows what is best for youth are many and of small
account. For the youthful mind sees easily through the most of them,
intuitively perhaps, and not by methods of reasoning, and decides for
itself whether it shall accept or reject them. And office boys
constitute a particularly abnormal department--if such it may be
termed--of the youthful mind. This is merely a roundabout way of
preparing the readers, if any, of this veracious chronicle with the
fact that William had not, as Tommy Watson supposed, "walked into" the
plan whereby he was to receive an additional hour of tuition from that
prince of tutors, "Chuck" Epstein. If this was a history, the truth
might be coloured with the glamour of romance at times. But, as Tommy
Watson himself was wont to say, "Facts are real, facts are earnest,
facts are very stubborn things, facts are facts where'er you find 'em,
facts are what gives truth its wings." Therefore, it is here set down
in black and white that William himself engineered that additional
hour, and the wise men who thought they had initiated it patted
themselves on the back because it was a success.
William, of a truth, was beginning to find himself by finding others
out. He had discovered, and it was a bitter shock to William, that
Lucien Torrance, for whom his feelings were tinctured by good-natured
tolerance, was making good use of his spare time around the office.
Lucien had no "vaulting ambition:" he would hardly have understood the
meaning of the words. He wanted to improve his position though, and he
practised consistently on the typewriter, he took lessons in shorthand,
and was beginning to master the intricacies of bookkeeping, taking his
lessons therein at a night school. His desk was always neat and clean,
and the clerical work that Simmons, the architect, was beginning to
trust him with was well done.
William's desk always looked to be over-crowded, and was never neat.
Periodically, the lad had a cleaning-up day, but he never seemed to
make much headway in getting rid of the assorted mass of newspaper and
magazine clippings that he accumulated with avidity. It was an amazing
collection, and every bit of reading in it, and every picture, referred
to comedians; always comedians.
Lucien Torrance tackled him about it one day. "Why don't you throw all
that truck away?" he said; "it's an awful lot of rubbish."
"Truck! Rubbish!"
"Yes: what do you want with that?"
"You wouldn't tumble to it if I told you," William answered, so mildly
that Lucien, who had expected a stinging rebuke, was almost overcome
with surprise. "It's a secret," William went on, "a dark secret, but
one of these days you'll be paying good money to find out about it."
"Not me."
"Yes, you, Lucien Torrance; you'll be doing it, and paying for your
girl, or your wife, perhaps, to help you find it out."
"I haven't got a girl, and as for a wife, I'm only fifteen----"
"Don't give your age away," interrupted William. "I told you you
wouldn't understand, and I ain't going to waste any of my breath trying
to make you now. Some day you will, unless you turn to stone, like the
fellow at the show last week."
"Oh, you mean 'the petrified man.'"
"You've got the name down fine, Lucien; I wanted to say it, but,
honest, I couldn't. I thought it was stiffified, or something like
that. But don't worry about me and this 'truck' and 'rubbish,' Lucien;
I'm not daffy yet. Let's talk about something else."
"What?"
"Love, for instance."
"Love: what on earth do you want to talk about love for? Are you----"
"Not on your life," interrupted William, hurriedly, "no skirts for
mine. Why I wouldn't worry about any woman in the world but Ma or my
sisters. But I'd like to get at the bottom of this love business
anyway. 'Chuck' Epstein says love is the greatest thing in the world,
but it makes the most trouble. Can you beat that?"
"I don't know anything about it----"
"No, no; I don't figure that you do, Lucien. But when 'Chuck' says it,
he says it to Tommy Watson, and Tommy heaves a sigh big enough to burst
the store to pieces if the door hadn't been open so's the sigh floats
out into the street and blows an old gent's hat off, and----"
"I don't believe it."
"I know you don't, Lucien: that's another of your troubles. Some day,
maybe, your mind'll take in somer the things you're missin' now, and
maybe it never will. But, anyway, Tommy says, 'You're right, "Chuck,"'
he says, kinder gloomy like. Now, whatjer think of that, and him going
to be married to Flo Dearmore in August?"
"Tommy Watson is?"
"Sure."
"I always thought he was an old bachelor."
"Well, you think again, Lucien, think again. Tommy ain't so old; and
it seems to me every man's a bach-e-lor until he gets married. Now,
you'd think Tommy'd be fairly bustin' with joy, and maybe he is; I
don't know. But he goes around singing all them mournful songs, and,
say, you'd ought to hear him singing. Oh, gee! Honest, Lucien, the
fog horn over on the Island's a treat to it. Your boss was over once
when Tommy was whanging away on oner them songs, and he says, 'Heavens,
Tommy, when's the funeral?' and Tommy says, 'Guess again, Simmons,' he
says. 'It's for very joy I'm singing.' So your boss says, 'Well, it
ain't a fair deal for you to be so all fired joyful as to kill
everybody else's joy,' he says; so Tommy shies a book at him, and
Simmons ducks, and the book hits a vase and smashes it. Well, you'd
think Tommy would be mad at himself and at everybody else because of
that, but he laughs and says to Simmons, 'Better the vase than your
head, Simmons. Gee! I'm so happy I could smash everything in the
place.' So your boss says, 'Wait till your wife begins to try her
cookin' on you.' Then Tommy gets after him, and Simmons scoots, and
Tommy begins again on Scotch songs; all the slow, sad ones, and,
honest, I had to go out too."
"You spend a lot of time there, don't you, William?"
"Sh--sh--Don't be sleuthing around, Lucien, you might find out
something, and I'm afraid the blow would kill you. Anyway, I asked my
Pa about this love business, and he kinder laughs, and looks at Ma, and
she laughs too, like when she's pleased about something, and they
kisses each other right there, and Pa says, 'It'll come to you some
day, boy, please God, and when it comes----' and then he kisses Ma
again and don't finish what he's started to say, and I don't ask him.
I know enough anyway to know when Pa ain't going to be no mark for a
buncher questions, but it's got me going. There's Miss Whimple loved a
fellow when she's young, and he gets carved up by some black fellows in
a desert around Egypt somewhere----"
"The Soudan."
"That's the name; who told you?"
"My father's brother is a soldier, and he fought the Dervishes."
"That's the bunch. Say, you certainly know something, Lucien,
sometimes. So, Miss Whimple don't get married, and it's the icy mitt
for anybody that asked her; and plenty did."
"She's a funny old----"
"You say a word about her, Lucien Torrance, that ain't nice, and I'll
knock the head off'n you. She's--she's--well, there ain't another like
her except Ma."
"I wasn't going to say anything----" began Lucien.
William cut him short. "You started wrong then," he said, "that's all
there is to it; and now what about your boss?"
"Mine?"
"Yes; he's going crazy about a girl."
"He's what?"
"You heard me; you know you did. Say, he can't sleep nights thinking
of that girl, by the looks of him, and he don't see her more'n seven
times a week, and she's just as looney about him too; but she ain't
showing it much."
"I don't believe it!"
"There you are again, and a lot of this thing going on under your very
nose. Say, you're sticking so close to business you can't see a blame
thing but your work. Do you ever have a day dream, Lucien?"
"I'm too busy."
"That's it, busy--too busy to have day dreams. Gee, I don't know what
I'd do if I never had 'em. Say----"
Whimple entered at this moment with Simmons. The lawyer was urging the
architect to "buck up." William smiled. "The girl loves you," Whimple
said, in an undertone, but not pitched low enough, for the two boys
heard it quite distinctly. William winked at Lucien, and the latter
blushed. Simmons refused to be comforted, and passed into his own
office, melancholy settled heavily on his usually bright face, and
Lucien followed him.
"William," said Whimple a few minutes later, "will you please take this
letter to Mrs. Stewart, and wait for an answer?"
William's "yes" was prompt. He liked Mrs. Stewart, a young and pretty
widow, to whom of late he had carried a number of notes. While he was
putting on his cap, Whimple, who was sitting in his own room, began to
sing softly. William did not pay particular attention to the air
until, as he started toward the outer door of the office, Whimple's
voice rose a little, and then he listened intently. Whimple could sing
well, and he was singing well now, and the song was "Annie Laurie."
William paused irresolutely, looked at the letter, counted swiftly on
one hand, then opened the door, and ran quickly down the stairs. At
the bottom of the stairs he paused again, once more he counted, and
then said to himself, "Friday, and I've taken five letters to her this
week, and brought five back, and--and--I thought I was smarter'n
Lucien. Dang it, all the men are going crazy together."