AFTER his father left Tommy sat in the dining-room. TheHeraldlay unopened beside his plate, but he knew without trying that he could not read. Presently he found that he could not sit quietly. He went out of the house, that he might not think about the one thing that he could not help thinking about. Thinking about it did not end the trouble. But on the street he found that he did not wish to see front stoops or shop windows, so he decided to walk in the park. There, surrounded by the new green growth of grass and trees, he might be able to think of his own new life, the life that was beginning to bud out.
He thought about it without words, for that was the way his mind worked. And it was not long before he began to take notice of the sun-loving nurses and the blinking babies—human beings enjoying the azure smiles of the sky.
A girl on horseback cantered by. He looked up. Through the sparse fringe of bushes that screened off the bridle path from the nurses' favorite benches he saw Marion Willetts on a beautiful black. She also saw him and reined up suddenly, as though he had commanded her to halt. He walked toward her with outstretched hands. She urged her horse toward him with a smile. “Why, Tommy, I thought you—”
She had never before called him Tommy, as though that were his own particular name, that differentiated him from all other Tommies.
“I am waiting for a letter,” he explained at once, without going through the formality of inquiring after her health, because he knew now that he did not wish to go away. That made his departure the one important thing in the world. Then, by one of those subtle reactions that often afflict the young and healthy, the necessity of it became more urgent. He must go to work far away from New York! And the second reaction, circling back to his starting-point: To go away from the pleasant things of New York meant a renunciation so tremendous that he felt himself entitled to much credit. And that made him look quite serious. And that made him smile the smile of the dead game sport who will not lie about it by laughing boisterously.
There was a silence as they shook hands. Neither knew what to say. Perhaps that is why they took so long to shake hands. He knew that she did not know the tragedy of his life, and so did she. It gave them a point of contact.
Finally she said, “I wish you had a horse so we could—”
He shook his head and smiled. The smile made her feel the completeness of Tommy's tragedy. Details were unnecessary; in fact, it was just as well that she did not know them. It was all she could stand as it was.
He had to speak. He said: “I wish so, too, Marion,” using her name for the first time, reverently. “But I—I mustn't.”
“I'm so sorry, Tommy,” she murmured.
“Oh, well—” he said. Her horse began to show signs of impatience. It made him ask, hastily, but very seriously: “I'd like to—May I write to you, Marion?”
“Will you, Tommy? Of course you will. Won't you?”
There was not time for flippancy. He said, “Yes.” There were a million things he wished to tell her. He selected the first, “Thank you, Marion.”
“D-don't m-mention it,” she said, reassuringly.
He almost heard a voice crying, “All ashore that's goin' ashore!” It made him say, hurriedly: “Good-by, Marion. You're a brick!”
“It's you who are one,” she said.
He held out his hand. “Good-by!” he said again, and looked straight into her eyes.
She looked away and said: “G-good-by, Tommy! Good luck!”
“Thanks! I'll—I'll write!” And he turned away quickly. This compelled him to relinquish the gauntleted little hand he was gripping so tightly. The steel chain thus having snapped, he walked away and did not look back.
The fight had begun. His first battle was against his own desire to turn his head and catch one more glimpse of her, to memorize her face. He won! And in the hour of his first victory he felt very lonely.
IT was in that mood that he decided to go home. The little house on West Twelfth Street was the abode of misery. So much the better.
He found some letters and a telegram waiting for him. He opened the telegram, certain that it was an urgent invitation to join beloved merrymakers—an invitation that he declined in advance with much self-pity He read:
Ask for Thompson.
It was signed:
Tecumseh Motor Company.
He then saw that it came from Dayton, Ohio. The other letters were from some of the other Herald advertisers. All but one were cordial requests for his immediate services—and capital. The last asked for more details about the business experience of Mr. Thomas P. Leigh.
They did not interest him. He was too full of his romantic experiences. The Dayton man was a hero—a Man! Tommy must become one.
He saw very clearly that he must add ten years to his life.
He did it!
Then it became obvious that he must transform his hitherto juvenile mind into a machine, beau-fully geared, perfectly lubricated, utterly efficient. Since machines express themselves in terms of action and accomplishment, Tommy began to pack up.
His wearing apparel did not bother him, save for a passing regret that he had no old clothes to be a mechanic in. But the succeeding vision of overalls calmed him. What meant a second fight was the problem of living in Dayton in a room which he must not decorate with the treasured trophies of his college life. It was to a battle-field that he was going. He took out of his trunk many of the cherished objects and prepared to occupy a bomb-proof shelter instead of a cozy room. Second victory! And it was an amazing thing, but when Mr. Leigh came home that evening he found in his son no longer a boy of twenty-one, but a young man.
The sight of the father, whose tragedy was now his son's, gave permanence to the change in the son. Tommy had passed the stage of regrets and entered into the hope of fair play. Fate must give him a sporting chance. He did not ask for the mischief to be undone suddenly and miraculously; nothing need be wiped out; he asked only that time might be given, a little time, until he could pay back that money. And if he couldn't win, that he might have one privilege—to die fighting. His father was his father. And the son's work would be the work of a son in everything. Fairness, justice—and a little delay!
Tommy shook hands with his father a trifle too warmly, but he smiled pleasantly. “I'm leaving to-night on the nine-fourteen train, father.” He had studied the time-tables and he had solved the perplexing problem of how to raise the money to pay for the ticket. He had borrowed it from two of the friends with whom he had lunched at the club. It wasn't very much, but he wanted it to be clean money.
Mr. Leigh looked surprised. Tommy felt the alarm and he hastened to explain. “It's the Day-ton man,” he said, and he handed the telegram to his father.
Mr. Leigh kept his eyes on the yellow slip long enough to read the brief message two hundred times. At length he looked up and met his son's eyes. He made an obvious effort to speak calmly.
“Have you thought carefully, Thomas? You know nothing about this man or the character of the work. It may mean merely a waste of time.”
“I know that I want to work.”
“Yes, but it ought to be work that you are competent to do.”
“I am not competent to do any work that calls for experience and training. I have to learn, no matter where I go, and so—Father, I've got to pay back what you have—spent for me! I must! It will take time, but I'll do it, and the sooner I start, the better I'll feel.”
Mr. Leigh looked at his son steadily, searchingly, almost hungrily. Then the old man's gaze wavered and indecision came into his eyes. “Thomas, I—”
“I'll write you, father.” Tommy looked away, his father's face had grown haggard so suddenly.
He heard the old man say, “You must take enough money to pay for your return in case you find the work uncongenial.”
“I won't find any work uncongenial,” said Tommy, very positively. He knew!
“One can never tell, my son. It is wise to be prepared. I will give you—”
“No, no, father!” Then Tommy said, determinedly, “I cannot take any money from you.” He looked at his father full in the eye.
Mr. Leigh hesitated. Then he asked: “How do you expect to go? You can't walk.”
“No,” said Tommy, without anger; “I borrowed fifty dollars from friends.”
Mr. Leigh turned his head away. Then he walked out of the room.
They had very little to say to each other at dinner. It was after Tommy had ordered a taxi to take him and his trunk—if it had not been for the trunk he would not have dreamed of spending so much—to the station that Mr. Leigh said:
“Thomas, I wish to explain to you—”
“No, dad, please don't! There was such pain in the boy's voice that Mr. Leigh took a step toward him. Tommy was suffocating.
“My son, there is no need of your feeling that you—”
“I don't! I understand perfectly!” Tommy shook his head—without looking at his father.
Mr. Leigh walked out of the room. Tommy took a step toward him and halted abruptly—something was choking him. He began to pace up and down the room, dreading the news of the arrival of the taxi and yet desiring it above all things.
Presently Mr. Leigh returned He had in his hand a little package. He gave it to Tommy, who took it mechanically.
“My son,” said Mr. Leigh, in a low voice, “your uncle Thomas gave this to your mother—one hundred dollars in gold. She kept it for you. She wrote on it, 'For Tommy's first scrape.' It is not my money. It was hers. It is yours. Take it—for your first scrape. And, my son—” The old man's speech seemed to fail him. Presently he went on: “You are in no scrape. Your mother—Well, I have done my duty as I saw it. And, Thomas—”
“Yes, sir.”
“Remember that I am your father and that there is no wisdom in unnecessary privations. You are not called upon to expiate my—my weakness of character. If ever you find yourself suffering actual want—”
Tommy couldn't say what his pride urged. Instead he told his father, “I'll wire for help if I really need it, dad.” Having said what he did not think he would ever do, he made up his mind that he would take money dripping with the blood of slaughtered orphans rather than increase this old man's unhappiness.
“Thank you, my son,” said the old man, very simply.
“A nautomobile is out there waiting,” announced Maggie.
“Tell the man to take the trunk,” Tommy told her. Then to the old man: “Well, dad, it's good-by now. I'll write—often.” He held out his hand.
Mr. Leigh came toward his son. His face was grim but his outstretched hand trembled. “Good-by, my son! Good-by.” He grasped both Tommy's hands in his and gripped them tightly. Then his voice broke and he said, huskily: “My son! My son!”
“Dad!” said Tommy, his eyes full of tears. “Oh, dad! It will be all right! It's all right!”
Mr. Leigh released his son's hands and walked away.
Maggie came in and said, “Good-by, Master Thomas.”
“Good-by, Maggie,” said Tommy. Then he threw his arms about her neck and kissed her on her cheeks. “Take care of him, Maggie. If—anything happens telegraph me. I'll send you my address.”
“What can happen? He's as strong as he ever was,” said Maggie, calmly.
Tommy went up-stairs to the library, where he was sure his father had gone. Through the open door he saw his father pacing up and down the room. He was shaking his head as men do when they are arguing with themselves, and his hands were clenching and unclenching spasmodically.
Thomas F. Leigh turned on his heels and walked down the stairs very quietly. He had entered into his new life. It was a life of bitter loneliness.
He could have no friends, because his secret could not be shared. He felt the loneliness in advance. It almost overwhelmed him.
In the hall, as his hand grasped the knob of the street door, without knowing that he craved to hear the sound of a living voice in order to dispel the stifling silence that enveloped his soul, Tommy Leigh said, aloud:
“It's up to me to make good!”
WHEN Tommy arrived in Dayton he found his secret waiting for him in the station, because his first thought on alighting from the Pullman was to place the blame for his uncertain adventure. It was the need engendered by the secret and nothing else that compelled him to face the unknown, so that in the glad sunshine of this June day he was about to walk gropingly.
And because of the secret he must walk alone. There was no one on whom he might call for aid or guidance. Without anticipating concrete hostility, he feared vaguely. It forced him to an attitude of defense, which in turn roused his fighting blood.
He approached a uniformed porter and asked, a trifle sharply, “Can you tell me where the Tecumseh Motor Company's works are?”
“Sure!” cordially answered the man, and very explicitly told him. Tommy listened intently. But the busy porter, not content with his own dark, detailed directions, said at the end: “Come with me; I'll show you exactly!” and led Tommy to the street, pointed and counted the blocks, and gave him the turns, twice:
Tommy thanked him, left his valise in the parcel-room, and started to walk.
The baggage-man's friendliness did not give to Tommy a sense of co-operation. But as he walked the feeling of solitude within him became exhilarating. He was still alone in a strange country, and he had burned his ships. But the fight was on!
He dramatized the battle—Thomas Francis Leigh against the entire world!
When a man confronts that crisis in his life which consists of the utter realization that he cannot call upon anybody for help, one of two things happens: He thinks of life and surrenders; or he thinks of death and fights. To die fighting takes on the aspect of the most precious of all privileges. To earn it he begins by fighting.
He walked on until he saw the sign, “Tecumseh Motor Company,” over the largest of a half-dozen brick buildings. He wondered if it would ever come to mean to him as a man what the college buildings had meant to him as a boy. He would love to love that weather-beaten sign. But just as he now saw that his life at college had been a four years' fight against many things, so, too, there must be fighting here—much fighting during an unknowable number of years. He was filled with a pugnacious expectancy. The desire to strike, to strike hard and strike first, became so intolerable that in the absence of something or somebody to strike at he forced himself to consider the vital necessity of strategy. He had forgotten the secret. It was just as well. The secret had done its work.
He saw the sign “Office,” walked toward it, and opened the door. There was a railing. Behind it were desks. At the desks were men and women. Nobody looked up; nobody paid any attention to him. People moved about, came in, went out, neither friends nor foes. A peopled solitude—the world!
He approached the nearest desk. A young man was checking up rows of figures on a stack of yellow sheets. Tommy waited a full minute. The young man, obviously aware of Tommy's presence, and even annoyed by it, did not look up.
Tommy could not wait. He said, aggressively, “I want Thompson!”
The clerk looked up. “Who d'ye want?”
“Thompson.”
“What Thompson?”
Tommy wanted to fight, but he did not know which weapons to use in this particular skirmish. He resorted to the oldest. He smiled and spoke, quizzically, “Whom does a man mean when he says Thompson in this office?”
“Do you mean Mr. Thompson?” asked the clerk, rebukingly.
“I may.” Tommy again smiled tantalizingly. He won.
Having been made angry, the clerk became serious. He said, freezingly, “Mr. Thompson, the president?”
“Exactly!” interjected Tommy, kindly.
“Well,” said the clerk, both rebukingly and self-defensively, “people usually ask for Mr. Thompson.”
“He himself evidently doesn't. He told me to ask for Thompson.”
The clerk rose. “Appointment?” he asked.
“Yep,” said Tommy.
“What name?”
Tommy pulled out the telegram, folded it, and giving it to the reluctant clerk, said, paternally, “He'll know!”
The clerk went into an inner office. Presently he returned. “This way,” he said.
Tommy followed. His mind was asking itself a thousand questions and not answering a single one.
He walked into a large room. It was characteristic of him that he took in the room with a quick glance, feeling it was wise to size up the ground before tackling the enemy, who, after all, might not prove to be an enemy. There were big windows on three sides. One looked into a shop, another into the street, and the third into the factory yard. A man sat at a square, flat desk. There were no papers on it, only a pen-tray with two fountain-pens and a dozen neatly sharpened lead-pencils. Also a row of push-buttons, at least ten of them, all numbered. The walls were bare save for a big calendar and an electric clock. The floor was of polished hardwood. The desk stood on a large and beautiful Oriental rug. There were but two chairs; on one of them Mr. Thompson sat. The other stood beside the desk. Through an open door Tommy, with a quick glance, looked into an adjoining room and saw a long, polished mahogany table with a dozen mahogany arm-chairs about it.
“Leigh?” asked the man at the desk. He was a young-looking man, stout, with smooth-shaven, plump pink cheeks, that by inducing a belief in potential dimples gave an impression of good nature. His eyes were brown, clear, steady and bright, with a suggestion of fearlessness rather than of aggressiveness. His head was well shaped and the hair was dean-looking and neatly brushed. His forehead was smooth. Tommy felt that there was a quick-moving and utterly reliable intelligence within that cranium. It brought to him a sense of relief. In some unexplained way he was sure that he need not bother to pick and choose his own words in talking to Thompson. Whatever a man said, and even what he did not say, would be caught, not spectacularly or over-alertly, but unerringly, without effort, by this plump but efficient president. It stimulated Tommy's mind and made it work quickly, and also inclined him to frankness without exactly inducing an overwhelming desire to confide. Understanding rather than sympathy was what he felt he would get from the stranger.
“Yes, sir. Thompson?” replied Tommy.
“Yes.”
Thompson looked at Tommy not at all quizzically, not at all interestedly, not at all curiously, but steadily, without any suggestion of the imminence of either a smile or a frown.
Tommy returned the look neither nervously nor boldly. He was certain that Thompson knew men in overalls and men in evening clothes, old men and young men, equally well, equally understandingly.
“What makes you think,” asked Thompson, “that you have the makings of a man in you?” It was plain that he was not only listening, but observing.
Tommy had expected that question, but not in those words. The directness of it decided him to reply slowly, as the reasons came to him:
“I know I have to be one. I have nobody to help me. I have no grudge against anybody. I have no grouch against the world. I am not looking for enemies, but I have no right to expect favors. I never had a condition at college, but I am no learned scholar. I made the Scrub, but never played on the Varsity. I held class offices, but never pulled wires for myself. I did foolish things, but I'd as soon tell them to you. I don't know any more than any chap of my age knows who never thought of being where I am to-day, and never studied for a profession. I have troubles—family troubles not of my own making—and they came to me suddenly; in fact, the day before yesterday. It was up to me to whine or to fight. I am here.”
Thompson saw Tommy's face, Tommy's squared shoulders, and Tommy's clenched fists. “I see!” he said. “And what do you want to do?”
“Anything!” said Tommy, quickly. He saw Thompson's eyes. He corrected himself. “Something!”
“Experience?”
“I graduated last week,” said Tommy, barely keeping his impatience out of his voice.
“Ever earn money?”
“Not for myself. I solicited 'ads' for the college paper.”
“Do well?”
“Yes, I did well. I got 'ads' the paper never had before.”
“Had others tried and failed?”
“No. It was this way: I thought that the only advertisers who rightly should be in the paper already were there. What we had to offer was limited. I decided that the paper was an institution worth supporting by others than the tradesmen who sold goods to the fellows. So I tackled the fathers of my friends, men who ought to take an interest in the college without thinking of dollars and cents. And I tackled bank presidents and railroad men and manufacturers, put it up to them to do good to the paper without expecting direct returns. I asked for 'ads' in their homes on the ground that it was not business, anyhow, which it wasn't. It may be bad form to try to make money for yourself out of your hosts, but I didn't think it was bad form to ask a man anywhere to subscribe to a worthy object. I didn't pose as a live wire. Anyhow, they came across. I couldn't do that to-day. I wouldn't ask Mr. Willetts at his home or on his yacht to buy one of your cars, but I would in his office.”
Tommy saw Thompson's look. It made him add:
“I wouldn't expect to be as successful in asking them to give me money for something as I was when I asked them to give me money for nothing. If I have talked like an ass—”
“You graduated last week,” interjected Thompson. Tommy flushed; then he smiled. Thompson went on, unemotionally: “You don't talk like an ass. Do you want to make money for yourself?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Tommy, quickly.
“And for us?”
“That goes without saying. I can't make it for myself unless I first make it for you.”
“To make money for yourself, eh?”
“Yes.”
“That's why you are here?”
“No. I am here because your advertisement appealed to me more than any of the others I answered. I thought—Well, mine was an unusual case. And yours was an unusual 'ad.' I was sure I had what you wanted. I hoped you might see it.”
“Didn't you think my 'ad' would appeal to thousands of young college graduates?”
“I didn't think of that. The message was addressed to me as surely as if you had known me all my life.”
“What made you so sure of that?”
“I think,” said Tommy, thoughtfully, “it must have been my—the nature of my trouble. You see, I was called upon very suddenly to take an inventory of myself.” He paused and bit his lips. There were things he must not hint at.
“Yes?”
“I found,” said Tommy, honestly, and, therefore, without any bitterness whatever, “that I had nothing. I would have to become something. I didn't know what, and I don't know now. I was what older people call a young ass, and younger people call a nice fellow. Don't think I'm conceit—”
“Go ahead!” interrupted Thompson, with a slight frown.
Tommy felt that the frown came from Thompson's annoyance at the implied accusation that he might not understand. This gave Tommy courage, and that made him desire to tell his story to Thompson, withholding only the details he could not be expected to tell.
“Look here, sir,” he said, earnestly, “whether you take me on or not, I'll tell you. I have no mother. My father cannot help me. I—I shall have to send money to him.”
“Who paid for your education?”
“He did, but he—can't now. I—I didn't expect it and—anyhow, there is nobody that I can ask for help, and I don't want to. I want to earn money. I may not be worth fifty cents a week to anybody at this moment, but you might make me worth something to you.”
“How?”
“I don't know what you will ask me to do, and so I can't tell whether I can make good here. But I'll make good somewhere, as sure as shooting.”
“How do you know?”
“I've got to. I don't expect to have a walkover, but even in my failures I'll be learning, won't I? I haven't got any conceit that's got to be knocked out of me. I've a lot to learn and very little to unlearn, and—well, if you'll ask me questions I'll answer them.”
“You will?”
“Yes, I will,” said Tommy, flushing. He had to fight. He began to fight distrust. He added, “I'll answer them without thinking whether my answers will land the job or not.”
“Why will you answer them that way?”
“What's the use of bluffing? It doesn't work in the long run—and, anyhow, I don't like it.”
“You must learn to think quickly, so that you may always think before answering,” said Thompson, decidedly.
Tommy felt that this man had sized him for a careless, impetuous little boy. Probably he had lost the job. If that was the case Thompson plainly wasn't the man for him. Tommy, without knowing it, spoke defiantly. He thought he was talking business to a business man. He said:
“Well, I am not selling what you want, but what I've got, and—”
“Where did you hear that?” interrupted Thompson. Then, after a keen look at Tommy's puzzled eyes, said: “Excuse me, Mr. Leigh. You were saying—?”
“I think you wish to know what I am, and so I want to answer your questions as truthfully and as quickly as I can.”
“How much money have you got that you can call your own?” asked Thompson. He showed more curiosity now than at any other time in their interview.
Tommy looked at Thompson's chubby, good-natured face and the steady eyes. “I borrowed fifty dollars from friends to come out here with. But I had this.” He put his hand in his inside pocket where his mother's gift was. Then he brought out his hand—empty.
“Yes?” said Thompson. There was an insistence in his voice that perplexed Tommy, almost irritated him.
“It's—I think' it is—a hundred dollars my mother—” Tommy paused.
“I thought you had no mother?” Thompson raised his eyebrows and looked puzzled rather than suspicious.
Tommy impulsively took from his pocket the little package of gold coins—the only money he could take from his father. He hesitated. Finally he said: “I haven't opened it. Would you like to know what it is?”
“Please!” said Thompson, gently.
Tommy decided to tell everything and go away, having learned a lesson—not to talk too much about himself. “My mother died when I was born. An uncle gave her a hundred dollars in gold. She saved it for me. She wrote on it, 'For Tommy's first scrape.' I haven't opened it. I don't want to. I'm in no scrape yet. But that's all I have that's mine, and—”
Thompson rose to his feet and held out his hand. His face was beaming with good will. Tommy took the hand mechanically and instantly felt the warm friendliness in Thompson's grasp.
“Leigh, I'll take you on. And more than that, I'm your friend. I don't know whether you'll make money or not, but I'll try you. I may have to shift you from one place to another. I tell you now that I'm going to give you every chance to find out where you fit best.”
“Thank you, sir. I'll—”
“Don't promise. You don't have to,” cut in Thompson. “Do you want to know why I'm taking you on?”
“Yes.”
“Because you've sense enough to be yourself. It's the highest form of wisdom. Sell what you've got, not what the other man wants. Never lie. That way you never have to explain your blunders. Nobody can explain any blunders. You told me what you had. I'll help you to acquire what there is to acquire. Now tell me something—exactly how did you feel when you walked into the office?” Tommy did not describe his own feelings, but what he saw. He answered: “Well, I walked in and saw people at work and nobody to ask me what I wanted. I suppose everybody who comes on business knows exactly what he wants. But I had to ask for Thompson, and nobody seemed to be there for the purpose of answering the particular question I was told to ask. And it struck me that somebody might come in who might be a little timid about disturbing clerks who were busy at work, as I had to do.”
“There should have been office-boys there.”
“There weren't, so you haven't enough. It seemed to me every office of a big concern should have a sort of information bureau. Of course I'm new to business methods, but there are lots of people who have important questions to ask and are afraid, and they ought to be encouraged.” Mr. Thompson smiled.
“Well,” said Tommy, defensively, “I've seen it with Freshmen at college. It may not pay, but it's mighty comfortable to strangers.”
Tommy, when he had made an end of speaking, was conscious that he had talked like a kid. Mr. Thompson did not say anything in reply, but pressed one of the buttons on his desk. Then he said to Tommy:
“As a matter of fact, our main office, where most people usually go, is not here, but in the Tecumseh Building down-town. I'm going to give you a desk in the outer office here. You will be the information bureau. When people come in you will ascertain what they want and direct them accordingly. After you know where to find anybody and anything in the plant come and see me again. You start with fifteen dollars a week. Are you disappointed or pleased?”
“Pleased.”
He knew that Thompson later on would put him where he fitted best. In the mean time he would be the best office-boy the company ever had.
A clerk entered. Thompson said to him: “Miller, take Mr. Leigh to Mr. Nevin. Tell him I want Mr. Leigh to know who is in charge of every department and who is working there and at what, so that Mr. Leigh can know where to direct anybody who asks for anything or anybody in the place. If Mr. Leigh thinks there ought to be more office-boys he can hire them. He'll be in charge of the information bureau. He'll need a desk. He'll tell you where he wants it.” He turned to Tommy. “Ask for Thompson—when you've learned your geography. Good luck, Leigh!”
Tommy followed Miller out of the room.
TOMMY, as he followed Mr. Nevin about, told himself that this was a new world and that wisdom lay in behaving accordingly; but, to his dismay, he found himself measuring his surroundings with the feet and inches of his old life. He was again a Freshman at college. At college the upper-classmen—old employees—naturally loved the old place. But so did the Freshmen—in advance. He ought, therefore, to love the Tecumseh Motor College.
Strangely enough, not one of the men to whom he was introduced by Mr Nevin seemed concerned with what the new-comer might do for the greater glory of the shop. Boy-like, he attached more importance to the human than to the mechanical or commercial side of life. This was wisdom that with age he would, alas, unlearn!
Tommy's life had been checked suddenly; the emergency brakes jammed down with an abruptness that had jolted him clean out of his normal point of view. What usually requires a dozen years and a hundred disillusionments had been accomplished for him with one tremendous tragedy. His father's deed not only fixed Tommy's life-destination, but made him feel that his entire past could not now be an open book to his most trusted friends. This gave him a sense of discomfort for which he could find no alleviation except in resolving not to lie gratuitously about anything else. But Tommy did not know that this was his reward for not sacrificing his manhood to the secret.
Mr. Thompson's orders were that he must familiarize himself with everybody in the shop and also their work. Because he realized this thoroughly he made up his mind, with a quickness that augured well for his future, that he must not tie up with the clerks in the office. The Tecumseh Company made and sold motor-cars. Therefore, the men with whom Tommy must associate, in the intimacy of boarding-house life, should be men from whom he could learn all about Tecumseh motors.
The one compensation of tragedy is that it strengthens the strong; and only the strong can help the world by first helping their own souls. The secret was working for Tommy instead of against him.
“I say, Mr. Nevin.” There was in Tommy's attitude toward his guide not only the appeal of frankly acknowledged helplessness, but also a suggestion of confidence in the other man's ability and willingness to answer understandingly.
Nevin smiled encouragingly. “What's troubling you, young man?”
“I've got to find a boarding-house. I'm less particular about the grub than about the boarders.” Mr. Nevin's face grew less friendly. Tommy went on, “I'd like to live where the chaps in the shop eat.”
“They mostly live at home,” said Nevin, friendly again. He liked young Leigh's attitude of respectful familiarity. To Tommy Mr. Nevin was a likable instructor at college.
“I don't know whether I make myself plain to you, Mr. Nevin, but I'd like to be among men who know all about motors—theory and practice, you know. There must be some who board somewhere. If I could get in the same house I'd be tickled to death, sir.”
Nevin liked the “sir”-ing of young Leigh, which was not at all servile. “Let's take a look round and I'll see whom I can recommend.”
Nevin led the way, Tommy followed—at a distance, tactfully, to give Mr. Nevin a chance to speak freely about T. F. Leigh. Nevin talked to three or four men, but evidently their replies were not satisfactory. A young man in overalls, his face smutted, his hands greasy, walked by in a hurry. He was frowning.
“There's your man!” said Nevin to Tommy, planting himself squarely in the other's path. “Bill!”
“Hello, Mr. Nevin! What's the trouble now that your great experts can't locate?”
“No trouble this time. Pleasure! Bill, do you live or do you board?”
“I believe I board.”
“Any room at the house for a friend of mine?”
“I don't know. Mrs. Clayton's rather particular.”
“She must be,” said Nevin. “Bill, shake hands with Mr. Leigh.”
Tommy extended his hand. Bill looked at him, at the “swell clothes” and the New York look and the dean hands, and held up his own grease-smeared hands and shook his head.
Tommy was confronted by his first crisis in Dayton in the shape of a reluctant hand. Grease stood between him and friendship. By rights his own hand ought to be oily and black. He was not conscious of the motives for his own decision, but he stepped to a machine near by, grasped an oily shaft with his right hand, and then held it, black and grease and all, before Bill. Mr. Nevin laughed. Bill frowned. Tommy was serious. Bill looked at Tommy. Then Bill shook hands.
“If you don't mind I'd like to walk home with you to-night. I'll see Mrs. Clayton and ask if she won't take me,” said Tommy.
Bill was a little taller than Tommy and slender, with clean-cut features, dark hair, very clear blue eyes, and that air of decision that men have when they know what they know. He hesitated as he took in Tommy's clothes and manner. He looked Tommy full in the face. Then he said, positively:
“She'll take you.”
Mr. Nevin looked relieved. “Come on, Leigh,” he said to Tommy, who thereupon nodded to Bill, said, “So long!” and followed Mr. Nevin.
“I'm glad Bill took to you,” he told Tommy. “He is one of our best mechanics, but he is as crotchety as a genius. He distrusts everybody on general principles.”
“Socialist?” asked Tommy.
“Worse!” said Mr. Nevin.
“Anarchist?”
“Worse!”
“Lunatic?”
“Worse!”
“Philanthropist?”
“Worse!”
“I give up,” said Tommy.
“Inventor!” said Mr. Nevin.
“Good!” Tommy spoke enthusiastically. This was life—to meet people about whom his only knowledge came from newspaper-reading.
“Leigh,” said Nevin, stopping abruptly, “are you a politician?” The voice was intended to express jocularity, but Tommy thought he read in Mr. Nevin's eyes a doubt closely bordering upon a suspicion. Tommy felt his characteristic impulse to be as frankly autobiographical as he dared. He did not know that he could not help being what the offspring of two people to whom love meant everything must be. He wasn't aware of heredity when he kept his eyes on Mr. Nevin's and replied very earnestly:
“Mr. Nevin, I'm going to tell you something that must not go any further.”
“I was only joking. I have no desire to pry into your private affairs,” said Nevin, when he saw how serious Tommy had become.
“I'm not going to tell you the story of my life,” Tommy explained, very earnestly; “but something else, I really want to.”
“Shoot ahead,” said Mr. Nevin.
Tommy's position in the shop was a mystery, for Mr. Thompson's instructions contained no explanation.
“It's just this: I am alone in the world. I have no money and I have no friends. I've got to make money and I want to have friends here. I'm not a hand-shaker, but—” Tommy paused.
“Yes?” Mr. Nevin looked a trifle uncomfortable, as men do when they listen to another man telling the truth about himself.
“I know I'm going to be damned lonesome. Do you know what it means to have been called Tommy all your life by all the fellows you ever knew, and all of a sudden to be flung into a crowd of strangers to whom you cannot say, 'I'm one of you; please be friends'? I'm nobody but Leigh, a stranger among strangers. And what I want to be is Tom Leigh to people who will not be strangers. If I push myself they'll mistrust me. If I don't they'll think I am stuck on myself. Sooner or later I'll have to be Tom Leigh or get out. I'd rather be Tommy sooner because I don't want to get out. Do you understand?”
“Sure thing, Le—er—Tommy,” said Nevin, heartily. “And I'll be glad to help all I can. Come to me any time you want any pointer about anything. Those are Mr. Thompson's orders; I'd have to do it whether I wanted to or not. But—this is straight!—I'll be glad to do it, my boy!”
Mr. Nevin was surprised at his own warmth. He was a sort of general-utility man and understudy of several subheads of departments, a position created expressly for him by Mr. Thompson, who had a habit of inventing positions to fit people on the curious theory that it was God who made men and men who made jobs. In admitting to himself that he liked young Leigh, Nevin classified the young man as another of “Thompson's Experiments.”
At quitting-time Tommy hastened to find Bill, whose full name, he had ascertained, was William S. Byrnes. Bill was waiting for him.
“I'll have to stop at the station and get my valise,” apologized Tommy. “I have a trunk also, but I'd better find out if Mrs. Clayton will take me.”
“Get an expressman to take it up; she'll take you,” said Bill. He always spoke with decision when he knew.
They stopped at the station, where Tommy did exactly as Bill—the upper-classman—said, and then they walked to the boarding-house.
Bill was carrying his dinner-pail and Tommy his dress-suit case. They walked in silence until Tommy shifted the valise.
“Heavy?” asked Bill, without volunteering to take his turn carrying it.
“No,” said Tommy, “but I wish I was carrying a dinner-pail like yours.”
“I'll swap,” said Bill, stopping.
“Oh no; I mean I'd like to feel I belonged in the shop.”
“With the clothes you've got on?” said Bill.
“I can't afford to get any other clothes just yet.”
“You might save those for Sunday.”
“No money,” said Tommy, and they walked on.
He was aware that he was talking and acting like a little boy with a new toy. But, on the other hand, he was very glad to find that the world was not the monster he had feared. There was no need to be perennially on your guard against all your fellow-men. They seemed willing enough to take you for what you frankly acknowledged you were. And the consciousness was not only a great relief, but a great encouragement, by obviating the necessity of fighting with another man's weapons, as happens when a man is trying to be what he thinks you want him to be.
They arrived at the boarding-place, a neat little frame house, commonplace as print and as easy to read.
Bill took Tommy to the kitchen and introduced him to Mrs. Clayton. “I've brought you another boarder.”
Mrs. Clayton looked at Tommy dubiously. “I don't know,” she said. “The front room is—”
“The room next to mine will do,” said Bill. “The one Perkins had.”
“Well—” she began, vaguely, looking at Tommy's clothes.
“How much?” asked Tommy, anxiously. His tone seemed to reassure the landlady.
“Eight dollars a week,” she answered. “But when the front room—”
“It's as much as I can afford to pay,” said Tommy, quickly. It wouldn't leave much to send home out of the fifteen Thompson said he would pay.
Seventeen thousand dollars! And there was need of haste! The tragedy showed in the boy's face.
“Of course that includes the dinner,” said Mrs. Clayton, hastily, “same as Mr. Byrnes.”
“Deal's closed,” said Bill. “Come on, Leigh.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Clayton,” said Tommy, glad to find a home. He impulsively held out his hand.
Mrs. Clayton shook it warmly. As if by an afterthought, she asked, “You are a stranger here?”
“Yes, ma'am; I only got in this morning.”
“He is in the office,” put in Bill, in the voice of an agency giving financial rating. “Come on, Leigh.”
Tommy followed Bill, who took him to the room lately occupied by Perkins. A small, dingy room it was. The bed was wooden. The three chairs were of different patterns. The wash-stand, pitcher, and basin belonged to a bygone era. The carpet was piebald as to color and plain bald as to nap. The table was of the kind that you know to be rickety without having to touch it. Altogether it was so depressing that it seemed eminently just. It epitomized the life of a working-man.
It induced the mood of loneliness Tommy had felt when he stepped off the train. But this time there was no exhilaration, no desire to dramatize the glorious fight of Thomas Francis Leigh against the world.
Tommy turned to his companion. “Look here,” he said, a trifle hysterically, “I'm not going to call you Byrnes. Do you understand? You are Bill. My name is not Leigh, but Tommy; not Tom—Tommy! If there is going to be any—anything different I'll go somewhere else.”
Tommy looked at Bill defiantly—and also hopefully.
“All right,” said Bill, unconcernedly. “She gives pretty good grub. My room is next door.”
And then Tommy felt that his old world had been wiped off the map. He was beginning his new life—with friends! A great chasm divided the two periods. And in that knowledge Tommy found a comfort that he could not have explained in words.