第22章

"It ain't a question of liking it,Beau,"he rebuked me."It's all very well for you to talk,since your father's a millionaire"(a fiction so firmly embedded in their heads that no amount of denial affected it),"but what do you think would happen to me if I was fired?I couldn't go home and take it easy--you bet not.I just want to shake hands with myself when I think that I've got a home,and a job like this.I know a feller--a hard worker he was,too who walked the pavements for three months when the Colvers failed,and couldn't get nothing,and took to drink,and the last I heard of him he was sleeping in police stations and walking the ties,and his wife's a waitress at a cheap hotel.Don't you think it's easy to get a job."I was momentarily sobered by the earnestness with which he brought home to me the relentlessness of our civilization.It seemed incredible.Ishould have learned a lesson in that store.Barring a few discordant days when the orders came in too fast or when we were short handed because of sickness,it was a veritable hive of happiness;morning after morning clerks and porters arrived,pale,yet smiling,and laboured with cheerfulness from eight o'clock until six,and departed as cheerfully for modest homes in obscure neighbourhoods that seemed to me areas of exile.

They were troubled with no visions of better things.When the travelling men came in from the "road"there was great hilarity.Important personages,these,looked up to by the city clerks;jolly,reckless,Elizabethan-like rovers,who had tasted of the wine of liberty--and of other wines with the ineradicable lust for the road in their blood.No more routine for Jimmy Bowles,who was king of them all.I shudder to think how much of my knowledge of life I owe to this Jimmy,whose stories would have filled a quarto volume,but could on no account have been published;for a self-respecting post-office would not have allowed them to pass through the mails.As it was,Jimmy gave them circulation enough.I can still see his round face,with the nose just indicated,his wicked,twinkling little eyes,and I can hear his husky voice fall to a whisper when "the boss"passed through the store.Jimmy,when visiting us,always had a group around him.His audacity with women amazed me,for he never passed one of the "lady clerks"without some form of caress,which they resented but invariably laughed at.One day he imparted to me his code of morality:he never made love to another man's wife,so he assured me,if he knew the man!The secret of life he had discovered in laughter,and by laughter he sold quantities of Cousin Robert's groceries.

Mr.Bowles boasted of a catholic acquaintance in all the cities of his district,but before venturing forth to conquer these he had learned his own city by heart.My Cousin Robert was not aware of the fact that Mr.

Bowles "showed"the town to certain customers.He even desired to show it to me,but an epicurean strain in my nature held me back.Johnny Hedges went with him occasionally,and Henry Schneider,the bill clerk,and I listened eagerly to their experiences,afterwards confiding them to Tom....

There were times when,driven by an overwhelming curiosity,I ventured into certain strange streets,alone,shivering with cold and excitement,gripped by a fascination I did not comprehend,my eyes now averted,now irresistibly raised toward the white streaks of light that outlined the windows of dark houses....

One winter evening as I was going home,I encountered at the mail-box a young woman who shot at me a queer,twisted smile.I stood still,as though stunned,looking after her,and when halfway across the slushy street she turned and smiled again.Prodigiously excited,I followed her,fearful that I might be seen by someone who knew me,nor was it until she reached an unfamiliar street that I ventured to overtake her.

She confounded me by facing me.

"Get out!"she cried fiercely.

I halted in my tracks,overwhelmed with shame.But she continued to regard me by the light of the street lamp.

"You didn't want to be seen with me on Second Street,did you?You're one of those sneaking swells."The shock of this sudden onslaught was tremendous.I stood frozen to the spot,trembling,convicted,for I knew that her accusation was just;Ihad wounded her,and I had a desire to make amends.

"I'm sorry,"I faltered."I didn't mean--to offend you.And you smiled--"I got no farther.She began to laugh,and so loudly that I glanced anxiously about.I would have fled,but something still held me,something that belied the harshness of her laugh.

"You're just a kid,"she told me."Say,you get along home,and tell your mamma I sent you."Whereupon I departed in a state of humiliation and self-reproach I had never before known,wandering about aimlessly for a long time.When at length I arrived at home,late for supper,my mother's solicitude only served to deepen my pain.She went to the kitchen herself to see if my mince-pie were hot,and served me with her own hands.My father remained at his place at the head of the table while I tried to eat,smiling indulgently at her ministrations.

"Oh,a little hard work won't hurt him,Sarah,"he said."When I was his age I often worked until eleven o'clock and never felt the worse for it.

Business must be pretty good,eh,Hugh?"