Opportunity
The Hotel Lasande deserves a word or two. In the strict sense it is no
hotel at all, being merely a twenty-story pile of four and five--and
even seven and eight--room bachelor suites of the very highest class.
Moving into the Lasande and assuming one of its breath-stopping leases
is a process not unlike breaking into the most exclusive sort of club.
One is investigated, which tells it all. The Lasande, catering to the
very best and most opulent of the bachelor class, has nothing else
beneath its roof.
Silent men servants, functioning perfectly despite their apparent
woodenness, flit everywhere, invisible until needed, disappearing
instantly when the task of the moment is done. There are dining-rooms
for the few who do not dine in the privacy of their own apartments, and
there is a long, comfortable lobby where, under the eagle eye of the
clerk in the corner, only tenants or guests of tenants may lounge.
Into this latter area came Anthony Fry and Johnson Boller and the boy,
and as the peculiarly intelligent eyes of the latter darted about it
seemed to Mr. Boller that their twinkle turned to a positive glitter.
It was absurd enough, it hailed doubtless from the nervous loneliness
within himself, yet Johnson Boller felt that the youngster was a
downright evil force, swaggering along there, tremendously conscious of
his own importance! He should have been sedate and subdued, to put it
mildly, yet he grinned at the impeccable night clerk from under his cap
and sent his impudent eyes roving on, to alight finally on the big chair
near the north elevator.
"Who's the party with the big specs and why the prolonged stare?" the
youngster asked irreverently.
"Eh? Oh, that's Mr. Hitchin, a neighbor of mine," Anthony smiled.
"He's an amateur detective, kid," Johnson Boller added significantly.
"He knows every young crook in town. He's coming here to give you the
once over."
"I should worry," murmured the self-possessed young man.
"Johnson, don't be idiotic," Anthony said, as he laid a hand on the
boy's arm. "I'll have to introduce you. What's your name, my lad?"
"Eh?" asked the unusual boy, staring hard at Anthony.
"Your name! What is it?"
"Well--er--Prentiss," the youth admitted.
"Is that your first name or your last name?"
"That's just my last name," the boy smiled. "First name's David."
"David Prentiss, eh?" Anthony murmured with some satisfaction, for it
had a substantial sound. "Well, David--er, Hitchin, how are you? Mr.
Hitchin, my young friend, Mr. David Prentiss."
The boy's hand went out and gripped Hitchin's heartily enough. Mr.
Hitchin held it for a moment and peered at David--and one saw what a
really penetrating stare he owned.
It bored, as a point of tempered ice, wordlessly accusing one of murder,
counterfeiting, bank burglary and plain second-story work. Frequently
deep students of the higher detective fiction grow this stare, and
Hobart Hitchin was one of the deepest. But now, having pierced David in
a dozen places without finding bomb or knife, the stare turned to
Anthony and grew quite normal and amiable.
"Prentiss, eh?" said Hitchin. "Not the Vermont branch?"
"New York," David supplied.
"Mr. Prentiss is staying with me for a little," Anthony smiled as they
moved toward the elevator again.
"Staying with you, eh?" Hitchin repeated, with a careful survey of
David's well-worn storm-coat; and added, with characteristic bluntness:
"Working for you, Fry?"
"My guest," Anthony said annoyedly; and then the car came down and the
door opened and they left Mr. Hitchin, but the boy cocked an eye at
Anthony and asked flatly:
"What was the idea of that--staying with you? I'm not staying with you."
"You may decide to stay for a little."
"Not me," said David.
"We shall see," Anthony chuckled. "This is our floor."
Wilkins--the priceless, faultless Wilkins who had been with Anthony for
sixteen years--opened the door and, even though he were Wilkins, started
a trifle at the sight of David and his cap. He flushed for the start, to
be sure, as his master moved into the big living-room with his superb
dignity, but when he had taken cap and coat and examined the suit
beneath, Wilkins shook his head mentally. One shock had come that
evening in the knowledge that Johnson Boller, whom Wilkins did not
approve, was to be with them--but this young ruffian!
"Make yourself at home, David," Anthony smiled. "We'll shed our coats
and find our smoking jackets."
Johnson Boller with him, he moved to the corner bedroom, to face his old
friend with:
"Well, what do you think of him?"
"He's a bad egg," Johnson Boller said readily. "I don't like his eye and
the way he swaggers would get him six months in any court in town. Say
whatever it is the devilish impulse prompts you to say and then fire him
before he pinches the silver."
"Bosh!" Anthony said testily. "The boy's awed and self-conscious--the
swagger is assumed to cover that, of course. I mean what, in your
decidedly inferior judgment, is his fitness as a subject for experiment?
Will he know opportunity when she is first set before him or will it be
necessary to present her repeatedly?"
Johnson Boller laughed harshly and stared hard at his old friend. Under
certain conditions, even the empty apartment on Riverside Drive might
not be so bad.
"Say!" he demanded. "Are you going to keep that little rat here and
argue with him till he admits that he recognizes whatever opportunity
you're going to thrust at him?"
"Essentially that."
"Well, if it's an opportunity to earn an honest living, he'll never see
it--and if the chatter takes more than an hour I'm going home!" Johnson
Boller snapped. "I'd have stayed there if I'd known you were going off
into the abstract, Anthony. I wanted to talk to you and have a little
game of chess and a bottle of ale and----"
Anthony smiled serenely.
"And the mere fact that a train of thought, only slightly unusual, has
entered your evening, has upset your whole being, hasn't it? Well, it'll
do you good to hear and watch something different. This boy will see
opportunity before I'm done with him, Johnson, and the longer it takes
the sounder my general hypothesis will have been proven."
Curiously enough, David had lost much of his grinning assurance when
they rejoined him. The impudence had left his eye and the boy seemed
downright uneasy. He started and rose at the sight of them, and his
quick, nervous smile lingered only a moment as he said:
"I think I'd better be going after all, Mr. Fry. It's pretty late
and----"
"Just a minute or two, and perhaps you'll change your mind," Anthony
said quietly, as he dropped into his pet chair. "You'll permit a
personal question or two, David?"
"I suppose so."
"Then--how old are you?"
"Twenty."
"Ah! Parents living?"
David nodded.
"And in rather humble circumstances, perhaps?"
This time David glanced at him keenly, queerly, for an instant--opened
his lips and shut them again and ended with a mere jerk of a nod.
"How about schooling, David? You've been through high school?"
"Er--yes."
"And have you a profession?" Anthony pursued.
"No, I haven't any profession?" the boy muttered.
"But you're working, of course?" Mr. Fry asked sharply.
"What? Oh, yes," said David.
"At some mechanical line?"
"Oh, yes," David said.
"In just what line, then?"
And now, had Anthony but been watching, some of Johnson Boller's
suspicions must have seemed justified. There was no question about the
way David's very intelligent eyes were acting now; they darted
furtively, wildly almost, from side to side, as if the boy were seeking
escape. They darted toward Anthony and away from him and back to David's
shabby suit and worn shoes.
"I'm a--plumber's helper!" the boy said gustily.
"Wait a second, kid!" Mr. Boller put in. "Let me see those hands!"
"Well, they--they haven't had time to get roughened up yet!" David said
quickly. "I just went to work yesterday."
"The boy's lying, Anthony!" Mr. Boller said bluntly.
"I don't lie, Mr.----"
"Boller," Anthony supplied. "And please don't badger the boy, Johnson."
"I'm not badgering him," said Johnson Boller; "only that kid's hands
look more like a society queen's than an honest workingman's."
"They may be hands designed for better things. David! Tell me, are you
quite satisfied to be a plumber's helper, or was it the only thing you
could find in the way of employment?"
"It was all I could find," David muttered, glancing at the door. And
then, with his quick smile, he rose again. "I'd like to sit here and
answer questions, Mr. Fry, but I'll have to run along and----"
Anthony beamed at him over his glasses, fidgeting there with the
impatience of youth, standing on one foot and then on the other. Anthony
turned and beamed at the bookcase beside him, and selecting a volume,
beamed at that, too.
"David," said he, "will you be seated long enough to hear a little
poem?"
"What?"
"It is a very short poem, and one of my favorites," Anthony mused, and
his stare at David grew quite hypnotic. "Ah, here it is--a little,
wonderfully big poem by the late Senator John Ingalls. It is
called--'Opportunity.'"
"Aha!" David said rather stupidly.
"And now, listen," said Anthony, clearing his throat.
"Master of human destinies am I!"
He paused and sent the hypnotic smile drilling into David.
"'_Master of human destinies!_'" he repeated. "That, in itself, means a
very great deal, does it not?"
"I guess so," David muttered dazedly, and, however briefly, Johnson
Boller almost liked him for the look he directed at Anthony's bowed
head.
"Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate!"
"Once," concluded Anthony, "at every gate. _Once_, David!"
"Yes, I've heard that poem before," said David, who was examining the
rug.
Johnson Boller laughed in a rich undertone. Anthony flushed, and his
voice rose a little as he continued:
"If feasting, rise; if sleeping, wake before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death...."
The owner of Fry's Imperial Liniment looked over his glasses and
discovered that David, having poked open the door of the little-used
cellarette with his foot, was looking in at the bottles with mild
interest.
"'Every foe save death!'" Anthony rapped out. "Did you hear that,
David?"
"Yes, of course," David said hastily. "Do you know what time it is, Mr.
Fry?"
"No! Hear the rest!" said Anthony.
"... But those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury, or woe,
Seek me in vain and ceaselessly implore;
I answer not and I return--no more!"
Almost reverently the book closed.
"Have you quite assimilated the full meaning of that little poem,
David?" he asked gravely.
"Er--yes."
"Quite?" Anthony persisted.
"Why, I guess so," David said, eyes opening again. "Yes, I know I
have--only don't look at me like that and----"
"Then hear the rest of what I have to say," Anthony went on quickly and
impressively, "for now we come to my reason for bringing you here.
David, you are poor. You are without a profession--without a business of
your own. Your brightest hope at present is to become a plumber."
"Say----" David began.
"I should have said, your brightest chance," Anthony corrected. "But
your _ambition_, David, is altogether different. Your ambition is to
become--_what_?"
And now, before the penetrating, hypnotic eye, David seemed, not without
warrant, to have grown downright frightened. He glanced swiftly at
Anthony and at the door.
"I don't know," he said breathlessly. "What's the answer?"
"Well, what do you want to become? A doctor? A lawyer? A teacher? An
electrician? A journalist? A clergyman? A painter? An architect? A
mining engineer? A civil engineer? A----"
It was plain to Johnson Boller that the situation was getting beyond
David's doubtless nimble, doubtless criminal, mind. The boy held up an
unsteady hand and stayed the flow.
"That's it!" he said hoarsely. "A civil engineer! You got it out of me,
didn't you? And now I'd better go and----"
His quick, scared grin showed all his teeth, and he nodded in the most
ridiculous fashion--really much in the fashion one might nod at a
hopeless lunatic when agreeing that, as a matter of course, he is the
original Pharaoh. His mental state fairly glowed from him; all that
David wanted was to leave the Hotel Lasande.
David, in short, was doing just what ninety-nine per cent. of the human
race insists on doing; even at the hint of opportunity, he was trying to
face about and escape. But more than that, David, obviously one of the
lower classes, was treating Anthony Fry with a tolerance that was more
than mere disrespect. He was causing Johnson Boller to chuckle wearily
over his cigar--and in spite of his purely abstract interest, Anthony's
color grew darker and his voice decidedly sharper.
"Sit still," he commanded, "and listen to me. David, up to this evening
you had no real hope of attaining your ambition. In fine, opportunity to
make the goal was not yours. Now opportunity is yours!"
"Is it?" David said throatily, albeit he did not resume his seat.
"Because this is what I mean to do for you, David; I mean to take you
out of your present humble situation and educate you. I mean to have you
here to live with me."
"_What?_" David gasped.
"From this very evening!" Anthony said firmly, and also astonishingly.
"I shall outfit you properly and supply you with what money you need. I
shall have you prepared for the best engineering college we can find,
and entered there for the most complete engineering course. If you are
helping in the support of your family, I shall pay to them a sum
equivalent to your wages each month--or perhaps a little more, if it be
essential to removing all anxiety from your mind. You follow me?"
David merely clutched the edge of his coat and gulped, staring
fascinatedly at Anthony.
"I am reasonably wealthy, and I shall bear every expense that you may
incur, David. When you have graduated, and everything that can be taught
you has been taught you, I shall establish you in proper offices and use
my considerable personal influence to see that you are supplied with
work, and again until you are self-supporting I shall bear all the
expense. In short, David," Anthony concluded, "I am holding
_opportunity_ before you--opportunity to do, without trouble or worry or
delay, the thing you most desire. Well?"
Even Johnson Boller was mildly interested, although only mildly, and
with a deprecatory smile on his lips. He knew exactly what the boy would
do, of course, but it had no connection with Anthony's crack-brained
notion.
David would grab with both hands at this kind of opportunity and settle
down to a life of ease, and the chances were that he'd get Anthony to
sign something that would cost him thousands when he had waked up and
lost interest in the opportunity proposition.
To Johnson's sleepy and suspicious eye David looked like a crafty little
devil, if one ever walked.
Yet after a silent thirty seconds opportunity, in her gaudiest and most
conspicuous form, had made no visible impression on David Prentiss. His
bewildered eyes roved from Anthony to Johnson Boller. Once he seemed
about to laugh; again he seemed about to speak; he did neither.
And the clock struck twelve.
And had a bomb exploded between his poorly shod feet, the effect on
David Prentiss could hardly have been more striking. He started, and his
eyes, dilating, lost their bewilderment and showed plain, overwhelming
horror. His mouth opened with a shout of:
"Was that midnight?"
"Very likely," Anthony said impatiently. "But as to----"
"Where's my cap and coat?" David demanded.
"Never mind your cap and coat. I----"
"But I do mind 'em!" David cried. "I've got to have them--quick! Where
are they? Where's the man who took them?"
Anthony merely smiled with waxing curiosity.
"So you are really rejecting opportunity at the first knock, eh?" he
mused.
And now David stilled his rising excitement only with a huge effort. He
gripped his chair and looked Anthony in the eye.
"Opportunity be--hanged!" he cried shrilly. "Give me my cap and coat! I
want to go home!"