"Now mind, my boy, what you've got to do is to tell all your friends
you are out looking for a job, and they'll give you introductions.
Nothing like 'em; a friend at court, you know, and all that." This was
from one of the friends to whom I had applied for a post. The advice
was all he had to offer me.
I acted on it, and found my friends only too ready to give the
required introductions. With alacrity they minuted me on from one to
another till I felt as if "passed to you, please" had been scrawled
all over me. But I persevered, and eventually weeded out from my list
of introductions half-a-dozen that were addressed to solid men, high
up in the City, who might be counted on not to miss the chance of a
good thing. That is how in the early days of the Peace I was disposed
to regard a demobilized young officer who had worn red tabs.
The first name on my selected list was John Pountney, of the firm of
Laurence, Pountney & Co. My wife's uncle had been at school with John
Pountney's brother, who unfortunately had no connection with the firm.
But no matter; I filled up a form in the outer office--"Nature of
Business, personal"--and sent it in with my note of introduction
attached. John Pountney saw me. He did all the talking in quite an
affable manner, told me of his son's experiences in the War, deplored
the high price of petrol and his wife's difficulties in obtaining
servants, and then: "Well, let's get to business. So you would like
good employment in the City? What can you do?"
I began: "Well, Sir, when I was on the Staff----" He interrupted:
"Now, don't go on to say that you can organise;" and he shook a
finger at me playfully and was off once more with an anecdote about an
officer in his son's regiment.
Eventually I found myself being bowed out in a rather dazed condition.
Only one thing emerged at all clearly out of the whole interview; and
I took from my pocket a sheet of paper, on which I had jotted down
my most telling qualifications, and with a stub of blue pencil
regretfully but firmly biffed out item No 1, Organising Ability.
I next approached the firm of Walbrook Bros., armed with a letter
from a man who had once belonged to the same golf-club as the senior
Walbrook brother.
"I can't read your friend's name," said this magnate, "but whoever he
is he seems to think that you are the sort of man who might be useful
in my business. What can you do?" and he leaned back patiently in his
chair, finger-tips to finger-tips, but with all the appearance of one
ready to pounce at my first weak statement.
"For the best part of four years," I began, "I have been living in
France, and----"
He pounced. "Ah, French! I thought so. Now if you had said Spanish, or
even Russian ..."
He frowned as the thought crossed his mind that I might yet say either
of them. But I didn't, and he was free to expatiate on the alleged
advantages of Spanish and a sound commercial education. The end was
that I found myself once more in the street, this time erasing the
word "Languages" from my dwindling list.
And so it went on. Mr. Hall, of the firm of Copt and Basing Hall,
begged me not to speak of any capacity I might possess for controlling
men. (Item No. 3: Disciplinary Power and Habit of Command.) He himself
was able to do all the controlling that his staff would be likely to
require. Mr. Throgmorton, managing director of the firm of Capel Sons
and Threadneedle, Ltd., hoped at the outset that I would not speak of
my mathematical proficiency. Many men were inclined to make a fetish
of mathematics. He feared I might be one of them from the fact that I
had begun to speak of (item No. 4) the tabulation and co-ordination of
statistics.
After a week of this sort of thing I had acquired nothing but
experience, and my experience now gave me an idea. I drew up a new
list of important firms to which I had received no introductions
at all, and selected one which I knew was presided over by a man
of almost world-wide fame. Taking my courage and nothing else in my
hands, I entered the inquiry-office.
"Slip, please," I said briskly to the youth behind the counter, and he
handed me the customary form. Disregarding the spaces to be filled in,
I scribbled diagonally across the paper the name of the great man,
and wrote underneath: "Have called in passing, and cannot stay many
minutes."
This I signed and handed to a messenger, remarking in a hurried and
off-hand manner, "Say that, if he's engaged, I'd rather come another
day, as I don't want to miss the 12.5 to Hatfield."
I had no desire to catch it either; but Hatfield is where the great
man lives. This was my ingenious method of getting through the outer
defences, and it worked. The youth behind the counter supposed I must
be a personal friend (did I mention that I have an "air" and a power
of controlling?... Ah, yes, item No. 3), and sped the messenger on
his way. Not only so, but my message must have deceived the great one
himself, for I was admitted to the Presence immediately.
He stood before me, holding my slip in his hand, with a puzzled frown
on his face. The frown deepened as he failed to recognise me.
"You need have no fear," I said; "I have no letter of introduction."
And I smiled pleasantly at him.
His look of apprehension vanished, and I continued, unfolding my
blue-pencilled list of accomplishments:--"Listen: I am no organiser;
my knowledge of French may be dismissed as negligible (this from
the man with whom Jeanne Vincent had deigned to converse in her
own tongue!); I profess no power of controlling my fellow-men; my
mathematical ability isn't worth a rap, and, as to statistics, I
neither tabulate nor co-ordinate them with any degree of readiness."
Thereupon I bowed, with hands extended, as who should say, "You behold
me; that's the sort of man I am."