offices of the Berg, Shriner Advertising Company he carried a
flat, compact bundle of papers under his arm encased in protecting
covers of pasteboard, and further secured by bands of elastic.
This he carried to his desk, deposited in a drawer, and locked the
drawer.
By eleven o'clock the things which he had predicted the night
before had come to pass. A plump little man, with a fussy manner
and Western clothes had been ushered into Bartholomew Berg's
private office. Instinct told him that this was Griebler. Jock
left his desk and strolled up to get the switchboard operator's
confirmation of his guess. Half an hour later Sam Hupp hustled by
and disappeared into the Old Man's sanctum.
Jock fingered the upper left-hand drawer of his desk. The
maddening blankness of that closed door! If only he could find
some excuse for walking into that room--any old excuse, no matter
how wild!--just to get a chance at it--
His telephone rang. He picked up the receiver, his eye on the
closed door, his thoughts inside that room.
"Mr. Berg wants to see you right away," came the voice of the
switchboard operator.
Something seemed to give way inside--something in the region of
his brain--no, his heart--no, his lungs--
"Well, can you beat that!" said Jock McChesney aloud, in a kind of
trance of joy. "Can--you--beat--that!"
Then he buttoned the lower button of his coat, shrugged his
shoulders with an extra wriggle at the collar (the modern hero's
method of girding up his loins), and walked calmly into
Bartholomew Berg's very private office.
In the second that elapsed between the opening and the closing of
the door Jock's glance swept the three men--Bartholomew Berg,
quiet, inscrutable, seated at his great table-desk; Griebler, lost
in the depths of a great leather chair, smoking fussily and
twitching with a hundred little restless, irritating gestures; Sam
Hupp, standing at the opposite side of the room, hands in pockets,
attitude argumentative.
"This is Mr. McChesney," said Bartholomew Berg. "Mr. Griebler,
McChesney."
Jock came forward, smiling that charming smile of his. "Mr.
Griebler," he said, extending his hand, "this is a great
pleasure."
"Hm!" growled Ben Griebler, "I didn't know they picked 'em so
young."
His voice was a piping falsetto that somehow seemed to match his
restless little eyes.
Jock thrust his hands hurriedly into his pockets. He felt his face
getting scarlet.
"They're--ah--using 'em young this year," said Bartholomew Berg.
His voice sounded bigger, and smoother, and pleasanter than ever
in contrast with that other's shrill tone. "I prefer 'em young,
myself. You'll never catch McChesney using 'in the last analysis'
to drive home an argument. He has a new idea about every nineteen
minutes, and every other one's a good one, and every nineteenth
or so's an inspiration." The Old Man laughed one of his low,
chuckling laughs.
"Hm--that so?" piped Ben Griebler. "Up in my neck of the woods we
aren't so long on inspiration. We're just working men, and we wear
working clothes--"
"Oh, now," protested Berg, his eyes twinkling, "McChesney's
necktie and socks and handkerchief may form one lovely, blissful
color scheme, but that doesn't signify that his advertising
schemes are not just as carefully and artistically blended."
Ben Griebler looked shrewdly up at Jock through narrowed lids.
"Maybe. I'll talk to you in a minute, young man--that is--" he
turned quickly upon Berg--"if that isn't against your crazy
principles, too?"
"Why, not at all," Bartholomew Berg assured him. "Not at all. You
do me an injustice."
Griebler moved up closer to the broad table. The two fell into a
low-voiced talk. Jock looked rather helplessly around at Sam Hupp.
That alert gentleman was signaling him frantically with head and
wagging finger. Jock crossed the big room to Hupp's side. The two
moved off to a window at the far end.
"Give heed to your Unkie," said Sam Hupp, talking very rapidly,
very softly, and out of one corner of his mouth. "This Griebler's
looking for an advertising manager. He's as pig-headed as
a--a--well, as a pig, I suppose. But it's a corking chance,
youngster, and the Old Man's just recommended you--strong. Now--"
"Me--!" exploded Jock.
"Shut up!" hissed Hupp. "Two or three years with that firm would
be the making of you--if you made good, of course. And you could.
They want to move their factory here from St. Louis within the
next few years. Now listen. When he talks to you, you play up the
keen, alert stuff with a dash of sophistication, see? If you can
keep your mouth shut and throw a kind of a canny, I-get-you, look
into your eyes, all the better. He's gabby enough for two. Try a
line of talk that is filled with the fire and enthusiasm of
youth, combined with the good judgment and experience of middle
age, and you've--"
"Say, look here," stammered Jock. "Even if I was Warfield enough
to do all that, d'you honestly think--me an advertising
manager!--with a salary that Griebler--"
"You nervy little shrimp, go in and win. He'll pay five thousand
if he pays a cent. But he wants value for money expended. Now I've
tipped you off. You make your killing--"
"Oh, McChesney!" called Bartholomew Berg, glancing round.
"Yes, sir!" said Jock, and stood before him in the same moment.
"Mr. Griebler is looking for a competent, enthusiastic,
hard-working man as advertising manager. I've spoken to him of
you. I know what you can do. Mr. Griebler might trust my judgment
in this, but--"
"I'll trust my own judgment," snapped Ben Griebler. "It's good
enough for me."
"Very well," returned Bartholomew Berg suavely. "And if you decide
to place your advertising future in the hands of the Berg, Shriner
Company--"
"Now look here," interrupted Ben Griebler again. "I'll tie up
with you people when you've shaken something out of your cuffs.
I'm not the kind that buys a pig in a poke. We're going to spend
money--real money--in this campaign of ours. But I'm not such a
come-on as to hand you half a million or so and get a promise in
return. I want your plans, and I want 'em in full."
A little exclamation broke from Sam Hupp. He checked it, but not
before Berg's curiously penetrating pale blue eyes had glanced up
at him, and away again.
"I've told you, Mr. Griebler," went on Bartholomew Berg's patient
voice, "just why the thing you insist on is impossible. This firm
does not submit advance copy. Every business commission that comes
to us is given all the skill, and thought, and enthusiasm, and
careful planning that this office is capable of. You know our
record. This is a business of ideas. And ideas are too precious,
too perishable, to spread in the market place for all to see."
Ben Griebler stood up. His cigar waggled furiously between his
lips as he talked.
"I know something else that don't stand spreading in the market
place, Berg. And that's money. It's too darned perishable, too."
He pointed a stubby finger at Jock. "Does this fool rule of yours
apply to this young fellow, too?"
Bartholomew Berg seemed to grow more patient, more self-contained
as the other man's self-control slipped rapidly away.
"It goes for every man and woman in this office, Mr. Griebler.
This young chap, McChesney here, might spend weeks and months
building up a comprehensive advertising plan for you. He'd spend
those weeks studying your business from every possible angle.
Perhaps it would be a plan that would require a year of waiting
before the actual advertising began to appear. And then you might
lose faith in the plan. A waiting game is a hard game to play.
Some other man's idea, that promised quicker action, might appeal
to you. And when it appeared we'd very likely find our own
original idea incorporated in--"
"Say, look here!" squeaked Ben Griebler, his face dully red.
"D'you mean to imply that I'd steal your plan! D'you mean to sit
there and tell me to my face--"
"Mr. Griebler, I mean that that thing happens constantly in this
business. We're almost powerless to stop it. Nothing spreads
quicker than a new idea. Compared to it a woman's secret is a
sealed book."
Ben Griebler removed the cigar from his lips. He was stuttering
with anger. With a mingling of despair and boldness Jock saw the
advantage of that stuttering moment and seized on it. He stepped
close to the broad table-desk, resting both hands on it and
leaning forward slightly in his eagerness.
"Mr. Berg--I have a plan. Mr. Hupp can tell you. It came to me
when I first heard that the Grieblers were going to broaden out.
It's a real idea. I'm sure of that. I've worked it out in detail.
Mr. Hupp himself said it--Why, I've got the actual copy. And it's
new. Absolutely. It never--"
"Trot it out!" shouted Ben Griebler. "I'd like to see one idea
anyway, around this shop."
"McChesney," said Bartholomew Berg, not raising his voice. His
eyes rested on Jock with the steady, penetrating gaze that was
peculiar to him. More foolhardy men than Jock McChesney had
faltered and paused, abashed, under those eyes. "McChesney, your
enthusiasm for your work is causing you to forget one thing that
must never be forgotten in this office."
Jock stepped back. His lower lip was caught between his teeth. At
the same moment Ben Griebler snatched up his hat from the table,
clapped it on his head at an absurd angle and, bristling like a
fighting cock, confronted the three men.
"I've got a couple of rules myself," he cried, "and don't you
forget it. When you get a little spare time, you look up St. Louis
and find out what state it's in. The slogan of that state is my
slogan, you bet. If you think I'm going to make you a present of
the money that it took my old man fifty years to pile up, then you
don't know that Griebler is a German name. Good day, gents."
He stalked to the door. There he turned dramatically and leveled a
forefinger at Jock. "They've got you roped and tied. But I think
you're a comer. If you change your mind, kid, come and see me."
The door slammed behind him.
"Whew!" whistled Sam Hupp, passing a handkerchief over his bald
spot.
Bartholomew Berg reached out with one great capable hand and swept
toward him a pile of papers. "Oh, well, you can't blame him.
Advertising has been a scream for so long. Griebler doesn't know
the difference between advertising, publicity, and bunk. He'll
learn. But it'll be an awfully expensive course. Now, Hupp, let's
go over this Kalamazoo account. That'll be all, McChesney."
Jock turned without a word. He walked quickly through the outer
office, into the great main room. There he stopped at the
switchboard.
"Er--Miss Grimes," he said, smiling charmingly. "Where's this Mr.
Griebler, of St. Louis, stopping; do you know?"
"Say, where would he stop?" retorted the wise Miss Grimes. "Look
at him! The Waldorf, of course."
"Thanks," said Jock, still smiling. And went back to his desk.
At five Jock left the office. Under his arm he carried the flat
pasteboard package secured by elastic bands. At five-fifteen he
walked swiftly down the famous corridor of the great red stone
hotel. The colorful glittering crowd that surged all about him he
seemed not to see. He made straight for the main desk with its
battalion of clerks.
[Illustration: "He made straight for the main desk with its
battalion of clerks"]
"Mr. Griebler in? Mr. Ben Griebler, St. Louis?"
The question set in motion the hotel's elaborate system of
investigation. At last: "Not in."
"Do you know when he will be in?" That futile question.
"Can't say. He left no word. Do you want to leave your name?"
"N-no. Would he--does he stop at this desk when he comes in?"
He was an unusually urbane hotel clerk. "Why, usually they leave
their keys and get their mail from the floor clerk. But Mr.
Griebler seems to prefer the main desk."
"I'll--wait," said Jock. And seated in one of the great thronelike
chairs, he waited. He sat there, slim and boyish, while the
laughing, chattering crowd swept all about him. If you sit long
enough in that foyer you will learn all there is to learn about
life. An amazing sight it is--that crowd. Baraboo helps swell it,
and Spokane, and Berlin, and Budapest, and Pekin, and Paris, and
Waco, Texas. So varied it is, so cosmopolitan, that if you sit
there patiently enough, and watch sharply enough you will even see
a chance New Yorker.
From door to desk Jock's eyes swept. The afternoon-tea crowd, in
paradise feathers, and furs, and frock coats swam back and forth.
He saw it give way to the dinner throng, satin-shod, bejeweled,
hurrying through its oysters, swallowing unbelievable numbers of
cloudy-amber drinks, and golden-brown drinks, and maroon drinks,
then gathering up its furs and rushing theaterwards. He was still
sitting there when that crowd, its eight o'clock freshness
somewhat sullied, its sparkle a trifle dimmed, swept back for more
oysters, more cloudy-amber and golden-brown drinks.
At half-hour intervals, then at hourly intervals, the figure in
the great chair stirred, rose, and walked to the desk.
"Has Mr. Griebler come in?"
The supper throng, its laugh a little ribald, its talk a shade
high-pitched, drifted towards the street, or was wafted up in
elevators. The throng thinned to an occasional group. Then these
became rarer and rarer. The revolving door admitted one man, or
two, perhaps, who lingered not at all in the unaccustomed quiet of
the great glittering lobby.
The figure of the watcher took on a pathetic droop. The eyelids
grew leaden. To open them meant an almost superhuman effort. The
stare of the new night clerks grew more and more hostile and
suspicious. A grayish pallor had settled down on the boy's face.
And those lines of the night before stood out for all to see.
In the stillness of the place the big revolving door turned once
more, complainingly. For the thousandth time Jock's eyes
lifted heavily. Then they flew wide open. The drooping figure
straightened electrically. Half a dozen quick steps and Jock stood
in the pathway of Ben Griebler who, rather ruffled and untidy, had
blown in on the wings of the morning.
He stared a moment. "Well, what--"
"I've been waiting for you here since five o'clock last evening.
It will soon be five o'clock again. Will you let me show you those
plans now?"
Ben Griebler had surveyed Jock with the stony calm of the
out-of-town visitor who is prepared to show surprise at nothing in
New York.
"There's nothing like getting an early start," said Ben Griebler.
"Come on up to my room." Key in hand, he made for the elevator.
For an almost imperceptible moment Jock paused. Then, with a
little rush, he followed the short, thick-set figure. "I knew you
had it in you, McChesney. I said you looked like a comer, didn't
I?"
Jock said nothing. He was silent while Griebler unlocked his door,
turned on the light, fumbled at the windows and shades, picked up
the telephone receiver. "What'll you have?"
"Nothing." Jock had cleared the center table and was opening his
flat bundle of papers. He drew up two chairs. "Let's not waste any
time," he said. "I've had a twelve-hour wait for this." He seemed
to control the situation. Obediently Ben Griebler hung up the
receiver, came over, and took the chair very close to Jock.
[Illustration: "'Let's not waste any time,' he said"]
"There's nothing artistic about gum," began Jock McChesney; and
his manner was that of a man who is sure of himself. "It's a
shirt-sleeve product, and it ought to be handled from a
shirt-sleeve standpoint. Every gum concern in the country has
spent thousands on a 'better-than-candy' campaign before it
realized that gum is a candy and drug store article, and that no
man is going to push a five-cent package of gum at the sacrifice
of the sale of an eighty-cent box of candy. But the health note is
there, if only you strike it right. Now, here's my idea--"
At six o'clock Ben Griebler, his little shrewd eyes sparkling, his
voice more squeakily falsetto than ever, surveyed the youngster
before him with a certain awe.
"This--this thing will actually sell our stuff in Europe! No gum
concern has ever been able to make the stuff go outside of this
country. Why, inside of three years every 'Arry and 'Arriet in
England'll be chewing it on bank holidays. I don't know about
Germany, but--" He pushed back his chair and got up. "Well, I'm
solid on that. And what I say goes. Now I'll tell you what I'll
do, kid. I'll take you down to St. Louis with me, at a figure
that'll make your--"
Jock looked up.
"Or if you don't want the Berg, Shriner crowd to get wise, I'll
fix it this way. I'll go over there this morning and tell 'em I've
changed my mind, see? The campaign's theirs, see? Then I refuse
to consider any of their suggestions until I see your plan. And
when I see it I fall for it like a ton of bricks. Old Berg'll
never know. He's so darned high-principled--"
Jock McChesney stood up. The little drawn pinched look which had
made his face so queerly old was gone. His eyes were bright. His
face was flushed.
"There! You've said it. I didn't realize how raw this deal was
until you put it into words for me. I want to thank you. You're
right. Bartholomew Berg is so darned high-principled that two
muckers like you and me, groveling around in the dirt, can't even
see the tips of the heights to which his ideals have soared. Don't
stop me. I know I'm talking like a book. But I feel like something
that has just been kicked out into the sunshine after having been
in jail."
"You're tired," said Ben Griebler. "It's been a strain. Something
always snaps after a long tension."
Jock's flat palm came down among the papers with a crack.
"You bet something snaps! It has just snapped inside me." He
began quietly to gather up the papers in an orderly little way.
"What's that for?" inquired Griebler, coming forward. "You don't
mean--"
"I mean that I'm going to go home and square this thing with a
lady you've never met. You and she wouldn't get on if you did. You
don't talk the same language. Then I'm going to have a cold bath,
and a hot breakfast. And then, Griebler, I'm going to take this
stuff to Bartholomew Berg and tell him the whole nasty business.
He'll see the humor of it. But I don't know whether he'll fire me,
or make me vice-president of the company. Now, if you want to come
over and talk to him, fair and square, why come."
"Ten to one he fires you," remarked Griebler, as Jock reached the
door.
"There's only one person I know who's game enough to take you up
on that. And it's going to take more nerve to face her at
six-thirty than it will to tackle a whole battalion of Bartholomew
Bergs at nine."
"Well, I guess I can get in a three-hour sleep before--er--"
"Before what?" said Jock McChesney from the door.
Ben Griebler laughed a little shamefaced laugh. "Before I see you
at ten, sonny."
V
THE SELF-STARTER
There is nothing in the sound of the shrill little bell to warn us
of the import of its message. More's the pity. It may be that bore
whose telephone conversation begins: "Well, what do you know
to-day?" It may be your lawyer to say you've inherited a million.
Hence the arrogance of the instrument. It knows its voice will
never wilfully go unanswered so long as the element of chance lies
concealed within it.
Mrs. Emma McChesney heard the call of her telephone across the
hall. Seated in the office of her business partner, T.A. Buck, she
was fathoms deep in discussion of the T.A. Buck Featherloom
Petticoat Company's new spring line. The buzzer's insistent
voice brought her to her feet, even while she frowned at the
interruption.
"That'll be Baumgartner 'phoning about those silk swatches. Back
in a minute," said Emma McChesney and hurried across the hall just
in time to break the second call.
The perfunctory "Hello! Yes" was followed by a swift change of
countenance, a surprised little cry, then,--in quite another
tone--"Oh, it's you, Jock! I wasn't expecting ... No, not too
busy to talk to you, you young chump! Go on." A moment of silence,
while Mrs. McChesney's face smiled and glowed like a girl's as she
listened to the voice of her son. Then suddenly glow and smile
faded. She grew tense. Her head, that had been leaning so
carelessly on the hand that held the receiver, came up with a
jerk. "Jock McChesney!" she gasped, "you--why, you don't mean!--"
Now, Emma McChesney was not a woman given to jerky conversations,
interspersed with exclamation points. Her poise and balance had
become a proverb in the business world. Yet her lips were
trembling now. Her eyes were very round and bright. Her face had
flushed, then grown white. Her voice shook a little. "Yes, of
course I am. Only, I'm so surprised. Yes, I'll be home early.
Five-thirty at the latest."
She hung up the receiver with a little fumbling gesture. Her hand
dropped to her lap, then came up to her throat a moment, dropped
again. She sat staring straight ahead with eyes that saw one
thousand miles away.
From his office across the hall T.A. Buck strolled in casually.
"Did Baumgartner say he'd--?" He stopped as Mrs. McChesney looked
up at him. A quick step forward--"What's the matter, Emma?"
"Jock--Jock--"
"Jock! What's happened to the boy?" Then, as she still stared at
him, her face pitiful, his hand patted her shoulder. "Dear girl,
tell me." He bent over her, all solicitude.
"Don't!" said Emma McChesney faintly, and shook off his hand.
"Your stenographer can see--What will the office think? Please--"
"Oh, darn the stenographer! What's this bad news of Jock?"
Emma McChesney sat up. She smiled a little nervously and passed
her handkerchief across her lips. "I didn't say it was bad, did I?
That is, not exactly bad, I suppose."
T.A. Buck ran a frenzied hand over his head. "My dear child,"
with careful politeness, "will you please try to be sane? I find
you sitting at your desk, staring into space, your face white as a
ghost's, your whole appearance that of a person who has received a
death-blow. And then you say, 'Not exactly bad'!"
"It's this," explained Emma McChesney in a hollow tone: "The Berg,
Shriner Advertising Company has appointed Jock manager of their
new Western branch. They're opening offices in Chicago in March."
Her lower lip quivered. She caught it sharply between her teeth.
For one surprised moment T.A. Buck stared in silence. Then a roar
broke from him. "Not exactly bad!" he boomed between laughs. "Not
exactly b--Not ex_act_ly, eh?" Then he was off again.
Mrs. McChesney surveyed him in hurt and dignified silence.
Then--"Well, really, T.A., don't mind me. What you find so
exquisitely funny--"
"That's the funniest part of it! That you, of all people,
shouldn't see the joke. Not exactly bad!" He wiped his eyes. "Why,
do you mean to tell me that because your young cub of a son, by a
heaven-sent stroke of good fortune, has landed a job that men
twice his age would give their eyeteeth to get, I find you sitting
at the telephone looking as if he had run off with Annie the cook,
or had had a leg cut off!"
"I suppose it is funny. Only, the joke's on me. That's why I can't
see it. It means that I'm losing him."
"That's the first selfish word I've ever heard you utter."
"Oh, don't think I'm not happy at his success. Happy! Haven't I
hoped for it, and worked for it, and prayed for it! Haven't I
saved for it, and skimped for it! How do you think I could have
stood those years on the road if I hadn't kept up courage with the
thought that it was all for him? Don't I know how narrowly Jock
escaped being the wrong kind! I'm his mother, but I'm not quite
blind. I know he had the making of a first-class cad. I've seen
him start off in the wrong direction a hundred times."
"If he has turned out a success, it's because you've steered him
right. I've watched you make him over. And now, when his big
chance has come, you--"
"I don't expect you to understand," interrupted Emma McChesney a
little wearily. "I know it sounds crazy and unreasonable. There's
only one sort of human being who could understand what I mean.
That's a woman with a son." She laughed a little shamefacedly.
"I'm talking like the chorus of a minor-wail sob song, but it's
the truth."
"If you feel like that, Emma, tell him to stay. The boy wouldn't
go if he thought it would make you unhappy."
"Not go!" cried Emma McChesney sharply. "I'd like to see him dare
to refuse it!"
"Well then, what in--" began Buck, bewildered.