His old grin returned, as he took my hand. "It's all right, kid," he
said. "I'm glad you're learning."
* * * * *
Deep Harbor I suspected to be a difficult spot in which to do new
financing. Probably our absentee ownership would be a handicap. I went
first to Mr. Claybourne to ask his advice. He received me in his little
office, which was upstairs in his own factory. His face grew serious as
he listened to me, and I saw him watching a switch-engine through the
window.
"I don't know, Ted," he said at length, after my story was done. "I'll
be frank with you. This isn't the time to think of you as a future
son-in-law. We are talking now about Deep Harbor and business. We don't
know much about you. The company is directed from London. We don't like
that. On the grounds we have you and Knowlton. Now I dare say you are
all right as a chemist, Ted--out in your laboratory. But you don't know
any more about American business than a babe unborn."
"That leaves Knowlton," I suggested.
"Yes, that leaves Knowlton," he echoed. "Knowlton is a salaried man. He
has no financial interest in your concern. Supposing some one offers him
a bigger salary and he ups and leaves you. Where would you be?"
"Knowlton?" I gasped incredulously. "Leave us?"
"It has happened," said Mr. Claybourne drily. "And after all, why not?
Why should Knowlton stick with you, if he can make more somewhere else?"
"But--but loyalty," I protested, "good faith--a dozen things make it out
of the question!"
Mr. Claybourne shook his head slowly. "Ted, you are going to get some
hard knocks some day. The world isn't run the way you think it is. And I
don't mean any discredit to Knowlton, either. It would only be sound
sense for him to jump at a better offer."
My faith in Knowlton was unshaken, but I turned Mr. Claybourne's words
over in my mind. "If that is an objection," I said at last, "I'll cable
my father to give Knowlton an interest in the business."
"You ought to have done that long ago," replied Mr. Claybourne. "Well,
Ted, I'm sorry I can't encourage you. Coming to dinner tonight?"
From Mr. Claybourne's factory I walked straight to the
telegraph-and-cable office. "Do it now, as Knowlton would say," I smiled
to myself as I walked along the street. It was quite a different thing
for me to walk along Deep Harbor's streets now from what it had been the
first few months. It almost seemed as if half the persons I met knew me.
"Hello, Ted!" passing men would call with cheery friendliness--from the
barber at the Otooska House to the president of the country club, I was
"Ted." Young ladies waved friendly hands at me from front porches, or
would ask after Helen as I went by. It was a curiously intimate town,
where men often fought each other bitterly in business and played golf
together afterwards at the country club. We had no secrets from each
other, and the young people wandered in and out of each other's homes as
into clubs. It was a frightfully public way to live, and yet not
unpleasant.
There was a special free masonry among the men. They knew each other's
financial standing and bank account down to the last cent. They also
knew each other's business capacity and reliability with astounding
accuracy. One heard at the club startlingly frank revelations about all
that was going on, and nothing that happened remained long unknown or
undiscussed. There were some things talked about which did not reach the
ears of the women--whom So-and-so visited on his last trip to New York,
for example. The men knew and laughed at much that their code kept from
their wives. On the whole, Deep Harbor was a reasonably moral place, in
spite of much cocktail drinking and free and easy manners. But there
were a few notorious exceptions. And others, less notorious, indulged in
occasional flings in distant towns. I never heard of any "prominent
citizen" who kept a double establishment in Deep Harbor. A double life
there meant a train journey. An actual local scandal was a six months'
wonder and carried with it almost complete ostracism to boot. We had had
a few famous divorces, but none during my time.
I was thinking of all this as I walked to the telegraph office on State
Street. The greetings along the way had started me on my train of
thought. I was a long time wording my cable to my father and still
longer reducing it to a business code. A cable or telegram in plain
language was not advisable. Deep Harbor knew everything, even the
secrets you sent or received by wire. I had been casually questioned
more than once about sending messages in code. One advantage of so
thoroughly transparent a glass house was that no one cared particularly
about casting stones. The infinite gossip of the men, while frank and
outspoken in its opinions, was rarely malicious. It was simply that a
naked truth, deprived of the last fig leaf, circulated concerning every
one.
"All right, Mr. Jevons," said the telegraph girl, as she took my coded
message. "Charge it to the company?"
"No--personal," I answered. Knowlton had a way of making me account for
every cable. A company cable had to have a copy filed at the office.
"Shall I 'phone an answer out to the Claybournes'?" she asked, as if it
were a perfectly ordinary matter for her to have an intimate knowledge
of my evening movements.
"Yes," I said, for one got accustomed to Deep Harbor's ways, "but make
certain you give the reply to me in person. Do not leave a message or
'phone it to any one else in the house."