XXXIVTHE MAN WITHOUT A WATCH
T
Thomas Morley knew the value of promptitude. He was a young man on whom ninety-two seasons had poured benefits and adversities, although many of the latter he took to be the former, his temperament shedding sorrow as a duck does water, to use a castanean simile.
He was a born and bred New-Yorker, but at the time of which we write he had been living for the last ten or twelve months in Uxton, up among the hills of northwestern Connecticut, studying the natives; for he was a writer.
Having filled a portfolio with material for enough dialect stories to run one of the great magazines for a year, he determined to seek his matter in the metropolis, and to that end applied for a reportership on the New York “Courier-Journal,” in which paper many of his brightest things had appeared at remunerative rates.
As has been said, he knew the value of promptitude, so when, at eight o’clock one night, Farmer Phelps’s hired man handed him a letter from James Fitzgerald, managing editor of the “Courier-Journal,” asking him to come and see him in regard to a reportership as soon as possible, he made up his mind to take the train which left Winsonia, four miles distant, at six o’clock next morning. This would enable him to reach the office by half-past ten, and probably catch Mr. Fitzgerald on his arrival at his desk.
Next morning he arose at four, and when he left the house he had sixty minutes in which to walk four miles downhill—ample time, surely.
It was so ample that he would have had fifteen minutes to spare if the home clock had been right. As it was, he arrived at the station in time to see the train rapidlydisappearing around a curve, on its way to New York. He laughed good-naturedly with the baggageman, and asked him when the next down train was due.
“Seven-thirty, sharp. You’ll not have to wait long.”
Seven-thirty. That would bring him into the presence of Mr. Fitzgerald at just about the time he arrived at his sanctum. “Better than to have to wait in a presumably stuffy room,” said he to himself, philosophically. He lit a cigar, and, as the air was bracing and he was fond of walking, he struck out into a five-mile-an-hour gait down the main street of Winsonia.
His footsteps led him farther than he had intended going, and when he reached the Baptist church at East Winsonia, he saw by its clock that it lacked but forty minutes of train-time, and he had four miles to make. He threw away the stump of his cigar, which had been out for some time, broke into a jog-trot, and, after covering a mile, he caught his second wind and mended his pace.
His fleetness would have served its turn had not a malicious breeze blown his hat over a high iron fence that surrounded a churchyard. By the time he had climbed the fence and recovered his hat he had consumed so many precious minutes that, although he sprinted the last mile, he arrived at the station only in time to see train No. 2 disappearing around that hateful curve.
The baggageman was standing on the platform, and he said:
“Ain’t once enough?”
“More than enough for most people,” said Thomas, whose rare good nature was proof against even such a remark at such a time.
The next train for New York was due at nine fifty-six. Being somewhat blown, he walked around the corner to a billiard-room, meaning to sit down and watch whatever game might be in progress.
“It may be,” soliloquized Thomas, “that Fitzgerald won’t reach the office until after lunch, and I’ll get there athalf-past two, in time to see him when he’s feeling good.”
He met Ned Halloway at the billiard-room, and when Ned asked him to take a cue he consented. Billiards was a game in which he was apt to lose—himself, at any rate; yet to-day his mind was enough on the alert to enable him, after a time, to glance at the clock over the bar in the next room. It was forty-five minutes past eight.
They began another game. Later he looked again at the clock. A quarter of nine. After another game he looked up once more. “Fifteen minutes to ni—. Say, Ned, what’s the matter with that clock?” Ned looked at it, then at his watch. “Why, it’s stopped!”
“You settle—see you later.” And Thomas was gone like a shot.
This time he had the rare pleasure of noting how the rear car of a train grows rapidly smaller as it recedes. In a moment the train disappeared around the curve before mentioned.
“Say, Mr. Morley, you’ve time to missthe next, easy,” said the baggageman, dryly.
Thomas was vexed, but he said pleasantly: “When is it due?”
“Half-past two. Better wait here and make sure of it.”
“Oh, dry up! No; do the other thing; it’s on me.”
After this little duty had been performed, Thomas, with an irrelevancy of action that might have struck an observer as amusing, made his way to the Y.M.C.A. rooms to read the magazines.
“Let’s see,” said he; “I’ll get to his desk at seven. He’ll be hard at work, and, if he engages me, he may send me out on an assignment at once. Glad I missed the other trains.”
Thus was Thomas wont to soliloquize. At one o’clock he went to Conley’s Inn, and sat down to one of those dinners that attract drummers to a hotel. Necessarily, then, it was a good dinner, and one over which he lingered until nearly two. Then he went into the office and sat down.
The room was warm, and his dinner had made him drowsy. He decided to take a little nap. He had the faculty of waking when he pleased, and he willed to do so at fifteen minutes past two. It would be weakness for him to get to the station with too much time to spare, but this would give him a quarter-hour in which to go a half-mile.
His awakening faculty would seem to have been slightly out of order that day, however, and he did not arouse until twenty-nine minutes past two by the hotel clock.
Of course he did not make a fool of himself by trying to do a half-mile in sixty seconds; but he walked leisurely toward the station, intending to get his ticket and have that off his mind.
He laughed heartily at a corpulent fellow who darted by him, carrying a grip.
His laughter ceased, however, when, on turning the corner, he discerned the aforesaid fat man in the act of being assisted on to the platform of the last car by the brakeman, the train having acquired considerable momentum. Then he saw it disappear around a curve which was part of the road at that point. There were three explanations possible: either the train was behind time, or else his awakening faculty was in good repair, or the hotel clock was fourteen minutes fast. The latter proved to be the correct explanation of the somewhat vexing occurrence.
“Say, that’s a bad habit you have of missing trains,” said his friend the baggageman. “Goin’ to miss another—or do anything else?”
“No,” said Thomas, shortly.
He knew that the next train at five was the last. This would make it possible to reach Fitzgerald at half-past nine. “Right in the heat of the work. He’ll engage me to get rid of me,” laughed Thomas to himself. Then he continued: “I never heard of a man missing every train in a day, so I’ll risk calling on Laura before the next one starts.”
Miss Sedgwick, the one he called Laura, lived out of town near the railroad track, and two miles nearer New York than Winsonia station.
She was a captivating girl, and when Thomas was in her presence he never took heed of time. He was lucky enough to find her at home. She seemed glad to see him, and was much interested in his account of how near he had come to catching some trains that day; and as nothing is so engaging as a good listener, the minutes passed on pneumatic tires. When at last he took note of the hour, it was five o’clock.
“That clock isn’t right, is it?”
“Yes, sir. Father keeps it at railroad time. Mercy! you’ve lost your train again, haven’t you?”
“Laura, this time it’s bad. I won’t see him to-day, now, and to-morrow may not do. Let me go and kick myself.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Tom. I hope to-morrow won’t be too late.”
Thomas squeezed her hand and left her, feeling rather blue.
The railroad track was but a block away, and he walked over to it, not with suicidal intent, but just that he might tantalize himself with a view of the train as it sped by, which it should do in about a minute.
“At any rate,” said he, “it won’t be going around that dreadful curve.”
It was the last of December, and the sun had set. When he reached the track he saw, far away, a glimmer of the headlight of the five-o’clock express.
Nearer and nearer it came. A moment more and it would rush by like a meteor. But it didn’t. It slackened up at the very corner on which Thomas stood, to allow an official of the road to jump off.
Thomas was not slow, if he did miss trains now and then. He swung himself on to the smoker.
“Go’n’ far?” asked the brakeman.
“To New York,” was his reply.
“You’re in luck.”
“Well, I’ve not missed more than three or four trains in my life!” said Thomas; and it was strictly true.
Half-past nine to the minute found him outside of the editorial rooms of the “Courier-Journal.”
“Can I see Mr. Fitzgerald?” he asked of a boy who came in response to a knock.
“No, sir; he went out of town yesterday. Be back to-morrow at twelve.”
“Did you get my letter already?” asked Mr. Fitzgerald of Thomas Morley, when he came to his desk next morning and found that young man waiting for him.
“Yes, sir; and here I am.”
“Well, sir, I like your promptness, and I’ll give you the place of a man whom we had to discharge for being too slow. Youseem to have what a reporter needs most of all—the ‘get there’ quality.”
“I didn’t allow any trains to pass me,” said Thomas, modestly.