Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

"Oh, I can get another job easily enough," he said. "I've had so many jobs that I know about what to say. It's always easier to get a job than to hold it, is my experience."

She stared at him in reflection. "Do you know what I would do, if I were you?"

"That's just what I'm asking."

"Then listen here. You're going to get as much money as you're earning a year and a half from now, isn't that so? Very well. Now what are you going to earn it at? The thing you know best is selling shoes. But if you go into a shoe store and ask for a job, they're going to ask where you worked last, and then it will come out that you were fired. You will start off with a black eye. The best thing you can do is to go right back to Hepp's, and ask for your job back."

"I should say not! Me ask that old crab for a job?"

"Supposing he is an old crab, what do you care? All you want is to work up to a good salary, isn't it? And you are not going to stay there for good. If you stayed there for a year and a half, and worked up to a good salary, then he would be sorry to lose you, and you could get right up and tell him to keep his old job!"

"Do you really think he would be sorry to lose me?" asked Paul doubtingly.

"Why, certainly! And that would be some satisfaction, wouldn't it?"

"Well, I guess he will not give me the job back. He didn't know how to appreciate a man, Hepp didn't!"

"You are worrying too much about Mr. Hepp, and what he thinks. Will you go around and ask him for the job back?"

"I would not do it for anybody else in the world, but I will," he said, bowing his high spirit. "Since you ask me to, Miss Hazeltine! I will give Hepp one more chance!"

V

He found Hepp in his Lenox Avenue store; Hepp had five of these basement establishments, devoted to selling samples and jobs at cut prices.

"Well?" snapped Hepp, contracting his flaxen eyebrows.

"Mr. Hepp," mumbled Paul, "I find I made a mistake."

"About time you found that out--seeing that you've been making nothing but mistakes ever since I took you on. Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"I'd like my job back, Mr. Hepp. I've been thinking it over, and I see where I was wrong, and I see the right thing to do is to come back and tell you. If you take me on again, Mr. Hepp, you'll never get a chance to fire me again!"

Hepp grunted, with a twinkle of malice in his eyes. "I don't know what you want to work for a slave-driver like me for."

"You're not a slave-driver, Mr. Hepp. You always treated me pretty white!"

"Excepting for the salary. Seeing that I am a darned old tight-wad and that you know all about the shoe business already, I don't see what you want to come in here for. I'm nothing but an old fool!"

"I take it all back, Mr. Hepp."

"Very well, Manley," said Hepp, nodding and walking away.

"Do I get my job back, Mr. Hepp?"

"No!" cried Hepp, who was not at all forgiving.

Paul lingered by the door for another word. He had made up his mind to have this job. He felt that he must have it. And with matters so, with the scales tilted against him, he looked at the stairs and saw descending the gray-haired gentleman whom he had dismissed so cavalierly from the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street store the day before. By a cruel stroke of fortune, the customer was still seeking the shoes which Paul had denied him, and now he had come here to ruin Paul's slim chance. He would recognize Paul, complain to Hepp, and Paul would be finished.

Paul scowled at him as he entered. The customer looked at him.

With sudden recklessness Paul dismissed his scowl, put on an urbane smile, and stepped forward.

"Good afternoon, sir!" he said, chafing his hands together.

"Want a pair of shoes," grumbled the customer. "And for heaven's sake, hurry up!"

"Yes, sir," said Paul, springing to a foot-rest, and snapping it into place under the gentleman's foot. "A good, strong walking shoe, I suppose? Something about six dollars?"

"Exactly!" said the customer with surprise.

"We have the very thing will please you, sir," said Paul, putting his customer's unshod foot down with reverence.

"You're not taking my size!"

"I will if you wish, sir, but I should say a 9-D would be about right."

"It _is_ right," said the customer, who had not recognized Paul.

"This is our style A515, sir. May I try it on? We sell these mostly to customers of your standing. It's a strong shoe, but still rather dressy."

"Feels pretty good," said the customer, standing up. "The left one is a little snug in the toe."

"I'll stretch it a bit, if you wish. Or would you rather try a larger size. I wouldn't advise you to, but it won't be any trouble to try it. That's what we're here for!"

"No, these will do. You might stretch that left one a bit at the toe."

Hepp had stalked menacingly forward, but had halted when he saw that the customer could not be disengaged from Paul without a small scene. He stood by, watching. Paul carried away the offending shoe.

"You know your business, young man," said the customer satisfiedly.

"We do our best to please people," smiled Paul.

"Not all of them do," frowned the customer. "I was in a shoe store yesterday, and had words with the laziest and most impudent young puppy I ever met in my life! But you seem to know how to handle people here. Well, good day to you. You'll see me again!"

He left the shop.

"Mr. Hepp," said Paul, "can I have my job back?"

"You took it!" grinned his employer. "You might as well keep it now!"

During his supper hour he hurried up to the Belvedere, and spoke to Miss Molly Hazeltine through her little window. It was half-past six, and she was not busy.

"Fine!" she said, smiling at him with warm and friendly eyes. "I knew you could do it!"

"I didn't," said Paul. "Gosh, it takes a girl to show a fellow what he can do. If you would only stay my friend, Miss Hazeltine, and keep tipping me off to things I can do, I bet I will have a salary in eighteen months that will make that old crab of a lawyer look sick. We will see if he is going to pay me any seventeen dollars a week!"

"That's the talk," she said. "Show him how much he knows--it is a whole lot better than just telling him."

"You got Sunday off, haven't you?"

"Every Sunday."

"Maybe we could take a little walk. I got an awful lot to discuss with you, Miss Hazeltine. If I could take a walk with you every Sunday, and come around and see you between times----"

"You could come around and take me for a walk next Sunday, Mr. Manley. Or what do you say if you come around to dinner first, and meet my mother? I was telling her about you."

"Next Sunday!"

VI

It may help us to understand the change in Paul Manley if we shadow him while he is in the company of Miss Molly Hazeltine. Paul had resolved well; but a long course of conduct, as many can tell, is not stably founded on any mere resolution. It must be founded on character; on some one else's character, if need be, until repetition breeds habit in the subject.

"Here's an ad in the paper today," said Molly, "that says, 'Corporation formed complete for fifty-seven dollars.' That does not look as if a corporation amounted to so much. What is a corporation anyway, Paul?"

"Gosh, Molly, you've got your asking clothes on today again! You wouldn't know any more about these matters if I was to talk to you all day."

"You know so many things that I don't," she said regretfully. "Oh, Paul, I met the nicest fellow over at the church supper last night! He's an instructor at Columbia, and he knows more than any man I ever met, excepting you, Paul. I'll ask him, Paul, but he doesn't explain half so nicely as you do."

"Well, I'm a practical business man," said Paul. "Naturally, I would understand about practical matters better than any college professor. Don't mind asking him, now."

"What is this here about Stormy Meeting In Board of Estimate? What do they do?"

"I got to run along, Molly," said Paul, frowning at his watch. "See you some more, Molly!"

That afternoon, in his free time, he strolled into the local Y. M. C. A. reading room, to pass an hour with the magazines on file. He read an exciting story of life among savages in the South Seas, and another about a young man's great fight against a grasping corporation in the Yukon country. These stories thrilled him, as ever, but the thrill was not followed by the old reaction of dissatisfaction and discouragement; he was learning that there was place and opportunity for the most strenuous young man even in New York. He put the magazine back in the rack, and sauntered to the bulletin-board.

"What's civics?" he inquired at the desk. "I see there's a course to be given in that."

"It tells you all about Government. You ought to take that, and then you'll know what you're voting about. It's free, except that you have to buy the book."

"Put me down for it, will you?" requested Paul. "Lots of questions pop into my mind about such things, and I can't think of the answer!"

One Sunday night Molly treated him to the performance at the Belvedere.

The picture had to do with the perils and triumphs of an American youth in a banana republic. The hero of the picture had been nobody in particular in the United States, but he was an American, and when he arrived in the capital of the southern country he promptly took the center of the stage by right of birth. He had failed in business in the United States, but down there he seized hold of affairs--economic, social, political--with amazing verve and ability. In due course, he married the beautiful daughter of the dictator, and arranged to take over the country in bulk--but we have only to do with the episode wherein he was rescued from man-eating land-crabs by a detail of U. S. Marines.

"Yea-a!" exhaled Paul with delight and relief when the forefront of the gallant Marines appeared on the jungle trail, spurring to the rescue with excellent horsemanship.

"You're hurting my hand," said Molly. "They do look fine, don't they? I just love soldiers!"

"Good old leathernecks," sighed Paul. "I tell you what, Molly, it takes us Americans to show those people where they get off!"

"It certainly does," said Molly. "I bet you could get to be a dictator of one of those countries, too, Paul."

"Well," said Paul slowly, "seeing that I am an American, I guess I would have the bulge on them all right."

"Some of those South Americans look awfully mean. You would have to watch out for them, Paul. That was a machine-gun that he killed Don Henriquez' army with, wasn't it? How does a machine-gun work, Paul?"

"Well, it is quite a complicated mechanism. I do not think I could explain it to you so you would understand."

"Did you ever see one?"

"Not so as to examine it. Not real close. But I learn quickly about firearms. I had a pistol once, and my mother took it off me, or I bet I would be a dead shot by now."

"You would look grand in a uniform, Paul. I always say a real tall man looks grand in a uniform!"

"Not so poor, I guess."

"Listen, Paul, Pete Forest's regiment in the National Guard has got a smoker on for next Saturday night, and Pete told me he has to bring along an outsider. So I promised him you would go with him. I told him you would carry the flag for them, and he said he would speak to the color-sergeant about it, but meanwhile for you to come around."

"You might have asked me first."

"But I knew you'd enjoy it. It's just camping out, Paul, and that's fun. Pete Forest says you'll have the time of your life, being that you are fond of walking; and if you get tired or hungry, you can tell the complaint-sergeant and he will see about it. You'll go, won't you?"

"Oh, I suppose so!"

VII

"Mr. Manley," said the office-girl.

"Show him in," said Mr. Beaks, glancing at the calendar which showed a date in May, 1922.

Paul and Molly entered. Paul looked nervous but determined; Molly wore that look of tranquil beatitude which the world cannot give to a girl, unless it has first given her an engagement ring with a genuine solitaire diamond in it. She was wearing the ring, and not trying to hide it.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Beaks," said Paul. "Miss Hazeltine--Mr. Beaks!"

Chairs were taken.

"I suppose you have come in regard to the trust under your uncle's will," said Beaks, reaching into the pigeonhole for the red-ribboned document. "May I ask you, Mr. Manley, what salary you are receiving?"

"Thirty-two dollars per week. I'm manager of one of Hepp's Bargain Basements, up in Harlem."

"Indeed! That is a great improvement over an earning capacity of seventeen dollars per week, and no employment. I congratulate you, Mr. Manley! You must have worked hard and steadily during the past eighteen months."

"I worked," nodded Paul curtly. He did not like Beaks.

"You are coming into a very nice thing," purred Beaks. "Thirty-two dollars per week for the term of your natural life! Many lawyers don't net that much, Mr. Manley. You should be able to live very nicely on it."

"Listen to me," said Paul gruffly. "That part about my not working any more; I've been talking that over with Miss Hazeltine here, and we've decided to make you a proposition! I'm a business man, and I'm talking business. I can make a whole lot more than thirty-two dollars per week later on, but on the other hand I don't see why I should have to lose all that money. I'll take half of it--sixteen dollars a week--and the Feeble-minded Home can have the other sixteen--providing you take out that part about my not working! Come, is that fair?"

"A very fair proposition," said Mr. Beaks, polishing his glasses with his bandanna. "I should certainly advise the officials of the Home to accept it, if it rested with me. But, unfortunately, Mr. Manley, I am simply a trustee, and I must abide by the terms of the trust instrument which created me. I have no discretion. You must take thirty-two dollars per week, with the stipulation that if you earn any money it will be deducted--or you must take nothing. As the will is drawn, and as I construe it, you must make your final and binding decision today.

"I beg to point out to you that you have no reason to feel harshly toward your uncle. You have already received incalculable benefits from his provision for you. When you came here eighteen months ago, you would have taken your then salary of seventeen dollars per week and you would very willingly have refrained from ever working again. You will pardon me if I say that you were at that time unfit to be given money; you were idle, unambitious, and I think, rather dissipated. I am an old man, Mr. Manley, and an old lawyer, and I have seen many times the deplorable effects of freeing young men from the discipline of honest work. You have had now before you for eighteen months an incentive to do your best--the hope of never having to work again. You now confront the fact that you don't want what you strove so hard to get. That's a common human experience, Mr. Manley. I can do nothing for you; if you refuse to accept this money according to its terms, it must all go to the institutions named in the letter of instruction here."

Paul looked into Molly's eyes, and then he straightened.

"I'm not going to take it," he said.

"This is your final decision?"

"It is. I'm not a bum; I can make my own living. When I can't--why, then I'll move into the Home for the Feeble-minded!"

"Oh, Paul!" cried Molly. "I'm so glad!"

"Allow me to congratulate you again, my boy," said Beaks, rising and clasping Paul's hand. "I'm sure you've done exactly what your uncle hoped. If you took this money it would have ruined you, or, better, it would have proven you lazy and worthless. Your uncle was a shrewd and penetrating man of affairs; in this matter he has shown no feeble-mindedness worthy of commemoration."

He bowed the young couple out.

They had entered the hall, and were waiting for an elevator, when the office-girl came running out to them.

"Mr. Beaks wants you again, please!"

They re-entered the law office. Beaks waved them to chairs, and continued his study of the letter of instructions, which he had opened upon their leaving.

They waited in silence.

He turned abruptly, and thrust, into Paul's hand the single sheet of heavy paper which had been contained in the letter of instructions. Upon it, in pen and ink, were these words only:

_Institutions referred to in my will which are to receive the
principal of my estate upon my only nephew's refusal to accept
trust provision._

_NONE._

_Henry Clay Manley._

"What--what does it mean?" asked Paul.

"It means," said Mr. Beaks, "that your uncle died intestate, except for the provision for the payment of funeral expenses, debts, taxes and my fees. The trust has terminated, and I am now required to pay over the principal to the rightful heirs. Inasmuch as he has made no disposition of his estate, it must go according to the Table of Descent."

"To whom?"

"To you, Mr. Manley!" said Mr. Beaks. "You are the only heir-at-law. Your uncle had the right to leave the money elsewhere, but he has not done so."

"Then I'm to get the whole thing," muttered Paul dazedly. "I--I don't understand this. Don't joke with me. I don't believe it. Six thousand per year! No, no. Are you telling me the truth? Molly, you heard him? Prove it to me. Give me five hundred dollars!"

"Currency?"

"Yes, real money."

They watched Beaks bending down before his safe, and twirling the knob, and methodically counting a sheaf of greenbacks.

"Here it is, Mr. Manley. And I wish to say----"

He stared after them. Paul had caught Molly by the hand and was hurrying with her to the door.

He bundled her into an elevator, and then pulled her out into Nassau Street.

"What's the matter, Paul?" she cried, joyously but perplexedly.

"The Municipal Building closes at four o'clock!" he said, urging her on. "If we don't get there in ten minutes, we can't get the marriage license today! No, tomorrow won't do! Hurry up, Molly, can't you run a little faster? I've had dreams like this before, and I'm not going to sleep again until this one comes true!"

EARLIEST BUILDING STRIKE ON RECORD

Labor troubles in the building trades are not as modern as most people think. A recently discovered Egyptian inscription records the fact that the laborers employed on one of the pyramids struck and refused to go on with the work unless their daily ration of onions was increased. They won the strike.

FIRES OF FATE

BY W. C. TUTTLE

_Author of "Cultus Collins and the Ghost Gold," "The Proof of
Progress," etc.,_

IT TOOK A BUNCH OF CROOKS ALONG THE CANADIAN BORDER QUITE A LONG
TIME TO LEARN THEIR LESSON--THAT YOU CAN BUCK THE "MOUNTIES" JUST
SO LONG, BUT THEY GET YOU IN THE END. BUT THEY DIDN'T KNOW THAT
THERE WAS A MONTANA COWPUNCHER IN THE RANKS OF THE R. N. W. M. P.