THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELER.
“WELL, GUY, which way shall we go to-night? Do you feel inclined for a
game of billiards before supper?”
The speaker adjusted his hat in front of a looking-glass, drew a stray
lock of hair over one of his ears, turned his head from side to side to
assure himself that his toilet had been completed, and looked over his
shoulder toward Guy Harris, who, having just rendered to the book-keeper
an account of the cash that had passed through his hands during the day,
was buttoning his coat preparatory to leaving the store. The question
was asked in a low tone and was accompanied by a sidelong glance toward
Mr. Walker, who was standing at the book-keeper’s desk.
“I don’t know,” replied Guy hesitatingly. “I’ve been out a good deal of
late, and I think I had better begin to stop at home once in a while of
an evening.”
“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed the first speaker, whom we will call Jones,
and who was one of the drummers or commercial travelers employed to sell
goods for the firm of Harris & Walker. “What is the use of moping in the
house all the while? When one has been hard at work all day he wants
some recreation in the evening, I take it.”
“I know that,” said Guy, “but to tell the truth, Jones, I don’t get as
much money for my services as you do, and I can’t stand this ‘bumming
round’ as you call it.”
“Funds giving out? Then run your face.”
“I have been doing just that very thing. I am deeply in debt, too.”
“Oh, that’s nothing when you get used to it? Show me a clerk in this
city who is not in debt, and I will show you five that are.”
“But my creditors want me to pay up; at least I judge so from the way
they are beginning to look at me every time I see them.”
“Well, if they become impatient, just say to them that if they get the
money before you do, you would be pleased to know it. Are you all ready?
If you are, come on. I have only this evening and one more that I can
spend with you, for I must start off on my travels again early on
Wednesday morning.”
This conversation took place one Monday evening in the store in which
Guy was employed, and about two months subsequent to the events recorded
in the last chapter. In accordance with his promise Mr. Harris consulted
with his new partner, Mr. Walker, and the result of the conference was
that Guy was employed to do the outdoor business of the firm—to act as
city collector and shipping clerk, at a salary of four hundred dollars a
year. His working hours were from eight o’clock in the morning until six
at night, with an hour’s intermission at noon for dinner. His evenings
were at his own disposal.
This last was an arrangement with which Mr. Harris was not altogether
pleased. He knew by experience the manifold temptations which beset
those who live in large cities, and believed there was something in the
night air morally injurious to young people; but he thought that perhaps
Guy had learned the value of time and money during his wanderings, and
hoped that his evenings would be devoted, as he said he intended to
devote them, to the acquirement of the rudiments of a business
education. To further this end Mr. Harris purchased for Guy a
scholarship at the Commercial College, and he also found lodgings for
him at a small boarding-house kept by a widow lady in a retired part of
the city.
For a month no fault could be found with Guy. He was as steady as an old
coach-horse. He had learned to appreciate the privileges and comforts of
civilized life, and knew how to enjoy them. Having been made aware of
his deficiencies, he applied himself manfully to the task of overcoming
them. He was always on hand during business hours, and performed his
duty faithfully. Mr. Walker began to take a deep interest in him, and
sent encouraging reports to Norwall concerning him.
“Guy is a splendid fellow!” so Mr. Walker, who was the only one in the
city acquainted with his clerk’s past history, wrote to his partner. “He
is very industrious and painstaking, and a word of encouragement or
approval stimulates him to extra exertions. You know I always thought he
was a good boy.”
Guy’s landlady, Mrs. Willis, also took a wonderful interest in him; he
looked and acted, she said, so much like her own son, who had gone to
California to better his fortune. Guy appreciated every little kindness
she showed him, and learned to love her as devotedly as he had once
loved his father’s wife.
But Guy’s goodness was rather of the negative sort. He did nothing very
wrong, simply because he was never tempted. Everything was going
smoothly with him. He was aiming high now, had formed resolutions which
he had not yet had time to forget; his whole mind was occupied with the
duties of his new vocation, and it is easy to work and be good under
such circumstances. But time makes changes, and soon Guy begun to learn
that even a shipping clerk has troubles and perplexities, which, in
their way, are just as vexatious and hard to bear as those that fall to
the lot of other people. The routine of the store, the performing of the
same duties over and over again, became tiresome to him; it was too much
like a tread-mill. When night came, his mind as well as his body was
weary, and he was in no condition to dip into the mysteries of
double-entry book-keeping, or wrestle with the hard problems in Bryant &
Stratton’s Mercantile Arithmetic. This led him to become irregular in
his attendance at the college, and he begun to spend his leisure hours
at home. Reading and conversation with Mrs. Willis interested him for a
few evenings, but became a bore at last, and Guy fell into the habit of
strolling out after supper for a breath of fresh air; and to enable him
to enjoy it fully, he almost always smoked a cigar.
The place at which he purchased his cigars was a beer saloon, and after
a few visits Guy found that it was the headquarters of half a dozen
dashing young fellows, clerks like himself, who spent all their evenings
there. They would come in after supper, singly and in couples, take a
glass of beer or cigar at the bar, and then pass out of sight through a
door that led into a back room.
Acquaintances are easily made in places like this—more is the pity—and
Guy very soon got into the habit of nodding to these young fellows every
time he met them; then one of them treated him to a cigar, and asked him
if he wouldn’t “step back and take a hand.” Guy, who had often wondered
what there was in the back room that brought those clerks there so
regularly, replied in the affirmative, and following them through the
door just spoken of, found that it led into an apartment devoted to
pigeon-hole, dominoes and cards.
The acquaintances Guy formed that night ripened rapidly into a sort of
friendship. He became a regular visitor at the saloon, and although he
was a remarkably lucky card player, and was seldom “put in” for a game,
the money he had carefully saved during the time he had been employed in
the store—and it amounted to a respectable sum—slipped through his
fingers almost before he knew it, and at last he had not a single dollar
remaining. One night he surprised his new friends by seating himself
near the card-table, but declined to take part in the game.
“What’s the matter?” they all asked at once.
“Why, I might be beaten, and if I do I have no money to pay the bill. I
forgot my pocket-book,” said Guy, ashamed to acknowledge that he did not
own a cent in the world.
“Is that all?” cried one of the players. “That’s easily enough got over.
Say, Jake,” he added, calling to the proprietor of the saloon, “if
Harris gets stuck for this game, you’ll chalk it, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” replied the Dutchman readily. “I drusts him all de peer he
vants.”
The boy had been a good customer, and he could afford to accommodate him
to a limited extent.
This was a new chapter in Guy’s experience. He had never thought of
going in debt before, and ere many weeks had passed away he had reason
to wish that no one had ever thought of it for him.
About the time Guy first met these new friends he made the acquaintance
of Mr. Jones, the commercial traveler, who was presented to him by his
brother, Will Jones, the junior clerk. These two young gentlemen, Mr.
Jones and his brother, had private reasons for hating Guy most
cordially. Will had been an applicant for the position of shipping
clerk, and indeed Mr. Walker had partly promised it to him; but yielding
to the wishes of his partner, he gave Guy the situation instead, and
made Jones junior clerk, with the promise of something better as soon as
there was an opening.
Will, of course, was highly enraged. Being rather a fast young man, he
had got deeply in debt, and needed the extra hundred and fifty
dollars—in his subordinate position he received but two hundred and
fifty—to satisfy his creditors, who were becoming impatient. His
brother, the commercial traveler, was absent selling goods for the firm,
and not knowing what else to do, Will wrote him a full account of his
troubles, and ended by begging the loan of a few dollars. The commercial
traveler replied as follows:
“You have been shamefully treated. That place was promised to you, and
you shall have it if I die for it; but I can’t lend you any money. You
ought to have better sense than to ask me, for I have often told you
that my commission does not begin to support me. If it were not for my
other business, I should be in a hard row of stumps directly. Smoke
fewer cigars and drink less beer till I come, and I’ll see what can be
done. In the meantime watch Harris—watch him so closely that you can
tell me every one of his habits. If I can get a hold on him I’ll have
him out of that store, no matter if he is the son of the senior
partner.”
In accordance with these instructions, the object of which Will fully
comprehended, he set himself to act as a spy upon the shipping clerk,
and every movement that young gentleman made during business hours and
afterward, was carefully noted.
At first Will saw nothing encouraging in Guy’s behavior, for his habits
bore the strictest investigation; but from the time he got into the way
of going to Dutch Jake’s saloon for cigars and beer, the spy collected
abundant evidence against him. When the commercial traveler returned he
listened with interest to the story his brother had to tell, and when it
was finished said:
“Then Harris drinks beer, does he? That’s all right. I am certain of
success.”
“But you mustn’t put faith in that,” said Will. “He never takes too
much.”
“No matter,” said the commercial traveler, “he takes a little, and when
alcohol is in, wit is out, always. I will bet you a suit of new clothes
that you are shipping clerk in less than a month—provided, of course,
that you have been guarded in your own conduct, and given old Walker no
reason to distrust you.”
At the very first opportunity the commercial traveler was introduced to
Guy, and the latter was highly flattered to see that he had made a very
favorable impression upon the gentlemanly Mr. Jones. He could not help
seeing it, for Mr. Jones did not attempt to conceal his admiration for
Guy. He accompanied him on his business tours about the city, dropped in
to see him every night, and never appeared to be easy while he was away
from him. And Guy was glad to be in his company. He was proud to be seen
on the streets with such a well-dressed, elegant young fellow.
“Harris,” said Mr. Jones one day, “Mr. Walker tells me that he will not
start me out again under two or three weeks, and I must have a home
somewhere. If you and your worthy landlady have no objections, I should
like to board and room with you. You are a fellow after my own heart,
and I like your society.”
“I have no objections, certainly,” said Guy. “I should be delighted with
the arrangement. Go home and take supper with me to-night, and I will
propose it to Mrs. Willis.”
Of course Mr. Jones jumped at the invitation. He made a favorable
impression upon the unsuspecting landlady, as Guy knew he would—he did
not see how anybody could help liking Mr. Jones—and the consequence was
that he paid a week’s board in advance, and was that same evening duly
installed in Guy’s room.
The intimacy thus formed begun to result disastrously to Guy before two
days had passed away. The shipping clerk in his simplicity imagined that
his new friend looked up to him as a superior being, while the truth was
that Mr. Jones, by skillful handling, was molding him to suit his own
purposes. He led Guy into all sorts of extravagance. In the first place
he made such a display of his abundant wardrobe that the plain, durable
clothing with which the shipping clerk had provided himself, and which
he believed to be quite good enough for any young man in his
circumstances, begun to look, in the eyes of its owner, rather shabby
when compared with the elegant broadcloth suits that Mr. Jones wore
every day. He had not money sufficient to buy better, but Mr. Jones had
both cheek and credit, and through him Guy was made acquainted with a
fashionable tailor on Fourth Street, who, in three day’s time, furnished
him with an outfit that made his eyes dance with delight, and charged
the price of it against Guy on his books. Then, of course, other things
had to be purchased to correspond with these new clothes, for coarse
pegged boots, cotton gloves, and a felt hat would not look well with a
suit of German broadcloth. Guy must have patent leathers, fine linen, a
stove-pipe hat, and imported French kids, all of which were procured
from merchants recommended by Mr. Jones, and each of whom expressed
himself willing to wait, not only for the amount of that bill, but for
any other that Guy might be pleased to run at his store.
In fine, the advent of Mr. Jones produced a wonderful change in Guy’s
circumstances and feelings in two short weeks. The commercial traveler
had a large circle of acquaintances in the city, and Guy was everywhere
introduced as the son of the senior member of the well-known and wealthy
firm of Harris & Walker, wholesale dry goods merchants, and from being
an obscure clerk whom nobody noticed, found himself riding on a high
wave of popularity. Elegant young gentlemen touched their hats to him in
the streets, and now and then invited him to take a cigar or a glass of
wine with them; perfumed and obsequious bar-tenders in gorgeous saloons
leaned respectfully over the counter while he gave his orders, and
executed them with alacrity; the clerks in a certain “billiard parlor”
took particular pains to keep his private cue locked up so that nobody
else could get at it, and to see that his favorite four-pocket table was
unoccupied when he dropped in at six o’clock to play his regular game;
and livery stable keepers trotted out their best stock, and furnished
him with their finest carriages when he wished to go out riding of a
Sunday afternoon.
For the first time in the whole course of his existence Guy was “seeing
life,” and that, too, without a cent in his pocket. He was bewildered,
intoxicated with pleasure, and there was but one thing to throw a cloud
over his enjoyments. That was the way his landlady looked at him when he
came down to breakfast in the morning with trembling hands, and red and
swollen eyes, and declined to take anything more than a cup of coffee.
On such occasions there was an expression on the good lady’s face that
cut Guy to the heart, and somehow always led to the mortifying
reflection that for the last six weeks he had not paid her a cent for
his board. Then he would seem for the moment to come to his senses; but
the observant Mr. Jones was always ready to step in and nip in the bud
any resolutions of amendment he might make. As they walked toward the
store he would draw a glowing contrast between Guy’s present
circumstances and his former old-fogy manner of living, and wind up by
humming over a verse of doggerel something like the following:
“As we journey through life, let us live by the way,
And our pilgrimage gladden with feasting, not fasting;
Let us banish dull care, and keep sorrow at bay,
For our days are all numbered, and life is not lasting.”
His plans were not yet fully matured, and consequently he was not ready
for Guy’s awakening.
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