Mr. James Gollop discovered in the course of the following three days
that although most business men enjoy a joke, their sense of humor is so
deficient that they don't care to combine jest and business. His
ill-fame had preceded him, and in addition thereto, it was the
off-season, and vacancies few.
"We'd like to have you, Jim," said one sales manager, "but the trouble
is that we should want you to take up the territory where you are well
known, and that, of course, is impossible."
Others told him to call later in the season. Others who would have given
him samples were firms of such small caliber that he could not see any
future, and several were willing to take him on commission sales only.
The only thing that helped him was that prodigious store of optimism
which impelled him after each rebuff to hope for a change just around
the corner.
It was when he felt at rather low ebb that he passed, rather
disconsolately, the Flat Iron Building and remembered Martin. Having no
other place to go, he decided to call upon that shrewd gentleman and
gather from such a source of hard common sense fresh courage. He turned
in through the big swinging door that let a gust of winter into each
compartment as it whirled, trundled it around and belched it into the
great hallway, and somewhat absent-mindedly collided with a man who was
coming out.
"Hello! She bumps!" said Jimmy good-naturedly and then--"Why--why it's
you, is it, Mr. Martin? I was just coming up to your offices to see if
by chance you happened to be in."
There was no mistaking the heartiness of the hand grasp that caught his.
"Well, we can go up now," said Martin, cheerfully. "In fact, I've been
thinking about you quite a lot. Been rather eager to see you again.
But--hold on!--the office is anything but a confidential resort. Suppose
you come with me to the Engineers' Club where we can have a nice quiet
talk."
Jimmy, feeling as if he had at least one friend left in the world,
readily accepted, and thought it rather lucky that they were the only
men in the club lounge room; felt that the chairs were very
comfortable, and the atmosphere summery.
"How are things with you?" asked Martin shrewdly eyeing him through the
first blue smoke screen of a cigar.
"Oh, so-so," replied Jimmy, evasively.
"Everything all right?"
"In a way. In a way."
"Chocolate business flourishing?"
"It was--up to a week ago."
"But now? How about now, Gollop?"
For a moment Jim scarcely knew what to answer, and looking up from an
overly prolonged inspection of his cigar caught the humorous, quizzical
twinkle in the friendly, keen eyes of his host.
"By jingoes!" he exclaimed, "you know something! You've heard the news.
You know I've been fired."
"Yes, I do know it," answered Martin, with a grin. "I was--rather
curious to learn how you took it. Suppose you tell me all about it. I'm
your friend, you know. We've shared salt. I've been entertained in your
mother's home. Now cut loose."
Jimmy laughed, sobered, shook his head and said, "You see, that's where
the worst of the trouble is unknown. I can't--well, I can't worry Maw.
She doesn't know it yet. I've been trying to get another job before I
broke the news to her and--well, I haven't succeeded! Those worth while
are afraid of me, or else have no opening. For the moment I'm the under
dog; but--I'm not whipped!"
And then he told the whole story to Martin, who listened, asked an
occasional question, smiled as if at some secret thought, and finally
remarked, "Your story agrees with what I've heard. But that man Granger
must have been a vindictive brute to carry it so far. By the way, did
you say your firm gave you the letter he wrote? Let's see it."
Jimmy took it from his pocketbook and gave it to the wise old man, who
stuck glasses on his nose awry, and at an angle well down toward the
point, and scanned the missive.
"Humph! Sounds like that sort of man," he commented, as he handed it
back. "What do you think of it?"
Jim considered the question for a time.
"At first I was sore because he couldn't take a joke. Then I remembered
what kind of a man he appeared to be when I met him, and decided that
it was just his way. Not a fault, you know, but something he couldn't
help. Men are not all alike. Personally I can't keep a grudge. Life's
too short for that. I never try to play, even, in a malicious way. If a
man really hurts me, I 'most always think of his side of it, and if I
decide I'm in the wrong, go to him and say so. If I think I'm in the
right,--just forget him. If he gets the best of me in business, I
congratulate him. That's part of the game. This chap Granger really
never did me much harm and I think maybe that I, without really
intending it, did him quite a lot. So I did the best I could to square
it."
"How?" asked Martin with another one of those quizzical glances of his.
"I wrote to all the newspapers I could get knowledge of out there, and
said that I was the guilty man; that I had played a fool joke under the
impulse of the moment and that the Judge was in no wise responsible for
anything at all that I said any more than he was for my actions."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, I suppose that was the most of it."
Mr. Martin laughed and shook his head, and then said, in a kindly
voice, "No, that wasn't all you wrote. I read some of your
communications as they were printed. You not only apologized for your
practical joke, but you ended by the declaration that you regarded Judge
Granger as a man worthy of confidence, and asserted that if you were a
resident of his constituency you would vote for him. I call that pretty
forgiving."
"But--you see I had done him an unmerited injury," said Jimmy, soberly.
"And so I did all I could to undo it. It was merely playing a white
man's game."
"In spite of the fact that he had cost you your livelihood and done all
he could to hurt you?"
"Oh, that had nothing to do with it! I did him an injury, and--I did the
best I could to undo it."
Martin sat and looked at him admiringly, for a time, and then asked,
"But what are you going to do now that all your trade is aware of your
predicament, and are afraid to employ you?"
"I'll be hanged if I know!" Jimmy admitted, with an air of gravity.
"But--I'll keep on trying. You can bet on that! I'll find some way out
of it, even if I have to begin again in some other line. They all of
them have to admit that I'm honest--that's an asset that nobody can
dispute. We can't all be brilliant and honest at the same time. Some men
are brilliant but fail to gain confidence. Other men are honest but
can't be brilliant. I'm honest but haven't proved brilliant, or
unbrilliant, so I've got the best of the situation--up to date. Someone,
therefore, will give me a chance. So I'm not discouraged. Maybe it's
because I've got imagination. When things go dead wrong with me, I just
imagine that they're not so bad, after all. Cowards and pessimists are
the only ones to whom imagination is a curse. Why--even a crippled dog
has dreams of hunting in his sleep, and he wakes up with hope!"
Jimmy's host seemed to ponder over this crude philosophy for a time as
if bemused by its possibilities, and then suddenly straightened himself
in his chair and leaned forward.
"Do you remember what you said to me in the train one day as to a man's
having faith in whatever he sold? And you talked about an automobile
called the Sayers car? You do, eh? Well, here's something that may
interest you. The Sayers Automobile Company is going to reorganize its
sales organization. It wants a man with imagination who will take hold
of that department. It seeks a man with ideas--none of the old, worn
out, hackneyed stuff, but--a man with original ideas that will prove
good. The Martin Company handles its advertising. Do you think--really
and honestly think--that you could reorganize its sales department and
bring to it additional success if I recommend you to the Sayers people?"
"You bet your life I could!" asserted Jimmy. "I've thought about that
car a lot. And in the last few days when nobody seems to want me, I have
wondered if it wouldn't be a good move for me to get into the line of
motor cars."
Martin seemed to ponder over the situation for a moment and then said,
with a sly grin, "Of course the first step for you to take would be to
go out to the Sayers works, meet Sayers and his superintendent, make a
study of the sales methods they have been employing, and then put before
them a full outline of what you propose. If they like it, they will
probably give you a chance to demonstrate what you can do. And if you do
get the place, and make good, I believe old Sayers is just the sort of
man who would appreciate your work and make it mighty well worth your
while to stay with him permanently. But I tell you this much, that he
believes in efficiency and will have no one around him who can't deliver
the goods. Now do you want to tackle it?"
"I do! I do!" replied Jimmy with fervency, stopped, and then emitted a
groan and said, "But good Lord! The Sayers plant is out near Princetown,
and Princetown is the home of Judge Granger, and--they'd lynch me if I
showed up there--that is, unless I could get the infuriated populace to
make another mistake of identity and hang the Judge in the belief that
he was me!"
"Um-mh! Granger lives in Princetown, eh? That's rather awkward, isn't
it? What do you propose?"
Jimmy thought a moment and slapped his leg with an air of cheerfulness.
"I've got it. I'll do as I did before--hide all of my face I can. I'll
wear big blue glasses, and grow a mustache and get my hair dyed black.
And if I can arrange it I'll go through Princetown like greased
lightning, and stop at the works while there."
Martin chuckled with amusement and then said, "I think Sayers would send
a car to meet you at the train if we wrote him when you were coming, and
I have no doubt that you could find some place to stop out near the
works. Did you notice if there were any houses near the plant?"
"Yes, lots of them. Neat little places, most of them. Sort of a model
city, I should say."
"You are at least observant," commented Martin, and then promptly arose,
went to a writing desk and wrote for a time, whilst Jimmy's spirits
soared up and up until he was glad that he had been foisted out of the
chocolate trade.
"Sayers knows I belong to this club," said Martin, returning to his
seat; "so will think nothing of my letter being written on club, rather
than business stationery. Besides I shall confirm these letters along
with other matters, when I return to the office. Now here is a letter to
old Tom Sayers, and another to Mr. Holmes, his general superintendent.
Letters of introduction--both--as you can see. I think they will suffice
to put you in right, and then it's up to you to formulate a general plan
for a selling organization that will suit Sayers. If you can't show him
something to catch his approval, you'll have wasted your time. If you
can, it's almost certain that you'll be given a chance to show what you
can do. But--mind you!--he's been probing around on this matter for some
time, and has probably had all sorts of schemes suggested and proposed,
and you've got to show something that is better than anyone else has put
forward. In that way it's sort of competitive. And--see here!--if I were
you I'd not wait to grow a mustache and get my hair dyed and all that
rot; but waste no time at all in getting out there lest someone beats
you to the place."
"Good!" said Jimmy, promptly. "You just wire them that I'm coming. I
remember the timetables. You tell them to send a car to meet me at a
train that arrives in Princetown at ten o'clock to-morrow morning! I'm
going to start west on the train that leaves the Pennsylvania station in
just thirty-five minutes from now."
"Oh, that means an all-night ride and a breakneck connection, doesn't
it? There's no such rush as all that," expostulated Martin.
"There's no such thing as too quick action when looking for a job,"
declared Jimmy with all his accustomed energy. "Good-by, and thank
you--ever so much. I'm off to try to make good! Good-by!"
Martin looked at him approvingly as if this was the sort of hustling he
liked, and accompanied him out to the street. Jimmy bolted into the
traffic, dodged under horses' noses, disregarded the shouts of drivers
and traffic policemen, mounted a slowly moving taxi, shouted
instructions to the driver from the running board, and the last that
Martin saw of him was a hand waved through an open window.
"Well," soliloquized Martin after this breathless chase, "if he moves
that fast when at work it would take a cyclone to catch him. It strikes
me that he's going to land that job, all right!"