Hope of Happiness — 2

I

Awake early, Bruce donned a freshly-pressed gray suit and went down to breakfast.

His immediate concern was to find employment, for in work, he knew, lay his hope of happiness and peace.

He had thrust into his pocket letters from architects who had employed him in various cities commending him as an excellent draughtsman; and he bore a letter certifying to his good character and trustworthiness from the president of the bank in his native town.

He was not pressed by immediate need.

His travels had been inexpensive; in fact, he had a little more than earned his way; and he had not only the fifty thousand dollars his mother had left invested in securities, but he carried drafts for the accumulated income--something over a thousand dollars--to tide him over any possible difficulties in finding an opening that promised well for the future.

He had finished his breakfast, and lingered at the table, deep in thought, when a young man who had just entered the dining-room paused beside him.

“Is it or is it not Bruce Storrs?

” he demanded.

“I spotted you from the door--didn’t think there could be another such head and shoulders.

” “Bud Henderson!

” Storrs was on his feet, wringing the hand of the young man, who was regarding him with a pleased grin.

“You good old Indian!

I was just about to go out and ask the nearest cop where to find you!

You’re the only man in town I know!

” “Thanks for the compliment.

You might have warned me of your approach.

I’ll sit right here and eat while you unfold yourself.

” Henderson was short, lean and dark, with a curiously immobile face.

His lips smiled oddly without any accompanying expression of humor in his rather small brown eyes.

Without inquiring what had brought Storrs to town, he began talking of their years together at Boston, where they had been fellow students at the Tech.

He had a dry, humorous way of saying things, particularly when he talked of himself, which puzzled strangers but delighted his friends.

He was treating Storrs quite as though there had been no break in their intercourse.

“Met some of our old Boston pals during the recent unpleasantness and heard of you occasionally on the other side,” he was saying.

“Frankly, I’m not keen about war”--he was composedly eating a melon--“war is fatiguing.

I hope the great nations will behave for the rest of my life, so I won’t be annoyed by having to go out and settle the row.

” “Here too, Bud; I got enough.

I want to have a try at the arts of peace.

” “So say we all.

By the way, are you married yet?

” “No. ” “That’s bad.

Marriage is an honorable estate; I’m rather keen about it.

I took me a wife as soon as I got back from France.

Oh, Lord, no!

None of the girls we knew around Boston.

Couldn’t afford them, and besides it’s a mistake not to marry in your home town, and it’s also easier when you’re a bloomin’ pauper.

I married into one of the strongest wholesale grocery houses in all these parts.

I’ll drive you by the warehouse, an impressive pile--one of the biggest concerns west of Pittsburgh.

Maybelle is the name of the lucky girl, and Maybelle is the only child of the Conrad of Conrad, Buxton and Pettibone.

A

wonderful girl--one of the really strong, powerful women of this great nation.

She’s out of town at present, playing a golf tournament for the huckleberry association championship.

That’s why I’m chasing downtown for breakfast--cook’s on a vacation.

You’ll meet Maybelle; she’s a person, that girl!

Married me out of pity; thinks I’m half-witted, and right, at that!

” “Of course you’d have to marry a girl who’d make allowance for your mental infirmities,” Bruce replied.

“Getting on in your profession, I suppose?

” “Hell, no!

I chucked that.

There are too many really capable electrical experts, and after Maybelle’s father had tried me for six months in the grocery and I failed to show any talent for distributing the well-known Verbena Brand of canned stuff, he set me up in the automobile business.

Shameful to relate, I really make money.

I handle the Plantagenet--one of the worst cars on the market.

You know it was a mistake--my feeling that I was called to be another Edison or Marconi.

I was really cut out for the literary life--another sad case of mute, inglorious Milton.

I exercise my talents now designing ‘ads’ and come-on letters as a lure to customers for the Plantagenet.

Would you ride with kings?

The Plantagenet is the car that takes you out and brings you back.

That’s my latest slogan; you’ll find it glaring at you all over the landscape.

” “Oh, what a fall, my countryman!

” “Not at all.

You know I always had a knack of making phrases.

It’s a gift, my boy.

I suppose you’re here to figure on a new state-house or perhaps a hospital for lame cats.

I know nearly everybody in town, so if I can be of use to you, just warble.

” “My aim isn’t so high,” said Bruce, who remembered Henderson as somewhat eccentric but the kindest of souls.

His manner of talking was no indication of his true character.

Bruce’s heart warmed to Henderson;

already the town seemed less strange, and he at once disclosed his intention of establishing himself in the city, though without in the least surprising the imperturbable Bud.

“Welcome!

” he exclaimed with his mouth full of toast.

“You shall be our Michelangelo, our Sir Christopher Wren!

I see, as in a dream,” he went on as he thrust his fork into a poached egg, “I see our fair city adorned with the noble fruits of the genius of Bruce Storrs, the prince of architects.

You will require a fleet of Plantagenets to whirl you from one rising edifice to another.

I might make you a special price on six cars--but this must be confidential.

” “I really want to get into a good office, and I’m not expecting to be taken right into the firm,” said Bruce, laughing.

“It will take me a year or two to get acquainted, and then I’d like to set up for myself.

” “Certainly a worthy ambition, Bruce.

It’s a good thing I’m here on the ground to give you the true dope on the people who count in this teeming village.

The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and there’s danger of getting pinched between the old hard-boiled bunch and the birds of gayer plumage who flew in when no one was looking and insist on twittering sweetly on our tallest trees.

Let me be your social booster; no one better fitted.

I’m the only scion of one of our earliest and noblest families.

My grandfather’s bank busted in seventy-three with a loud bang and I had an uncle who was indicted for embezzling public funds.

He hid in Patagonia and died there in sinful splendor at a ripe old age.

Talk about the aristocracy--I’m it!

I

derive a certain prestige among what you might call the paralytic group from the fact that my ancestors were mixed up in all the financial calamities that ever befell this town.

But it’s the crowd that are the spenders--build the lordly palaces and treat the Eighteenth Amendment with the contempt it so richly deserves--that you want to train with.

Your profession is cursed with specialization and I’d warn you against public work.

Too much politics there for one of your fastidious nature.

Our best man in domestic architecture is Freeman--he’s a Tech man, about seven years ahead of our class.

He has a weakness for sun parlors with antique Italian fountains that are made for him special by a pottery right here in town.

You’re sure to like Freeman; he’s a whist fiend, but otherwise he’s a decent chap.

His wife and Maybelle are chums and we play around together a good deal.

” While listening to Henderson’s rambling talk Bruce had been turning over the pages of a memorandum book.

He asked about several architects whose names he had noted.

Henderson described them succinctly, praising or deriding them for reasons which struck Bruce as not necessarily final as to their merits.

“I don’t expect to land a job the first day,” said Bruce.

“I may have to go through the list before I find what I want.

” “Oh, Freeman will take you on,” replied Henderson easily.

“But he never does anything important without consulting his wife--one of his eccentricities.

My own system is to go ahead and tell Maybelle afterward, being careful, of course, to conceal my mistakes.

” “You haven’t changed a bit,” laughed Bruce.

“I wish I could view the world as chipperly as you do.

” “My dear Bruce”--with his forefinger Henderson swept Storrs’s breakfast check to his own side of the table with a single gesture--“never try to view the whole world at one glance; it’s too damned big.

All I see at present on this suffering, sinning planet is a Plantagenet runabout with Maybelle and me rolling through fields of asphodel.

Everything else is superfluous.

My fellow creatures simply don’t exist except as prospects for the Plantagenet.

” “Oh, rot!

You’re the most unselfish biped I ever knew!

” “Superficially, yes; but it’s all on the surface.

Let’s go out and plant our feet firmly upon the city.

” He led the way to his car and drove to the Plantagenet salesroom and garage.

A young woman whom he introduced as Miss Ordway apparently ran the whole establishment.

Henderson said that she did.

He sat down at his desk and signed, without reading, a pile of letters which she had written the day before, talking to her meantime, not of business, but of a novel he had given her to read.

Her attempts to interest him in the fact that one of the salesmen wanted his assistance in rounding up a certain difficult customer were provocative only of scornful comments, but when she handed him a memorandum of an appointment with the prospect at ten o’clock the next morning, he meekly thrust the paper into his pocket and said all right; he’d see what he could do.

Miss Ordway was already busy with other matters; she seemed to make due allowance for her employer’s peculiarities.

“This girl’s mighty firm with me,” he said in a tone perfectly audible to Miss Ordway.

“A cruel tyrant; but she really does get some work out of me.

” He sat on the edge of his desk as he talked over the extension telephone.

Bruce inferred that he was speaking to Mrs. Freeman, and it was evident from his tone that Bud had not exaggerated in speaking of his intimacy with the architect and his wife.

“Maybelle’s pushing the pill somewhere and won’t be back for a week.

This being Friday, I’d like to be invited to your shanty for the week-end....

Ah!

That’s nice of you.

And may I bring a little friend?...

Oh, a man, of course!

And list, Dale, he’s an architect--a Tech grad and everything pretty, and I want Bill to take him on--see?

Nice boy and perishing for a job.

You fix it for me--that’s the girl!...

Oh!

my friend isn’t fussy; we’ll both sleep on the grass....

What?

Yes; I’ll bring some poison; my pet bootlegger broke through the entanglements yesterday.

” “All set,” he remarked as he hung up the receiver.

“Mighty nice girl, Dale.

” Miss Ordway intercepted him on his way out to ask what she should do about a claim for damages to a car belonging to a man named Smythe, which had been scratched in the garage.

The owner threatened to sue, and Miss Ordway expressed the belief that the valued patron was not bluffing.

“We took the stand it wasn’t done in our shop and we can’t weaken,” said Henderson.

“Also, we don’t want a row.

Were my eyes deceiving me or have I seen Smythe looking longingly at that blue touring car in our front window?

Yes?

Well, suppose we send Briggs to call on him, carrying the olive branch.

Tell him to roll home in the blue car and we’ll take his old junk and seven hundred berries cash on the counter.

” “I think we could get eight hundred on the deal.

” Miss Ordway’s tones were crisp and businesslike.

“Sold!

I despise Smythe, but it’s worth a thousand to have him riding in a Plantagenet.

I’ll look in again at five.

” II

Henderson spent the morning exhibiting the city’s industries and wound up at the University Club for luncheon.

“Now I’ll show you where the big frogs of our little puddle live,” he said as they started off again.

In his racy description of the owners of the houses they passed, their ancestry, the skeletons in their closets, their wealth and how it was attained, Henderson shone effulgently.

Bruce, marveling that one head could carry so much local history, was almost equally astonished by the sins and foibles of the citizens as Henderson pictured them.

“Great Scott!

Are there no perfectly normal people in this town?

” he demanded.

“A few, maybe,” Henderson replied, lifting his hand from the wheel to stroke his chin.

“But they’re not what you’d call conspicuous.

” Pausing before a handsome colonial house, the presence of an elderly gentleman calmly perusing a newspaper on the veranda, inspired Henderson to a typical excursion in biography.

The owner, thinking visitors impended, pattered down the steps and stared belligerently at the car.

“Note the carpet slippers,” remarked Henderson as the gentleman, satisfied that his privacy was not to be invaded, returned to his chair.

“Here we have Bill Fielding, one of the most delightful old scoundrels in town.

Observe his pants--sleeps in ’em to avoid the fatigue of disrobing.

To keep off evil spirits he wears the first nickel he ever earned on a string around his neck.

He’s the smoothest tax-dodger in America.

His wife starved to death and his three children moved to California to get as far away from the old skunk as possible.

Why does he live in a house like that?

Bless your simple soul, he took it on a mortgage and camps in two rooms while he waits for a buyer.

” “I don’t believe I’d like him!

If you’ve got many such birds I’d better try another town,” laughed Bruce as Henderson started the car.

“Oh, don’t worry!

He’s the last of his school.

Now we’re approaching a different proposition--one that baffles even my acute analytical powers.

” He drew up before a handsome Georgian house that stood lengthwise to the street in a broad lot in which a dozen towering forest trees had been preserved when the land was subdivided.

There were no frivolous lines in this residence, Bruce noted, surveying it with a professional eye; it was beyond criticism in its fidelity to type.

The many windows were protected by awnings of deep orange and the ledges were adorned with boxes of flowers.

The general effect was one of perfect order and uniformity.

Bruce, with his interest in houses as an expression of the character of their owners whetted by Henderson’s slangy lectures before other establishments, turned expectantly to his friend.

“Wind up the machine and put on the record!

That’s a sound piece of architecture, anyhow, and I can see that you are dying to turn out the skeletons.

” “Painful as it is for me to confess it, the truth is that in this case I can only present a few bald facts and leave you to make your own deductions.

” Henderson lighted a fresh cigarette and drew a deep draught of smoke into his lungs.

“Franklin Mills,” he said, and crossed his legs.

“Mills is around fifty, maybe a shade more.

The first of the tribe settled here in 1820 and Frank is the fourth of the name.

The family always had money and this bird’s father never lost a cent in his life.

Now Frank’s rich--nothing spectacular, but recognized as a rich man.

His pop left him well fixed and he’s piled up considerable mazuma on his own hook.

Does this interest you?

” “You always interest me, Bud; please proceed.

” “Well, you might call Franklin Mills the original man who couldn’t lose.

No active business now, but he controls a couple of banks and a trust company without figuring in the picture at all, and he set his son up in a storage battery plant and is a silent factor in a dozen other flourishing contributors to the smoke nuisance.

Nice chap, by the way, Shep Mills; pleasant little cuss.

Franklin Mills isn’t one of the up-from-the-office-boy type nor the familiar variety of feverish business man; velvet glove stuff.

Do you follow me?

Only human touch I’ve discovered in this house is the billiard room, and Mills is a shark at the sport.

I’ve poked the ivories with him now and then just for the fun of watching him play.

His style of playing is a sort of clue to his character--cool, deliberate, never misses.

One thing, though, I’ve never been able to figure out: once in a while he makes a wild shot, unnecessarily and with malice aforethought, as though to spite himself.

If you’d tell Franklin Mills he’d lost his last cent he wouldn’t blink an eye, but before you got out of the room he’d have thought up a scheme for making it all back.

” “A business genius,” commented Bruce, who had missed no word of Henderson’s sketch.

“I can’t say your snapshot’s very alluring.

” “Oh, I may be wrong!

If you’d ask anybody else about him you’d hear that he’s a leading citizen and a cultivated gentleman, which he is!

While of our city’s back-number or paralytic group, he’s far from being ripe for the mortician.

One sees him around socially now and then--on occasions when our real nobility shake the moth balls from their dress suits.

And that’s characteristic; he has the pride, you might say, of his long connection with the town.

If it’s necessary for somebody to bunk a distinguished visitor, Frank Mills opens his door--not that he’s keen to get his name in the village sheet, but he likes for the town to make a good impression--sort of ‘I am a citizen of no mean city,’ like St. Paul or whoever the bird was that said it first.

I doubt if the visitors enjoy his entertainments, but they’re probably used to being bored by the gloomy rich.

” “There are other children, perhaps?

A house like that rather suggests a big family,” Bruce remarked.

“The size only indicates Frank’s pride.

He’s given only two hostages to fortune.

There’s Leila, the daughter.

There must have been a naughty little devil in some of the Mills or Shepherd tribe away back yonder, for that girl certainly is a lively little filly.

Shep, who is named for his mother’s people, never browsed in the wild-oat fields, but Leila makes up for it.

Bounced from seven boarding schools--holds the champeen record there.

Her mother passed hence when Leila was about fourteen, and various aunts took a hand in bringing the kid up, but all they got for their trouble was nervous prostration.

Frank’s crazy about her--old stuff of doting father bullied by adorable daughter.

” “I think I get the picture,” said Bruce soberly as his thoughts caught up and played upon this summary of the history of Franklin Mills.

Glancing back at the house as Henderson drove away, Bruce was aware of the irony of his very presence in the town, sent there by the whim of a dying woman to be prepared to aid a man who in no imaginable circumstances could ever require any help it might be in his power to give.

His mother had said that she had kept some track of Mills’s life; she could never have realized that he was so secure from any possibility of need.

As Bruce thought of it, Henderson had not limned an attractive portrait.

Only Mills’s devotion to the daughter, whom Henderson had described in terms that did not conceal his own admiration for the girl, brightened the picture.

“What can such a man do with his time in a town like this?

” asked Bruce meditatively.

“No active business, you say.

Shooting billiards and cutting coupons hardly makes an exciting day.

” “Well,” Henderson replied, “I’ve seen him on the golf links--usually alone or with the club professional.

Frank’s not one of these ha-ha boys who get together after the game with a few good sports and sneak a bottle of unlawful Scotch from the locker.

Travels a bit; several times a year he beats it somewhere with Leila.

Shep’s wife bores him, I think; and Shep’s not exciting; too damned nice.

From all I can see, Leila’s her pop’s single big bet.

Some say he’s diffident; others hold that he’s merely a selfish proposition.

He’s missed a number of chances to marry again--some of the most dashing widows in our tall corn cities have made a play for him; but he follows G. Washington’s advice and keeps clear of entangling alliances.

” “Interesting personality,” said Bruce carelessly.

But Mills had fixed himself in his mind--he had even fashioned a physical embodiment for the traits Henderson had described.

On the whole, Bruce’s dominant feeling was one of relief and satisfaction.

Franklin Mills was as remote from him as though they were creatures of different planets, separated by vast abysses of time and space.

III

In spite of Henderson’s sweeping declaration that he needn’t waste time calling on architects, that Freeman would take care of him, Bruce spent the next morning visiting the offices of the architects on his list.

Several of these were out of town; the others received him amiably; one of them promised him some work a little later, but was rather vague about it.

When he returned to the hotel at noon he found Henderson waiting for him.

He had nothing to do, he declared, but to keep Bruce amused.

Everything was a little incidental with Henderson, but he seemed to get what he wanted without effort, even buyers for the Plantagenet.

Bruce related the results of his visits to the offices of the architects and Henderson pursed his lips and emitted a cluck of disapproval.

“Next time mind your Uncle Dudley.

Bill Freeman’s the bird for you.

You just leave every little thing to me.

Now what else is troubling you?

” “Well, I want a place to live; not too expensive, but a few of the minor comforts.

” Two hours later Bruce was signing the lease for a small bachelor apartment that Henderson had found for him with, apparently, no effort.

He had also persuaded some friends of his who lived across the street to give the young architect breakfast and provide a colored woman to keep his place in order.

Henderson’s acquaintance with his fellow citizens appeared to be unlimited.

He took Bruce to the State House to call on the Governor--brought that official from a conference from which he emerged good-naturedly to shake hands and hear a new story.

From this interruption of affairs of state Henderson convoyed Bruce to a barber shop in the midst of an office building where there was a venerable negro workman who told a story about a mule which Henderson said was the funniest story in the world.

The trimming of a prominent citizen’s hair was somewhat delayed by the telling of the yarn, but he, like everyone else, seemed to be tolerant of Henderson’s idiosyncrasies; and the aged barber’s story was unquestionably a masterpiece.

Henderson began telephoning acquaintances who had offices in the building to come forthwith to meet an old college friend.

When two men actually appeared--one an investment broker and the other a middle-aged lawyer--Henderson organized a quartette and proceeded to “get harmony.

” Neighboring tenants assembled, attracted by the unwonted sounds, and Henderson introduced Bruce to them as a new man in town who was entitled to the highest consideration.

“This is a sociable sort of village,” he said as they left the shop.

“I could see you made a hit with those fellows.

You’re bound to get on, my son.

” At noon on Saturday Henderson drove Bruce to the Freemans’, where with the utmost serenity he exercised all the rights of proprietorship.

The house, of the Dutch Colonial type, was on the river in a five-acre tract.

A real estate operator had given Freeman the site with the stipulation that he build himself a home to establish a social and artistic standard for the neighborhood.

“Don’t be afraid of these people,” remarked Henderson reassuringly.

“Take your cue from me and act as though you had a deed for the house in your pocket.

Bill’s a dreamy sort of cuss, but Dale’s a human dynamo.

She looks fierce, but responds to kind treatment.

” Bruce never knew when Henderson was serious, and when a diminutive young lady ran downstairs whistling he assumed that he was about to be introduced to the daughter of the house.

“Dale, this is old Bruce Storrs, one of the meanest men out of jail.

I know you’ll hate each other; that’s why I brought him.

At the first sign of any flirtation between you two I’ll run you both through the meat chopper and take a high dive into the adjacent stream.

” Mrs. Freeman was absurdly small and slight, and the short skirt of her simple linen dress and her bobbed hair exaggerated her diminutive stature.

Having gathered from Henderson an idea that Mrs. Freeman was an assertive masculine person, Bruce was taken aback as the little woman smiled up at him and shook hands.

“It really isn’t my fault that I broke in,” he protested.

“It was this awful Henderson person who told me you’d be heart-broken if I didn’t come.

” “I should have been!

He’d have come alone and bored me to death.

How is every little thing, Bud?

” “Soaring!

” mumbled Henderson, who had chosen a book from the rack on the table and, sprawling on a couch, became immediately absorbed in it.

“That’s the way Bud shows his noble breeding,” remarked Mrs. Freeman, “but he is an easy guest to entertain.

I suppose you’re used to him?

” “Oh, we lived together for a couple of years!

Nothing he does astonishes me.

” “Then I needn’t apologize for him.

Bud’s an acquired taste, but once you know him, he’s highly diverting.

” “When I began rooming with him in Boston I thought he wasn’t all there, but finally decided he was at least three-quarters sane.

” “One thing’s certain; he’s mastered the art of not being bored, which is some accomplishment!

” said Mrs. Freeman, as Henderson rose suddenly and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, whence proceeded presently a sound as of cracking ice.

Mrs. Freeman had something of Henderson’s air of taking things for granted, and she talked to Bruce quite as though he were an old friend.

She spoke amusingly of the embarrassments of housekeeping in the new quarter; they were pioneers, she said, and as servants refused to bury themselves so far from the bright lights, she did most of her own housework, which was lots of fun when you had everything electric to play with.

There was an old colored man who did chores and helped in the kitchen.

She told several stories to illustrate his proneness to error and his ingenuity in excusing his mistakes.

“You’ve never lived here?

Bud gave me that idea, but you never know when he’s telling the truth.

” “I never saw the town before, but I hope to stay.