After eighteen months of prosperity the law firm into which Gordon
Perry had been admitted was crippled by the death of one of the two
other partners. The survivor, who was the junior of the two, and
decidedly the inferior in mental calibre and energy, proposed to Gordon
to continue the firm on the footing of two-thirds of the profits for
himself, and appeared pompously grieved when his former student
demurred to the terms. Before he could make up his mind to a more
equable division Gordon had made up his to separate and to practise
alone. While Gordon did not have a very high opinion of his partner's
talents, he was grateful for his own recent promotion, and was aware
that his associate's wise countenance and seniority combined would
probably avail to control the cream of the business--that brought by
managers of corporations and successful merchants, both prone to
distrust youth. But the plan of setting up for himself was tempting,
especially as he disliked the alternative of the lion's share going to
a lawyer of mediocre ability, and when Paul Howard asked why he did not
take the step in question, and intimated that he would befriend him in
case he did, Gordon resolved to burn his bridges and make the plunge,
or in more correct metaphor to hang out his own shingle.
As he had expected, there was at first a slight lull in his fortunes;
but, on the other hand, he was able to pocket the whole income, and
even from the outset he was reasonably busy. Paul Howard's promise was
fulfilled. All his personal and presently some of the firm matters
were placed in Gordon's hands, and the two men met not infrequently as
a consequence. At Harvard they had been acquaintances rather than
friends. Their contact on the foot-ball team had inspired respect for
each other's grit, but they were not intimate. As the possessor of a
liberal allowance, Paul had belonged to a rather frivolous set,
notorious in college circles through lavish expenditures, which
included boxes at the theatres and suppers and flowers for the chorus
girls. Though Gordon was partial to comic opera himself, he had
regarded Paul as a high flyer, and Paul in his turn had pitied Gordon
as a good fellow spoiled by being obliged to "grind." When they met
again in their native city after a lapse of years, each was impressed
by the other's improvement and found him much more interesting than he
had expected. Paul had toned down. His spirits were less flamboyant;
he was gay-hearted instead of noisy, and his manner had lost its
condescension. On his part, Gordon had mellowed through contact with
the world and was more easy-going in his address, and no longer wore
the New England conscience in his nostrils. They met first by chance
at a restaurant at noon, and, habit bringing them to the same resort,
they lunched together from time to time, and the favorable impression
was strengthened on each side.
Gordon interested Paul because the former was so different from most of
the men with whom he was in the habit of associating, and yet was, so
to speak, a good fellow. The true creed of most of Paul's friends when
reduced to terms, was substantially this, that the important thing in
life is to be on top, that in America every one has a chance and the
best men come to the front, that success means money, that money
ensures enjoyment, and that no one is supposed to be enjoying himself
or herself who does not keep feeding the dynamo of conscious existence
with fresh sensations and run the human machine at full pressure.
There were necessary corollaries to this, such as "the devil take the
hindmost," uttered considerately but firmly; "we shall be a long time
dead," murmured jocosely but shrewdly; and "the cranks may prevail and
the crash come, but we shall be under the sod," spoken philosophically,
with a shake of the head or a sigh; the moral of it all being that the
position of the successful--that is, the rich--is delectable and
intoxicating, and the rank and file are expected to comport themselves
with patriotic and Christian resignation, and not interfere with the
free workings of the millionairium, an ingenious American substitute
for the millennium.
The stock market, athletic sports, and cocktails were the tutelary
saints of this section of society. They were habitually long or short
of the market from one or two hundred to several thousand shares,
according to their means. They followed feverishly the prevailing fads
in sport, yachting, tennis, polo, rowing, golf, rackets, hunting, horse
shows (as now, a few years later, "bridge," ping-pong, and the deadly
automobile). And after exercise, before lunch and dinner, and on every
other excuse, they imbibed a cocktail or a whiskey and soda as a fillip
to the nervous system. They were dashing, manly-looking fellows, these
companions of Paul, ingenious and daring in their business enterprises,
or, if men of leisure, keen and brilliant at their games. They set
great store by physical courage and unflinching endurance of peril and
pain, and they would have responded promptly to a national demand for
troops in case of war; but when anything arose on the political or
social horizon which threatened to disturb prices on the stock exchange
they set their teeth as one man and howled maledictions at it and its
author, though it bore the sign manual of true progress. In short,
life for them meant a bull market, a galaxy of competitive sports, and
perpetual novelty.
In turning from this comradeship and point of view to Gordon Perry,
Paul did so guardedly. That is, although he was not altogether
satisfied to follow the current in which he found himself, he had no
intention of being drawn into the eddies by false sentiment or of
rowing up-stream at the dictates of envy and demagogism. He was ready
to admit that the policy of high-pressure enjoyment and acquisition
might be ethically defective, but he did not propose to exchange his
birthright for a mess of pottage and become pious or philanthropic on
sing-song lines. As he once expressed it to Gordon, some two years
after the latter had set up for himself, between the hypocrites and the
fools it was a comparatively simple matter to charm an audience with a
psalm tune compounded of the Rock of Ages and the Star-Spangled Banner
until it passed resolutions against the rich and in favor of the poor,
which not merely confounded common sense and subverted justice, but
gave a sort of moral sanction to the small lies, the sand in the sugar,
the dirt, the superstition and the slipshod ways which distinguished
the people without brains and imagination from those with.
"We might divide all round," Paul continued, "but what good would that
do? I might move into a smaller house, sell my steam yacht and all my
stable, except a horse and buggy, and play the Puritan, but what good
would that do? People would laugh and my wife would think me crazy. I
tell you what, Don, we--I mean the crowd I run with--may be a grasping,
extravagant, gambling, sporting, strenuous lot, but we trot square.
There's no sand in our sugar, and when there's music to be faced we
don't run away, squeal or delude ourselves. But I've sworn off
cocktails for good. I began yesterday. And I'm going to keep my eye
on you, Don. I don't promise to follow you, but I'm interested. When
you get your plans in working order let me look at them. I may be able
to syndicate them for you, even though I have to shock my conservative
father in the process. By the way, do you happen to need a
stenographer? She's said to know her business. And this one is in
your line, too."
Gordon had been conscious lately that his work required another clerk.
"In my line?"
"Yes. A tale of woe. She's a protegée of my aunt's, and needs a
helping hand. A widow with two small children. Good looking, too, I
believe. Mrs. Wilson has had her taught until she can play the
type-writer like a learned pig, and take down your innermost thoughts
in shorthand. And now the woman insists on being thrown down hard on
her own resources, like a good American. We haven't a vacancy, unless
I invent one; and it occurred to me that you must have work enough for
a second stenographer by this time."
"I'll try her."
"Thanks. One good turn deserves another. I'll tell my aunt that she
ought to ask you to dine; and then if you don't give her to understand
that her will is all wrong and should be drawn over again the fault
will be yours."
"Bankers may advertise their wares in the shop windows, but a
self-respecting lawyer may only look wise. He must hold his tongue
until he is consulted."
"Squat in his office, eh, like a spider waiting for flies? But you
ought to know my aunt all the same."
"I should like to immensely," said Gordon.
"She's not like the rest of the family; she belongs to a different
flight. My father has brains and force. It's not easy to equal him in
those. He hasn't had time though to sort his ideas and tie them up in
nice white packages with crimson bows or to polish anything except his
wits. But Aunt Miriam goes in for the perfect life. That's what she
has in her mind's eye. You would suit her to death, Don. You ought to
be pals. She's absorbed in reforms and æsthetic mission work, and she
has a fine scent for national tendencies, and there's no telling but
you might each get points from the other."