CHAPTER IX

"Gubernatorial Candidate Mobbed in Yimville."

Then followed a series of banks and subheads:

"Loses temper and offers insults to women voters! Excoriates his own profession whilst in violent temper and ridicules bench of which he is member! Admits that all he seeks is office. After amazing outburst, proving unfitness for any public trust, narrowly avoids tar and feathers and escapes. Present whereabouts unknown."

Special passages from the now famous speech were carefully selected, duly edited to makethem sound the worst, and printed in black-faced pica. Other passages in the speech were in italics. The whole plant of the newspaper had been utilized to give adequate expression to this unparalleled forensic outburst. A much garbled report "in full" was given of the wording, and as lurid yellow as was ever mixed went to make up the account of the incidents in Yimville. According to the report the mob numbered thousands and strong men of both parties wept and gnashed their teeth in their frantic craving to wreak vengeance on the orator for the insults offered to their mothers, wives, daughters, and sweethearts. Indignant women, forgetting the softness of sex, had arisen in just wrath to execute this brazen-faced apostle of mammon. Half a column was devoted to the mystery of the Judge's disappearance from the scene and it was stated that he was believed to have terrorized a boy into driving him away into the mountains, in which case, it was feared, owing to the blizzard, that unless they found refuge in some isolated farm house they might have perished. Jimmy noticed that most of the concern expressed by the newspaper was for the welfare of the boy. He was chuckling gleefullyto himself when interrupted by the return of the waiter.

"Pity they didn't get that buzzard and hang him, isn't it, sir?" he commented indignantly.

"It certainly is," agreed Jimmy.

"Not as I believe in votes for women myself," added the waiter, "but I don't believe in openly insultin' 'em in public. And think of the likes of him sayin' as all he wanted was to get elected and as if he didn't care how! Why he ought to be in that Tammany Hall gang back in New York! That's the only place in all this United States, I reckon, where folks stand for that sort of stuff. It's understood back there that all they want is a fat job and the people be damned, but people out here ain't educated up to looking at things that way. They ain't any people in the world that'd stand for what them people in New York does! I worked there one time for about three year and I know. I'll bet that galoot murdered that boy. Probably took him as far as he wanted to, then threw the poor little feller out of the sled into the snow to freeze. All that they'll ever find of that poor little kid'll be an icicle."

"I'll bet you're right!" agreed Jimmy, again,vociferously. "This paper says the Judge said some nasty things about Union Labor. I should think some of you chaps would start something on what Union Labor thinks of him and his kind."

"By jingoes! You're right about that!" the waiter declared, and then added, as if overcome by the brilliant opportunity for advertising himself, "I'm president of the local Waiters' Union, and I'll lay off this afternoon and look after that myself. We'll show them that thinks they can knock us a thing or two before we've done with 'em! Down on honest labor, is he? And he thinks he can get elected if all of us is agin' him!"

Jimmy read a column on the weather in which it was stated that the storm was the most unprecedented in twenty years and that on nearly all the branch lines, where wires were down and a snow blockade complete, conditions would have to remain as they were until traffic was restored on the main trunks; but that the railway company hoped to clear the branch lines within twenty-four hours, and that already telephone and telegraph linemen were out on snow shoes.

At four o'clock that afternoon Jimmy boardedthe train bound for the last city he would visit in the state, and attracted by the cries of a newsboy, "All about Judge Granger! Latest news from Yimville," bought a paper and settled himself down to read.

The latest advices from the scene of his latest escapade told of the return of Tim. They were published in a Republican paper which began by stating that the reports of the Judge's speech were mangled distortions of what the speaker had, in his well known eloquent manner, expressed, or deliberate lies manufactured by his enemies; that there had been no riot at all, and that neither had there been a demonstration save a small uproar created by a branch of the Militant Suffragettes, headed by that modern prototype of Carrie Nation and her hatchet, the state leader of that body, whose previous records of disturbances were sufficient in themselves to convince all thoughtful-minded women, as well as men, that probably the speaker was justified in whatever he had said to this professional heckler. Furthermore, as evidence of the depths to which a totally unscrupulous and irresponsible press could descend in its efforts to ridicule a great leader, the whole story of flight was,from the beginning to end, a malicious controversion of fact. This was proven by the statement of the driver, Timothy Jones, who had that morning returned to Yimville. The driver was known as completely trustworthy and honest, and, furthermore, his statements were fully corroborated by his employer, Mr. Wade, general manager of the Emporium, one of the most prominent business men in that part of the state.

Judge Granger, after making a most eloquent, lucid, and brilliant speech which had been unduly prolonged by his patience in replying to questions addressed by the disturbing element, had found his time for boarding the regular train so curtailed that he had but a few minutes in which to reach the station. He had very courteously asked young Jones if he could drive him thither, there having been an unfortunate lack of foresight in providing an equipage for his return. Jones drove him to the station, where, to the Judge's distress, he learned that, owing to the storm, there would be no train through for an indefinite time. Having other highly important engagements, he found it necessary to drive to Mountain City, where hecould be more certain of catching a train near midnight.

"All those who are familiar with the great punctiliousness and responsibility of Judge Woodworth-Granger will therefore not be surprised to learn that, despite all the fatigues of the day, and the hardships of such traveling, he courageously braved the blizzard, fearless in his sense of duty to be performed. That he made such a difficult night drive merely to keep his pledged word and engagements, when others might have quailed, or accepted the storm as sufficient excuse for remaining comfortably in shelter, is in itself a sufficient tribute to the sterling worth of this distinguished man's character. He must have inherited from those ancesters of his, who with bleeding feet trudged through the snows of Valley Forge, some of that patriotism and high fealty to duty which has ever been the stamp of the true American. This courageous self-sacrifice to public duty alone is sufficient evidence that he is the man to guide the destinies of one of the greatest states in the Union, and those who are to meet in convention for the choice of a leader will do well to reflect upon what must be considered as a sterlingachievement bespeaking the character of this honored and distinguished jurist who has somewhat reluctantly yielded to the demands of his fellow citizens. Those who mendaciously accused him of office seeking, should hide their heads for shame. Failing to find a single flaw in the private, public, or professional life of this distinguished man, his political enemies now seek by ridicule and innuendo to attack him. To such depths as these has the Democratic party in this state fallen. Had there ever been the slightest doubt that the Hon. J. Woodworth-Granger will be the nominee for governor of this state, it is now dissipated by the scurrilous attack made upon him—an attack of desperation that must and shall inevitably bring its own reward. Verily a man is known by the enemies he makes!"

After reading this editorial Jimmy reverted to the news page where the faithful Tim's defense was given. It was eulogistic. It was colorful. It told of the vicissitudes of the trip, although it neglected to mention the episode of losing their way and what was said by the farmer's wife. Jimmy thought that either Tim or the reporter who wrote the alleged interviewhad shown tact in that suppression. But it was beautifully written! There was no doubt of that. Stinging sleets, biting winds, desperately fatigued horses, valiant and persistent battles with snow drifts, icy cold temperatures and everything pertaining to heroism in the Arctics were there.

"Tim and I have got Scott, Peary and Admunsen all looking like a lot of pikers!" thought Jimmy as he read. "If the fellow who wrote this can write stuff as warm, comforting and appetizing on chocolates as he can about coldness, courage and cramps on that trip to Mountain City, he'll make a world-beater in the advertising line! He's a whirlwind—no—a cyclone—when it comes to throwing the guff."

The interview told of the great man's magnanimity and generosity. Not even his solicitude for old Bill's comfort was overlooked. In fact the great man wouldn't trust the hostler, but fed Bill bran mash with a spoon. The suit of clothes he bought "Mister Timothy Jones" was lined with silk. The underwear might have been of red gold instead of red flannel. Thus did a brave man reward those who served him in time of stress. It even intimated that TimothyJones might retire for life on his monetary rewards.

It was the next day at luncheon when the cheerful James was given reason to think less happily of his exploit, and to wonder what happened to a worm that turned once too often. The newspapers contained the statements that the wires were now open to Princetown and that in that flourishing city dwelt a man whose feelings were outraged, who was indignant, who asserted he had not been in Yimville on the day of the speech, in fact had never in his life made a speech in Yimville, and that if he had made a speech in Yimville he most certainly would not—never, never, never—have expressed the sentiments so brazenly attributed to him. He was an office seeker in the interests of public rather than personal welfare, and for no other reason. He had yielded to the overwhelming petitions of his friends, indeed, not without considerable pain. And then Jimmy read something that for the first time caused him to appreciate the possible grave consequences of his ebullient imposture:

"'I am not at the moment in a position to make any definite and specific charges,' his Honor told the representative of theMorning Star: 'but I have certain well-defined grounds for believing that the citizens of Yimville, for whom I have the most profound respect and admiration, knowing that they include some of the most intellectual and patriotic ladies and gentlemen in the whole of the United States, have been imposed upon by an individual who (I have been told) faintly resembles me as far as personal appearance is involved. Yet how this person, who is, I regret to say, but a common, vulgar ignoramus, could have the barefaced effrontery to address an intelligent audience either in his own or an assumed character, I can not comprehend. Needless to say I shall at once take steps to learn the truth, and the impostor shall be made to suffer the extreme penalties of the law providing for the punishment of such flagrant acts against the public and private welfare of duly constituted citizens. The world must be made safe for Democracy. Those who are guilty of lack of observance for those common and well-defined and closely stipulated rules that govern the intercourse existing between individuals or those collections of individuals which are in turn by mutual consent formed into committies, must hereafter be consistently regulated by those able to dictate either by force of arms or the divine influence of reason, until they can no longer prove a menace to the rules governing, by consent of the governed and the voice of the governed, human relations in general, in particular, and in private.'"

Jimmy pondered over the last sentence a long time.

"I suppose he means 'The guilty shall be punished,'" he said, and then added, admiringly, "By gosh! If he were a Democrat he'd be president of the United States yet. He surely would! He can use more words to say less than any other man living, and, come to think of it, he has the greatest assets of stupidity, which are pompous silence, and a patronizing grin. The art of so obfuscating his expression with words that neither his friends nor his enemies can come to any positive conclusion as to what he means. But if I'm not mistaken, this same J. Woodworth-Granger, Judge by election, is after the scalp of one James Gollop, drummer for a living, and—humph!—wonder when the next trainleaves that will take me out of this state's jurisdiction? It seems to me, Jim, that you should be on your way. Good Lord! Some men can never take a joke! The idea of raising such a fuss over a little thing like that!"

And, so potent was his increasing apprehension, Mr. James Gollop did not actually smile again until seven-thirty that evening, when he received a reply to a question addressed to the conductor of the eastbound train.

"Are we over the state line yet?" was the question asked.

"By about thirty miles, I should reckon," was the reply.

"Thank heaven for that!" said Mr. Gollop, resuming a placid mental attitude, and the celebrated Gollop grin. "It's a wise man who knows where he's not welcome. Both celebrity and notoriety are distinctions to be shunned. A mud-cat is the most secure of all fish because nobody wishes to either catch and eat, or play with and caress him. His sole virtue is his obscurity, the sharpness of his bones his only protection. I'd rather be a catfish than a salmon after all!"

And the conductor, passing on his way with his nickel-plated lantern deftly anchored by hisarm and his nickel-plated punch industriously working in his hand, mumbled, "Happy man! He's got just what he wants. Wish I was general passenger agent of this line. I'm not a catfish because I want to be one. He seems to be—just that!"

Jimmy retired to the smoking compartment in the Pullman and sat down to think it all over. It had but one other occupant, a huge man with heavy shoulders who lowered the paper he had been reading and looked at Jimmy through a pair of clear, gray, appraising eyes that conveyed such a sense of directness as to slightly disconcert one with a guilty conscience.

"Great Scott!" thought Jimmy. "Hope he's not a sheriff or a United States marshal looking for me," and then indulged in an inward smile at the absurdity of his being of sufficient importance to have a federal officer on his trail. He seated himself and took a furtive glance at the man's face. It was a distinctly attractive face, due to its marked indications of character. It expressed not only firmness and intelligence but a sense of humor. Jimmy decided that this individual should appreciate a joke and wondered who he was.

"Funny old chap," he thought. "Might be a banker, but I think he's a drummer. Wonder who he's out for? Somehow he's mighty familiar; but surely I'd never forget an old Trojan like that. Maybe I've met him sometime, and he's got all that gray around his temples since then. Gray hairs do make a difference."

He was still puzzling over this lost identity when the man laid the newspaper to one side, lighted a fresh cigar and, turning toward Jimmy, said, "Funny about that affair over in Yimville, isn't it? Have you read about it?"

Jimmy had to look away lest the twinkle in his eyes betray him, and then decided his best policy would be to take it with a laugh. A laugh he decided was the most disarming of human manifestations. He emitted one.

"Yes, I read about it in the papers yesterday and to-day. That fellow at Yimville does seem to have kicked up an amusing controversy. One set of papers says he was mobbed, and the other that he made a hit. But—pshaw!—of course it has no effect whatever on Judge Granger's chances for the nomination! Tempest in a child's teapot that will last about as long."

"Perhaps! I'm not to sure about that. Moreover, I'm not so certain that Granger, unmolested, could have got the nomination. He would have been up against a good stiff fight. I understand that he's a trifle too self-satisfied to be a very popular candidate. Nothing hurts a man with a swelled head like ridicule. Ridicule will trim men that can't be touched with any other weapon under the sun. And—" he chuckled as if amused—"the whole state has something to laugh over now, whether he made that speech, or whether he didn't!"

The man looked out of the window for a moment and then, as if no longer interested in the Yimville episode, inquired, "Didn't I see you getting some sample cases aboard the train? What's your line?"

"Chocolates. Columbus Chocolate Co. of New York. Are you on the road?"

"Well, not exactly. I'm in water power plants at present."

"Something I don't know much about," said Jimmy. "But I wish I did. Mighty interesting. In fact I never took the trouble to look one over until a little while ago."

"Where was that?" inquired the man.

"Up at a place called Princetown. Goodwater power there. Big plant, I suppose you would call it."

"Yes, I suppose they have good power up there. I have heard so," said the man, inspecting the ash of his cigar as if interested in how long it would last without breaking. "Let's see—automobile factory there, isn't there?"

"Yes. Sayers Automobile Company. Fine cars, too, but unknown except out here. At least I should say so. That's the trouble with half the enterprises in the country. They can make first class articles but they can't sell them. Sometimes I think we Americans aren't such good hustlers after all. We've got the reputation in Europe, I am told, of blowing about our stuff; but I'm not certain that we do. If I were a manufacturer, I'd not make anything that wasn't the best I could make. I'd put everything I knew and everything I could learn into whatever I made. I'd not have a man work for me fifteen minutes if he didn't believe that it was the best thing of its kind on earth. And then I'd know that when that man went out and talked about my line of goods, whether he was a salesman or not, he'd swear that it was the best on earth."

The man smiled, "In other words, even your workmen blowing, eh?"

"I don't think it's blowing to say what you honestly believe about your line. When a man is absolutely convinced that he is offering the very best thing on the market and gets hot under the collar if anybody questions it, he becomes a good salesman. He never can be that unless he is honestly positive that he is talking truth. Telling the truth isn't boasting. It's the way to sell goods. Blowing means ignorance or lying. A man can not lie about anything he has to sell—if it's nothing bigger than hairpins—and get away with it very long. I never lie about my line—never! I really believe that some of our stuff is the best of its kind made. I say so. I honestly admit it when some other house brings out a certain line that beats ours, and then I hustle back home and put on my spurs, and get out my hammer, and try to get my firm to see it, and to meet the new stuff and if possible to go it one better."

Jimmy had forgotten all about Yimville, now that he was expatiating on a pet hobby of his. Evidently, too, Yimville had passed from themind of his companion, who seemed pondering over salesmanship.

"But—but how would it be applicable to power plants?" he demanded.

"I don't know," admitted Jim, "but the principle is the same for chocolates, or power plants or—automobiles. That's what started me off—those Sayers automobiles. I never heard about that car until I saw one in the street. I don't know anything about them. But the one I saw looked so pretty that I talked with the man who owned it, and he was in love with the thing. So, because I never heard of it, and no one else seemed to have done so, it proves that there's something wrong with the Sayers selling organization. They haven't handled their capital right, because every dollar invested in advertising is a dollar in the value of the plant—in that intangible asset called 'goodwill,' without which neither a house nor a man can succeed."

"Young man," said his companion, "you are in the wrong line. You ought to be selling advertising space. I told you I was in power plants but—I'm in some other things as well.Did you ever solicit advertising contracts for any first class advertising firm?"

"I never did," admitted Jimmy, "But I have given some advice about advertising that has paid the purchasers. And I've pondered over sales organization for years. I tell you—it's a science! If ever I get a chance to test these theories of mine—I'll——" He paused as if ashamed of his serious enthusiasm, and as usual, derided them—"I'll probably fail!"

"Why deride yourself?" queried the man, regarding Jim with grave and interested eyes. "If sales organization is a hobby of yours, why not ride it? Evidently you've thought about it somewhat. What is wrong with the average sales organization? Where does it fail? What improvements can you suggest in prevalent methods? Have you thought of anything new and original to improve them? If so, I'd like to hear about it, because I'm one of those who are never too old to learn."

Jimmy accepted and launched into his argument with all the vim of an enthusiast discussing a subject to which he had given thought.

"Have you got one of your personal cardswith you? Hope you don't think I'm impertinent," said the man, after Jimmy had run down.

Jimmy laughed and gave him the card and while he wondered what was coming next, his companion carefully slipped it into his pocketbook.

"If ever you decide to get out of chocolates," he said, thoughtfully, "you might call on me—or—let's see! Here!" He took another card from his pocket just as the train came to a stop and the porter came hurrying in and shouted, "Sorry, sah! Done forgot to call you sooner. Corinth!"

Both Jim and his fellow traveler jumped to their feet and hastened out. Jimmy saw that the card was that of "Mr. Charles W. Martin, Suites 105-7-9-11 Z, Flat Iron Bldg., New York. Specialist in everything pertaining to power plants."

Out on the platform Martin asked, "Where do you stop here in Corinth, Mr. Gollop?"

"At the City Hotel," said Jimmy. "Good sample rooms there. Good grub. Good beds."

"I think I'll go there, too," said Martin, and together they entered the hotel bus and were driven away.

As usual Jimmy was welcomed by his first name, and informed that there was some mail there for him. When he looked around from its perusal Martin had disappeared and he did not meet him again until he was seated in a corner of the restaurant alone, when a voice behind him said, "Hope you don't mind if I join you, Mr. Gollop," and looked up to see his traveling companion.

"Not at all, Mr. Martin," he replied. "Always glad to have good company. I'm a sociable sort of cuss myself. I detest traveling alone, eating alone, or loafing alone. I suppose I'm gregarious."

A troubled, thoughtful shadow chased itself over the elder man's face, as he said, with a half-sigh, "I understand. It's not good for a man to be alone. And the older he becomes, the more he feels lonesomeness, and the more he wants—home!"

The word was the magic one for Jimmy. Somehow that word always moved him and brought out his great undercurrent.

"Why, do you know," he said, leaning across the table with shining eyes, "if I didn't have a home to go to, always, after I've made my round,I'd be like a horse that had been robbed of his stall? I live for it! I work for it! I look forward to it all the time! But you see, I'm different than most men. Luckier, I think, because my mother's there! And if I didn't have a thing in the world but her, I'd be rich. And if I had everything else but her, I'd be poor! I'm mighty proud of my home and my mother. I shall be leaving here for home to-morrow afternoon," continued Jimmy. "After I've hustled around and seen about a dozen customers. Being a drummer and having a craze for home, are two pretty tough propositions to combine. But—what would home be without chocolates? Why, do you know, I don't think I'd have been able to have a home at all without 'em! By chocolates Maw and I live or die. Funny, isn't it, that if there was an earthquake that wiped a spot off the maps and hurt me when I read about it, I'd keep going on just about the same; but if everybody stopped eating chocolates, I'd be wiped off the map, and I reckon the world would be going on just the same? Sometimes I think every man's world is the smallest thing there is because it's bounded only by his own happiness or tragedy. He's just one of billions,but if his pet dog dies, he's astonished because the universe isn't covered with gloom and probably he's the only one that's sorry about the dog, or that even knows the dog has croaked. Maybe somebody else hears about it and is glad—the chap that the dog bit the week before he went to dog-heaven. But—anyhow—I'm bound for home to-morrow. Back to Baltimore, as the song goes."

"Baltimore?" said Martin. "That's a coincidence! I go to Baltimore myself to-morrow. Struthers people. Know them? Make tools of precision."

"Everybody in Baltimore knows of them," declared Jim with full civic pride.

"I shall take the two-thirty train," said Martin. "Maybe we shall travel together."

"That's the one I take," said Jim. "Match you to see who engages berths for both of us."

"I'll gladly engage one for you without matching," declared Martin, a proffer which Jim immediately accepted.

They lounged together that evening, and the more Jimmy knew of Martin, the better he liked him. There was something homely and sane about the man that appealed to him. For a timehe kept subconsciously questioning why he maintained a peculiar feeling that this was not the first time they had met; yet this sense of unrest was dissipated by the respect he had formed for him, quite unaccountably. He was, indeed, surprised with himself for his liking when he realized how satisfactory it was to have Martin sharing his journey on the following day. In his perpetual journeyings he had met many men who were congenial, men of the goodfellow type, but here was a man who had but little of the customary "goodfellow" attributes and habits, and who yet won his regard. There was the disparity of ages, the contrast of taciturnity with free expression, and a large lack of mutual experience; but somehow all these barriers were not supervened to the detriment of their fellowship. Jim felt as if he were with an acquaintance—most friendly too—of years standing, long before they arrived at Baltimore.

"Perhaps you can recommend me to a good hotel," said Martin, as they neared their destination. "I've never stopped in Baltimore. In fact, I'm a total stranger there."

"Why stop at a hotel at all?" suggested Jimmy, generously. "Why not come out andput up with me? My mother's the finest there is! We're pretty plain people, but it ought to beat being in a hotel. I'll have three days home this time, and I'll show you down to Struthers' place, and—by jingoes!—you shall be introduced to big Bill, my pet tree, in his winter clothes, and if I can't make you believe in Maryland hospitality, it won't be my fault."

Martin accepted as directly as he appeared to decide everything. And the beauty of it was that Mrs. Gollop, who shared her son's hospitable nature, accepted and made welcome the guest that Jimmy brought home as if she were thoroughly accustomed to her son's unconventional methods.

"Does he always bring strangers home like this?" asked Martin, with a faint smile, on the second day of his visit after Jim's mother had been eloquently expatiating on Jim's idiosyncrasies and virtues during the latter's temporary absence.

"You never can tell what Jimmy will do," she replied with a laugh, and then thoughtfully stared through her window into the street. "But I am always certain that he will do the honest, decent, and generous action. He laughs his waythrough the world, but in the laugh is never malice nor cruelty. His sole failing is that he cannot resist a joke. He has always been so. His sense of the ridiculous is absurdly out of proportion to his serious side. I used to feel hopeless for his future because he laughed so much; but now I know the difference. One may still laugh and be loyal in all things. He has no false ideas or unattainable ambitions. He has no false pride. He believes in doing his best in all things. He is sorry for those who are unfortunate, and unenvious of those who have succeeded. He is sincere, and he is unassuming, a good friend, and a tolerant enemy. His tastes are simple, his pleasures homely."

She stopped, flushed and, added, "But I boast too much! Yet I can't help it because—well—because there has never been such a son as mine, and I'm not ashamed to feel proud of him!"

But Mr. Martin was now looking out of the window, and, Mr. Martin did not smile.

At the end of three days, Mr. Martin, professing much gratitude and pleasure for the hospitality shown him, departed for the South. At the end of four days, Mr. Gollop, making the excuse of urgent business, entrained for New York. Not that Mr. Gollop, having regard for theexpressio falsias compared with thesuppressio veri, was strictly a prevaricator or that he told the exact truth, because he had slipped four whole days up his sleeve for his own entertainment; four whole days in which he had not the slightest intention of visiting his firm; four whole days that he intended to devote to art research, and exploration—exploration of a wilderness known as MacDougall Alley. So accurately did he time his movements that he invaded MacDougall Alley at just eleven a.m., which he considered a proper hour to find an aspiring artist at work while the light was most perfect and amenable. He was not disappointed,which he regarded as proof of acumen; but he was surprised by his surroundings. No bare-walled studio, this, but a rather luxurious place. With a real rug on the floor, and real chairs to sit upon, and a cosy seat, and electric lights instead of bare boards, benches, charcoal brazier and tallow dips stuck in the necks of bottles blown for better contents.

"See here! What troubles you, Bill Jones? Have I done anything you didn't like?" demanded Mary Allen, as she extricated her thumb from the hole of a palette on which oil paints proved that she had forsaken for the moment her love of water colors.

"Why—why—I don't understand!" exclaimed Jimmy, helplessly.

"Don't understand? I thought you promised to write?"

"I did," admitted Jimmy; "but, you see, I was so busy and there were so many people to talk to in my most seductive manner, and there were so many things to be done, including people, that I clean overlooked it! I did! I confess. But—I'm going to be here now at least a week," he added hopefully, and not without insinuation.

"Hope you enjoy your visit," she said, andadded rather maliciously, "I am entirely engrossed in my work—this week."

He stared at her with a face as frankly dejected as that of a hurt boy; then, his ever-present bouyancy reasserting itself, queried, "That's good. By the way, do you ever use models?"

"Of course," she replied.

"Well, I've got nothing to do this week," he replied enthusiastically. "I'll sit for you as a study in Disappointment, Flat-busted, or Return from the Races. The title doesn't matter, because I'll be such an excellent study for any sort of man whose hopes have all been knocked flatter than a pancake."

"I know you can be gloomy enough when you wish to be," she said, relenting a trifle; "but you're the first man I ever had promise to write me a letter that I admitted I should welcome, and then had the impudence to forget me. The one thing a woman can't forget is to be forgotten."

Jimmy felt decidedly perturbed by this statement. He wondered what she would say if he boldly admitted that he had in reality forgotten her very name and where she came from, andthen followed it with a confession that since the first day he had met her in New York some months ago, he had made amends by thinking of her continuously throughout his spare time. But he did not dare. He feared banishment, and that, he concluded, desperately, would be worse than death. Something of his mental distress must have been observable, for the girl suddenly relented, smiled a trifle and then said, "Well, perhaps I can indulge myself—not you, understand?—by going somewhere."

She regained her palette, and turned toward her easel with a businesslike air, quite as if she were a painter for a livelihood, and said, "Now suppose you run along and let me work. You can come back here for me at—say—one o'clock, and take me to luncheon; that is—if you're not too busy!"

And Jimmy, transported with delight, made a vast pretense of business and hastened away, lest she change her mind. He had the wisdom to let well enough alone, and knew that time is the best medicine for annoyance. But he was there in MacDougall Alley,—just the same—with marvelous punctuality.

And there can be no question that he was amaster host when it came to luncheons, dinners, suppers, or midnight lunch counters. With him it was an art, cultivated to the highest point of efficiency. Moreover, timorous and fearful lest he blunderingly lose his advantages, he did not press his suit too far and, as a result, Mary Allen forgot his seeming neglect. There was but one embarrassing moment when, after a moment's silence she said, "Do tell me, is there anything at all new down home? Dad is so uncommunicative that he never has much to say about the town itself, and everyone else is too busy to write me."

"Nothing new that I noticed when I was there last," said Jimmy. "Of course, being on the road all the time I'm—well—I'm so busy that—ummmh! Isn't that our waiter? Some of those pears over there on that other table look good enough to eat and—wish we could get some strawberries! Do you like hot-house grapes?"

He might have gone through an entire horticultural catalogue, had not his roving eyes at that moment suddenly been arrested by something that caused them to open widely and fix themselves. The something was a keen-looking man seated at another table who was glaring attime with a steady and highly interrogative look. For once Mr. James Gollop's cheery self-confidence deserted him and he was highly distressed; for the keen-faced man happened to be his employer and his employer up to that moment believed one James Gollop was out on the road some hundred or so miles from New York looking after the interests of the Columbus Chocolate Company. Jimmy recovered sufficiently to bow and the bow was somewhat frigidly acknowledged. Jimmy's wits worked fast—very fast.

"Pardon me, won't you please," he addressed Mary Allen; "but there is a man sitting over there to whom I wish to speak for just an instant. Got to make an appointment with him, and this is opportune."

"Certainly," replied the lady, and Jimmy got up, crossed to his employer, and without giving the latter a chance to say anything, thrust out his hand and said, "Howdydo, Mr. Falkner. Howdydo! Got in off the run early this trip and was coming down to see you as soon as I had lunch."

"Oh, you were, were you?" dryly remarked his "boss," and the unhappy Jimmy distinguished a tone of sarcasm. "Very kind of you, I'm sure.We've been wanting to hear from you for several days. I'll expect you at just three o'clock this afternoon."

Stunned by this unusual lack of cordiality, Jim said, "Very well, sir, I'll be there," and with as much dignity as he could command, turned and walked back to his table, but wondered heavily, what on earth he had done; what was wrong; whether some prominent customer had gone bankrupt or if Falkner merely had a grouch.

"I thought you went to see a friend, but you look as if you had been talking with an undertaker," commented his guest.

"And that's just the way I feel about it," admitted Jimmy. "Because I've got to meet him at three o'clock this afternoon, and I had anticipated the pleasure of going somewhere with you."

"The mean old thing!" she exclaimed, impulsively, and Jimmy's heart bumped at the knowledge that she, too, was disappointed.

"But," he suggested, hopefully, "if I called for you at the studio at about six o'clock couldn't we dine together?"

And when she accepted his invitation withunconcealed enthusiasm, his spirits again soared and he forgot even the baleful presence of Falkner for a time, and when he did remember him, discovered that his "kill joy" had gone.

Promptly at three o'clock he breezed into his firm's offices with all habitual cheeriness, exchanged a swift run of badinage with those he met, and was ushered into the manager's office. Falkner did not meet him with the customary smile of welcome.

"Well," he said, "you seem to have raised a devil of a row out West, and if you can offer any explanation at all for such conduct I'm prepared to listen to it before we go any further. If you think that's the kind of advertising a reputable firm wants you're about as poor a guesser as ever traveled on a mileage book."

"Why—why—what's up?" blurted Jimmy.

"What's up? You've got a nerve to ask that!" roared the manager, banging his fist on the top of his desk. "Here, look at these!"

He handed Jim a small sheaf of sheets consisting of letters and telegrams. The first was from a jobbing firm:

"Cancel order given your man Gollop. Sorry, but entire board of directors are Republican and resent Yimville affair."

A second was from another firm which had been one of Jim's best customers and read:

"Advise Gollop not to make this territory again until Yimville affair blows over. Granger's supporters buzzing like live hornets."

A more portentous looking document bearing the heading of the "State Republican Committee Headquarters" bore the concise statement that unless an immediate, full, and public apology was forthcoming from one James Gollop for impersonating the Hon. J. Woodworth-Granger at an important political meeting in the city of Yimville were not immediately forthcoming, legal action would be taken for damages, on the ground of misrepresentation, false pretense and willful intent to damage the reputation and political career of one of the most distinguished men in the state. Another letter was a round robin, signed by several firms, demanding the immediate discharge of "that contemptible practical joker, James Gollop," and stillanother was from no less person that the Judge of the Fourth District Court, in which what was said of the same James Gollop was enough to wither that unfortunate individual. Someone had sent a stack of newspaper clippings three inches in thickness, from which Jimmy gathered that it had taken but a day or two to pick up his trail and expose him beyond all possible dispute.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy, aghast, and wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead. "I didn't have any idea of kicking up such a fuss as that. I just blundered into a chance to have some fun with that pompous old rooster that hated me because we looked so much alike and——" In the midst of all his woes he could not suppress a laugh of amusement.

"So you still think it's a joke, do you?" snorted the irate manager, exasperated by this further evidence of irresponsibility. "Well, you'll not think so any longer. I'll attend to that. You turn your samples in and go to the cashier with your expense account. You're fired! Maybe you can understand that! Fired! F-I-R-E-D!"

"You needn't have troubled to spell it out," remonstrated Jimmy. "I get you. But—hang it all, man!—you might at least put me into somenew territory. I didn't mean anything by it. I'll admit I was a chump; but I can sell stuff, and you know it."

He stopped and stared at the floor with a face so frankly troubled and perplexed that the manager for the moment forgot his wrath. The boy in Jimmy Gollop was never more manifest than at that moment. There was something very appealing about him that Falkner could not fail to discern.

"Jimmy," he said, gravely, "I'm sorry, but it has to be done. What on earth made you such a fool? You must have been crazy!"

"I sort of reckon I must have been," admitted Jimmy, dolefully. "But—honestly!—I didn't mean to do any real damage to that old stiff Granger, and certainly not to the firm. The firm? Why Mr. Falkner, I've stuck up for it for nearly ten years because it has treated me white, and because it's an honest firm that makes honest goods. But—well—all I can do is to square matters up as best I can. You people have been very good to me. Very good and very kind. I've drawn your money and,—prospered, and so I'll write the public apology or confession, or whatever you call it, that those chapsout there demand, and take all the blame. And I'll write to every customer that has communicated with you and tell 'em that, although I'm out and gone, the orders were solicited in good faith and that it's not fair to make you suffer for that fool joke of mine. I'm done with jokes of all sorts from now on. I'll do anything except this—I'll not write one word of apology to that man Granger!"

Falkner looked out of the window as if troubled, and then said, with a sigh of regret, "Well, Jim, I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. You're the best man we ever had out, and—by Jove!—I'll put that into writing so you can have something to show, and you can use me personally as a reference when you strike someone else for territory. But, mind you, I shall have to tell them confidentially the reasons why we had to let you go."

"Of course! That's only fair," said Jimmy, his sober common sense impelling him to this admission.

"And—when this tempest blows by, you can have any other territory that comes open, Jim," volunteered Falkner; "that is—provided thatyou cut the jokes out. Surely you've had fun enough by now to last you a lifetime!"

"I have! I have!" assented Jimmy lugubriously. "I've played the biggest joke of all on myself. By heck! I've joked myself out of my own job, and that's the limit. Joe Miller never did that and Mark Twain, Josh Billings, Bill Nye and George Ade, none of 'em ever reached that height of humor. The only difference between us is that they got cash for their jokes, whereas all the pay I get is the boot and the chance to go yelping down the street with a washboiler tied to my tail. Well, if a fellow puts grease on the front door steps he shouldn't squeal if he forgets and falls down himself."

It was not until he stood outside the main entrance to the building that he had a full sense of homelessness. It was not until then that he knew what it meant to be without anchorage. It seemed to him that all of those who hurried past in the winter's twilight had something to do and that he alone was adrift. He alone had dipped into the depths of folly and he alone had proved irresponsible. And his employment just then meant much to him. Subconsciously, he had builded with such confidence. He was nowaware that he had based all upon a permanency of income that he had conceived to be fixed. His home, his mother's contentment, his dreams of winning life companionship with the only girl he had ever loved, seemed to have depended upon the employment he had lost. And now all was gone! Swept away. He was a most forlorn and melancholy optimist as he stood there in the early twilight of winter, confusedly considering his position.

"Well," he thought at last, "they can't keep a good man down," and then after a moment's further reflection added, "But they can give him an awful wallop!"

The staring eye of an illuminated clock reminded him that MacDougall Alley was some distance away and he suffered a peculiar mixture of sadness and gladness as he began his journey. It seemed to him that he was a different person from the James Gollop who had happily invaded MacDougall's artistic precincts that morning from the James Gollop who was now disconsolately making his way thither. That Gollop of the morning had been happy and bright because he had a job; but this Gollop of the evening, jobless, and with a black markagainst him that was too notorious to escape the amused attention of all possible employers in his line, was but a sad dog. It required conscious mental effort on his part to assume a cheerful demeanor when he climbed the studio stairs. He wished that he dared tell the "Candy Girl" all about it, but decided that it would be ungenerous to bother anyone else with his woes, and any indecision in this regard was ended before the evening was over because she was so frankly and unaffectedly happy that he hadn't the heart to say anything that might possibly mar it. Yet, even whilst they sat in a theater listening to a most cheerful musical comedy the sober and responsible side of his mind was weighing necessities. The first of these, he knew, must be economies; for he anticipated that it might be a considerable time before he could again be earning an income, and there was always the little home down in Baltimore and its occupant to be considered first, and his own pleasures must be relegated to a secondary place. He was therefore rather heart-broken, but firm in his final explanation that night as he parted from her in front of the Martha Putnam Hotel.

"That business session I had this afternoon,"he said, trying to keep his voice from betraying his trouble, "has unfortunately upset all my plans. I can't have that little four days vacation I had been planning."

"What? How horrid!" exclaimed the girl. "I—I thought we were to——"

Her disappointment and distress were so manifest that Mr. James Gollop had a first-class fight with himself to keep from blurting out the truth there in the hotel rotunda and telling her that on the next morning he was starting on what promised to be a long hunt for employment. But he escaped such confession by saying that he had great hopes of returning to New York within a few days. In fact he actually predicted that it would be so. And after all, the only lie he told was embodied in that word "Return."

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 hepassed, 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 inthe 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 andsaid, "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 manhe 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, andthen 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 someother 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 wouldappreciate 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 showhim 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 thankyou—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!"

Back to Index Next