I
Nothing in the Gore offices could have been changed in many years,
Wilfred supposed. Many a country lawyer did himself better. Mr. Amasa
Gore shared one very large room with his secretary, John Dobereiner and
his assistant secretary, or office boy, or door-keeper, or whatever you
chose to call him, which was Wilfred. The room had a door opening
directly on the public corridor; and double doors in the right and left
walls. Various officials of the Gore railroads strolled through from
time to time; and Mr. Isaac Gore, the elder brother, was in the habit of
making his escape through their room, when his own way out was blocked.
Still, there was privacy of a kind, the room was so big. From his corner
Wilfred could not hear what Mr. Gore might be saying in his corner; nor
could Dobereiner from his.
Wilfred’s particular job was to open the corridor door when anyone
knocked. He would open it a crack first, with his foot behind it, while
he reconnoitred. So far there had never been any excitement. Nothing was
painted on the door but the number of the room, 47; and this password,
was given out only to Mr. Gore’s friends. Occasionally a crank or a
begging widow took a chance and knocked: that was all. In the beginning
Wilfred had speculated on what he would do should an anarchist burst in
with a bomb in a satchel. That had happened to Russell Sage, once.
Wilfred had made up a story about it, in which he played a heroic part;
but it was not one of his best stories.
Mr. Gore’s big roll-top desk was turned cater-cornered. The door into
his brother’s office was at his hand in case _he_ wanted to make a quick
getaway. When he was seated at his desk, Wilfred could see no more than
the thin lock of hair which waved on his forehead, and his sulky eyes
when he raised them. Mr. Dobereiner’s desk was in the other front
corner; Wilfred’s desk in one of the back corners. One could have given
a ball in the middle of the room.
The great chance of his life! his aunts called it; being placed so close
to a millionaire. How Wilfred hated it! Day after day he felt as if
there was some foul stuff smoldering in his breast, the fumes of which
were slowly suffocating him. So much had been made of this job, he
couldn’t conceive of any escape from it. The whole millionaire
atmosphere; the bluff, man-to-man air which the cleverest of Mr. Gore’s
creatures had learned to adopt towards their master; he hated it. The
private secretary, Dobereiner was an out and out toady and lick-spittle;
Wilfred didn’t mind him; it was the fine gentlemen; the various
stockbrokers; corporation officials; dummy directors and so on; Ugh!
Loathsome!
Mr. Gore was a good enough employer; liberal; he was rather a fool
behind his big front, and Wilfred could have liked him under other
circumstances. Millionaire and office boy preserved a distant air
towards each other. Wilfred took care to keep the lashes lowered over
his resentful eyes. He kept his employer’s check-books and accounts;
thus he knew that Mr. Gore’s income amounted to more than seven hundred
thousand dollars a year. It made the office boy grind his teeth.
Wilfred had not enough to do to keep him busy during office hours; and
he shamefully neglected what he had to do. It had been understood when
he came, that he was to perfect himself in shorthand; that he might take
some of the correspondence off Dobereiner’s hands. There lay the Pitman
textbook, and the note-book handy to his hand; and the sight of them
turned his stomach. Wilfred spent the greater part of the days in
listless dreaming: his body held in such a position that to a glance
from behind he might appear to be practicing shorthand. He suspected
that Mr. Gore spent hours dreaming, too. Well he was able to if he
wanted. Certainly there wasn’t much business transacted in that office.
Yet Mr. Gore kept regular office hours. Apparently he hadn’t anything to
do, but come sit in his office. So far as Wilfred could judge he had
never read a book in his life. What an existence for one with two
thousand dollars a day to spend! But to scorn his employer didn’t help
Wilfred any; he knew he was the idle apprentice, and he hated himself.
A murmur was heard from Mr. Gore’s corner, and Dobereiner, springing up,
paddled to his employer’s desk. He had very large flat feet that turned
out wide, and his knees gave a little with every step. He had bulging
blue eyes that held a doglike expression; and his broad, ugly, German
face was always oily with devotion. An invaluable creature, Wilfred
conceded, but not the man he would choose to have around him. A brief
whispered colloquy took place—everything was whispered in that office;
and Dobereiner came hustling over to Wilfred’s desk, breathing a little
hard, as one who bears momentous tidings.
“Mr. Gore has decided not to go out to lunch,” he said. “Please bring
him a glass of milk and two chicken sandwiches from the directors’
restaurant.”
Wilfred cast a glance on Dobereiner, and went out. In a moment or two he
returned—empty handed. Dobereiner ran to meet him.
“Where is Mr. Gore’s lunch?” he demanded, aghast.
“I gave the order,” said Wilfred. “A waiter will bring it directly.”
Dobereiner’s slightly bloodshot eyes stuck out at Wilfred—but more in
dismay, than anger. “I told you to bring it!” he stammered. “Mr. Gore
must not be kept waiting!”
Wilfred looked at him without speaking, one side of his mouth pressed
stubbornly into his cheek. All but wringing his hands, Dobereiner
turned, and waddled out of the room.
In due course he returned, bearing the glass and plate as if they were
holy vessels. Placing them on Mr. Gore’s desk, he stood back. Mr. Gore
did not ask the wherefore of this act of service, but picked up one of
the sandwiches, and bit into it. Wilfred suspected that such incidents
as this did not injure him with his boss; after all they were of the
same class: it was other things.
Mr. Gore was still munching when there was heard a light, assured
tapping on the glass of the corridor door; two fingernails rotated.
Wilfred’s breast burned and his lip curled painfully as he went to open
the door. They all knew who this was. Dobereiner turned a foolish,
beaming smile towards the door; and Mr. Gore looked over the top of his
desk with all the sullenness gone out of his face. Wilfred opened the
door; and Joe Kaplan breezed past him.
“‘Lo, Wilfred! . . . ’Lo, Mr. Dobereiner. . . . Good morning, Mr. Gore.”
He got no answering greeting from Wilfred; but a fat lot Joe cared for
that. That was the worst of it; filled with a fervor of indignation,
Wilfred had not the power to make Joe feel it. Why? He knew. It was
because his indignation was insincere. The sight of the glittering Joe
made him sick with envy. He was crushed by the hatefulness of his own
feelings.
Wilfred scanned him in the effort to discover something . . . something
that would enable him to feel superior. But Joe was too perfect; he was
too exactly what Wilfred himself dreamed of becoming; the gay, gilded,
insouciant youth. Insouciant was one of Wilfred’s favorite words. To be
sure, Joe was a little _too_ well-dressed to be a gentleman; but there
was nothing blatant about him; he picked things up too quickly. And
everybody was ready to forgive a slightly dandified air in so
good-looking a youth. Wilfred, while he sneered at the
beautifully-fitting dark green suit with a small check, the puffy Ascot
tie with a handsome pearl in it, the Dunlap derby fresh from the
burnisher’s iron, secretly admired. Somehow Wilfred’s effects never came
off. Though they were of the same age, the finish Joe had acquired made
him look three or four years older. Wilfred was miserably aware of being
an untidy and gangly eighteen.
Joe plumped himself down like an equal in a chair at Mr. Gore’s left
hand; and their heads drew close together. Whisper; whisper; whisper;
punctuated with chuckles. Joe was visible at the side of the desk; but
Mr. Gore Wilfred could not see; however, he knew only too well how the
man’s face relaxed; how his sulky eyes became moist and irresponsible;
and how the thick lips parted. Almost anybody except the fatuous
Dobereiner could have told at a glance what was the relation between
those two. Wilfred had no difficulty in reading his employer; a sensual
man, weak and shy. It was Joe’s perfect shamelessness which had won him.
It was the same with everybody. The satyr in Joe’s hard, bright,
close-set eyes encouraged the imprisoned appetites to come out and
stretch themselves. Had not Wilfred felt it himself? Only he could not
let himself go. He did not blame Mr. Gore; there was something warm and
human in the man’s surrender. He was getting something that his nature
craved. But Joe! while he smiled and murmured and debauched others,
_his_ eyes remained cold and bright and watchful. What a horror!
What did they talk about? They were arranging the details of parties,
Wilfred assumed; small, discreet parties, conducted without danger of
discovery. That would be Joe’s business. Wilfred’s opulent imagination
proceeded to supply the details of their parties. Oh Heaven! supreme
luxury and voluptuousness! And Joe of course, a sharer in it all. Envy
suffocated him. Joe had turned out such a tall, handsome, graceful
fellow. And no foolish scruples to hamper him! Joe shared in it; the
soulless gutter-snipe; the lad no older than himself; he had everything;
money; good clothes; admiration; and endless pleasure: while he, Wilfred
who _had_ imagination and feeling was poor and half-baked and despised
and starving for joy! Why didn’t the dull millionaire come to _him_ for
his pleasures? He had imagination. In Joe’s parties there would be a
leer; but in _his_ only a mad, mad joy! In the midst of this Wilfred
grinned bitterly at himself; for he knew well enough that he was
shameless only in his imagination. A shivering fastidiousness held him
in leash. After all, Joe was a fitter instrument for the millionaire.
These talks between Mr. Gore and Joe always ended in the same way. Mr.
Gore pulled out a little drawer in his desk, and took something from it
that found its way into Joe’s trousers pocket. The fool! thought
Wilfred; does he suppose I’m not on to him? Always, later, a check would
be made out to a certain Harry Bannerman, a creature of Mr. Gore’s, who
would carry it to the bank; and bring back the wherewithal to replenish
the drawer against Joe’s next visit. Many hundreds of dollars weekly.
Mr. Gore did not require cash for anything else, since he had credit
everywhere.
And then Joe, sleek and elegant as a panther, would steam out,
scattering good-byes; and Mr. Gore, resuming his ordinary sulky mask,
would glance intimidatingly at poor Dobereiner and Wilfred, as if daring
them to suggest that he had ever dropped it. Dobereiner of course, had
no thought of criticizing his master; and Wilfred at least adopted a
polite air of inscrutability. On this occasion whether or not Mr. Gore
suspected the thoughts that Wilfred hid under it, he said:
“Bring over your note-book, Pell.”
Wilfred obeyed with a heart full of bitterness—sharp apprehension, too.
_He_ was required to make pot-hooks while Joe was sent out with a
pocketful of money, to scour the markets for beauty! The inevitable
humiliation awaited him now; perhaps the final humiliation. Wilfred
hated his job, but was none the less terrified of losing it. For where
would he, the timid, the self-distrustful, the half-baked, find another?
And how could he ever face the Aunts who had plotted for years to obtain
this job for him?
After an unhappy quarter of an hour Mr. Gore said in a bored voice:
“. . . Er . . . How long does it take to learn shorthand?”
“Three months,” murmured Wilfred.
“You’ve been studying it longer than that.”
“It’s difficult . . . to apply oneself at night.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re not very busy in the daytime. . . . What’s the
matter with you, Pell? You would do very well here, if you would only
wake up. You appear to be half asleep most of the time.”
“I will try to do better,” mumbled Wilfred, loathing himself.
He went back to his desk, seething. The fool! The fool! The
empty-headed, dull, rich fool! It’s lucky he has his money-bags to give
him some identity! He hasn’t even got brains enough to go to the devil
by himself, but must hire a boy to lead him!
Then his mood changed. He sat staring at the square glass inkstands on
his desk, with their lacquered iron covers; cheap stuff stamped out by
the million. What is to become of me? he thought with a sinking heart; I
undertake to rage at everything, yet I am no good myself. There is no
beginning place in me; I am spread all over. I want to be . . . I want
to be everything, and I have started at nothing. Everything I try to
grasp dissolves in my hand. I exist in a fog! . . . God! how I hate
business! My father was a failure, and I am a failure, too. What is one
to do if one has the instincts of a gentleman and no money . . . !
Dobereiner was looking over at Wilfred in horrified commiseration. He
could imagine nothing worse than to be rebuked by Mr. Gore. During the
rest of the day his manner towards Wilfred was gentle. Wilfred glared at
him helplessly.