The Fortune Hunter

L >> Louis Joseph Vance >> The Fortune Hunter

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" ... He's got six suits of clothes, three for summer and three for
winter, and two others to wear to parties--one regular full-dress suit
and another without any tails on the coat that he told Miss Carpenter
was a dinner-coat, but Roland Barnette says he must've meant a Tuxedo,
because nobody wears that kind of clothes except at night; so how could
it be a dinner-coat?... And Miss Carpenter told Ma he's got twelve
striped shirts and eight white ones and dozens of silk socks and two
dozen neckties and handkerchiefs till you can't count and...."

Mame punctuates this monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!"
and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I
am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The
atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration,
and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, glue and rubber quite
nourishing.

Presently Dr. Mortimer, the minister, comes down the street in company
with his deacon, Blinky Lockwood. They are discussing someone in
subdued tones, but I catch references to a worthy young man and the
vacancy in the choir.

Josie Lockwood rustles into hearing with Bessie Gabriel in tow. Josie
is rattling volubly, but with a hint of the confidential in her tone.
She insists that: "Of course, I never let on, but every time we meet I
can just feel him looking and...."

Bessie interposes: "Why, Tracey Tanner's just crazy for fear he'll take
on with Angie."

I can see Josie's head toss at this. "I bet he don't know what Angie
Tuthill looks like. That's too absurd..."

"Absurd" is Josie's newest word. It's a very good word, too, but
sometimes I fear she will wear it threadbare. It closes her remarks as
the two girls dart into the Post Office, and there is peace for a time;
then they emerge giggling, and I hear Josie declare: "I'd get Roland
Barnette to do it, but he's so jealous. He makes me tired."

Bessie's response is inaudible.

"Well," Josie continues, "I'm simply not going to send them out until I
meet him. Father said I could give it a week from Saturday, but I won't
unless--"

Bessie interrupts, again inaudibly.

"Of course I could do that, but ... if I just said 'Miss Carpenter and
guests' that nosey old Homer Littlejohn'd think I meant him too, and if
I only said 'guest' it'd look too pointed. Don't you think so?"

To my relief they pass from hearing, and I feel for my pipe for
comfort. Anyway, I never did like Josie Lockwood.... Smoking, I
meditate on the astonishing power of personality. Here is Mr. Nathaniel
Duncan no more than a fortnight in our midst (the phrase is used
callously, as something sacred to country journalism) and, behold! not
yet has the town ceased to discuss him. The control he has over the
local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he
has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should
say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his
own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the
good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we
can't leave him alone....

Tracey Tanner interrupts my musings.

"Hello!" he twangs, like a tuneless banjo.

"'Lo, Tracey." This lofty and blase greeting can come from none other
than Roland Barnette.

"Where you goin'?"

"Over to the railway station."

"What for?"

"To give you something to talk about. I'm going to send a telegram to a
friend of mine in Noo York."

"Aw, you ain't the only one can send telegrams. Sam Graham sent one
just now."

"_He_ did!"

"Uh-huh. I was sort of hangin' round, when he came in, and I seen him
send it myself."

"Sam Graham telegraphing! Do you know; who to, Tracey?" Roland's
superiority is wearing thin under contact with his curiosity. This
surprising bit of news makes him distinctly more affable and inclined
to lower himself to the social level of the son of the livery-stable
keeper.

As for myself, I am inclined to lean out of the window and call Tracey
up, lest he get out of hearing before I hear the rest of it.
Fortunately I am not thus obliged to compromise my dignity. The two are
at pause.

"Gimme a cigarette 'nd I'll tell you," bargains Tracey shrewdly. "Lew
Parker told me after Sam'd gone."

The deal is put through promptly.

"He was telegraphin' to--Got a match?"

For once I am in sympathy with Roland, whose tone betrays his desire to
wring Tracey's exasperating neck.

"Aw, he was only telegraphing to Gresham an' Jones for some sody water
syrups."

"Where'd he get the money?" There's fine scorn in Roland's comment.

"I dunno, but he handed Lew a five-dollar bill to pay for the message."

"Well, if Sam Graham's got any money he'd better hold on to it, instead
of buying sody-water syrups. I guess Blinky Lockwood'll get after him
when he finds it out. He owes Blinky a note at the bank and it's coming
due in a day or two and Blinky ain't going to renew, neither."

"Sam seemed cheerful 'nough. Anyhow, it ain't my funeral."

I have now something to think about, indeed, and am more than half
inclined to stroll up to Graham's and find out what has happened, on my
own account, when the voices of Hi Nutt and Watty the tailor drift up
to me. The cronies are coming down for their regular afternoon session
on the Post Office benches--a function which takes place daily, just as
soon as the sun gets round behind the building, so that the seats are
shaded. And I pause, true to the ethics of journalism; it's my duty not
to leave just yet.

Surprisingly enough these two likewise are discussing Sam Graham. At
least I can deduce nothing else from Hiram's first words, though their
subject is for the moment nameless.

"Yes, sir; he's the poorest man in this town."

"Yes," Watty quavers; "yes, I guess he be."

"An' he's got no more business sense _into_ him than God give a
goose."

"No, I guess he ain't."

"Why, look at the way things has run down at his store since Margaret
died. She kept things a-runnin' while she was alive."
"Yes, she was a fine woman, Margaret Bohun
was."

"An' they ain't no doubt about it, Sam had money into the bank when she
died. But ever sinst then it's been all go out and no come in with him.
He keeps fussin' and fussin' with them inventions of his, but no one
ever heard tell of his gettin' anything out of 'em."

"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?"

"Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes
for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I
heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin'
due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more."

"'Course Sam can't pay it."

"Certainly he can't. I was in his store day before yestiddy an' they
wasn't nobody come in for nothin' while I was there. He don't do no
business to speak of."

"How long was you there, Hi?"

"From nine o'clock to noon."

"What doin'?"

"Nuthin'; jes' settin' round."

"I seen him to-day goin' into the bank. Guess he must've gone to see
Lockwood 'bout thet note."

"Well, I don't envy him his call on Blinky Lockwood none."

"Mebbe he went in to deposit his coupons," Watty chuckled.

Hiram snorted and there was silence while he filled and lit his pipe.

"I hearn tell this mornin'," he resumed, "that Josie Lockwood's goin'
to give a party next week."

"Yes, I hearn it too. Angie Tuthill was talkin' 'bout it to Mame
Garrison up to Leonard and Call's. She said they was goin' to have the
biggest time this town ever see. Goin' to decyrate the grounds with
lanterns an' have ice cream sent from Phillydelphy, and cakes, too.
Can't make out what's come into Blinky to let that gal of his waste
money like that."

"I figger," says Hiram after a sapient pause, "she must be gettin' it
up for thet New York dood."

"Duncan?"

"Uh-huh."

"I didn't know he was 'quainted with the Lockwoods."

"I didn't know he was 'quainted with nobody."

"Nobody 'ceptin' Homer Littlejohn an' Hetty Carpenter, an' they don't
seem to know much about him. I call him darn cur'us. Hetty says he
allus a-settin' in his room, a-studyin' an' a-studyin' an' a-studyin'."

"He goes walkin' mornin's, Hetty told me."

"Wal, he don't come downtown much. Nobody hardly ever sees him 'cept to
church."

Hiram ponders this profoundly, finally delivering himself of an opinion
which he has never forsaken. "I claim he's a s'picious character."

"Don't look to me as though he knew 'nough to be much of anythin'."

"Wal, now, if he's a real student an' they ain't no outs 'bout him,
what in tarnation's he doin' here? Thet's jest what I'd like to have
somebody tell me, Watty."

"Hetty sez he sez he wants a quiet place to study."

Hiram snorts with scorn. "Oh, fid-del! You don't catch no Noo York
young feller a-settlin' down in Radville unless he's crazy or somethin'
worse."

"'Tain't no use tellin' Hetty Carpenter thet." "No; if anybody sez a
word agin him she shets 'em right up."

"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."

"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as
the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy
about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see
no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last
Satiddy. I never see clothes--such goods and linin's. They was made for
him, too--made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name
now."

"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much
like an undertaker's gitup."

"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the
county."

"Yes, I guess he be."

The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies
their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram,
who expectorates liberally by way of preface.

"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained
chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they
be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'
for work."

This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.

"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"

"That's what he's been a-doin'."

"Funny I missed hearin' about it."

"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard
and Call's and Godfrey's--'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit
discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways,
thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a
reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in
an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right
round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram
smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest
critter we ever had in this town."

"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."

At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns,
hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to
excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a
bearer of tremendous tidings.

"Hello," he pants.

"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'
don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to
rest, with you children allus a-buttin' in--"

"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispassionately. "I only wanted to tell you
the news."

Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"

"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told
him after what he said."

"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.

"Well, seein's it's you, Watty--"

"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts
Hiram with authority.

"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think,
Watty?"

"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"

"Thet--Noo--York--dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"

A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.

"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"

"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up
there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."

"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's
true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to
last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to
pay his wages with."

VIII

THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO

There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven
Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened
in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring
vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining
on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to
ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination;
it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him,
when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be
studied, watched, analysed and classified with secret amusement; but
now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a
foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with
Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain
language, he was bored to the point of extinction.

"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm
actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next
Sunday!

"Me?...

"If Kellogg could only see me now!"

He laughed mirthlessly.

"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...

"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I
had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street--the Bigelow House, for
choice....

"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows
you read about who get lost in the desert....

"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost
whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...

"Probably misquoted, at that."

Sullenly he rose and dressed.

He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that
meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his
chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as
possible he made his escape from the house.

The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south
on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the
river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats,
and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was
trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven--hot, a little
tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating,
had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the
vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some
sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save
drowse over "The Law of Torts."

Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a
spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully
rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the
embarrassingly candid window displays.

"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....

"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all
hose--those _Things!_ like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday
morning's clothes line!..."

He thought deeply, and sighed. "It ain't moral....

"But it's one of the rules, it must be did. Henry said a ribbon clerk
was a social equal....

"Come, now! No more shennanigan! Brace up! Be a man!...

"A man? That's the whole trouble: I am a man; I've got no business in a
place like that."

He turned and moved away slowly. But the idea had him by the heels. He
struggled against a growing resolution to return. Then enlightenment
came to him suddenly. He paused again, grappling with this amazing
revelation of self.

"Great Scott! Harry was right, damn him! He said this place would
reconstruct me from the inside out and vice versa, and by jinks! it
has. I actually _want_ to work!...

"Can you beat that--_me_!"

He swung back to Leonard and Call's, mentally reviewing his
instructions.

"Let's see. I was to wait at least a month, to let the shopkeepers get
accustomed to the sight of me.... _Hmm_.... Harry certainly has a
cute way of expressing his thought.... But it can't be helped; I can't
wait. If I do, I'll throw up the job....

"I'm to walk in and say, politely: '_I'm looking for employment. If
at any time you should have an opening here that you can offer me, I
shall endeavour to give satisfaction. Good-day_.'...

"But be careful not to press it. Just say it and get right out...."

With the air of a man who knows his own mind he pulled open the wire
screen-door and strode in.

Two minutes later he emerged, breathing hard, but with the glitter of
determination in his eye.

"I wouldn't 've believed I could get away with it. Here goes for the
next promising opening."

He headed for Sothern and Lee's drug-store.

"Wonder what that fellow would have said if I'd had the nerve to wait
and listen...."

In the drug-store he experienced less difficulty in making his speech
and exit; he flattered himself that he accomplished both gracefully,
even impressively. And indeed you may believe he left a gaping audience
behind him. So likewise at Godfrey's notions and stationery shop.

As he emerged from the latter the resonant clamour of the Methodist
Church clock drove him home for dinner, hungry and glowing with
self-approbation. At all events, no one had refused him: he had not
been set upon and incontinently kicked out. He felt that he was getting
on.

"Now this afternoon," he mused, "I'll wind up the job. By night
everyone in town will know I want work."

But if he had thought a moment he would have realised that he might
have spared himself the trouble; the consummation he so earnestly
desired was already being brought about by resident and recognised, if
unofficial, agents for the dissemination of news.

It was two o'clock or thereabouts, I gather, when, shaping his course
toward Radville's commercial centre, Duncan hesitated on the corner of
Beech Street, cocking an incredulous eye up at the weather-worn sign
which has for years adorned the side of Tuthill's grocery: a hand
indicating fixedly:

THIS WAY TO GRAHAM'S DRUG STORE

"Two druggists in Radville!" he mused. "Is it possible?... Then it's
Harry's mistake if the scheme fails; he said this was a one-horse
country town, but I'm blest if it isn't a thriving metropolis! Two!...
Here, I'm going to have a look."

He turned up Beech and presently discovered the object of his quest, a
two-storey building of "frame," guiltless of the ardent caress of a
paint-brush since time out of mind. On the ground floor the windows
were made up of many small square panes, several of which had been
rudely mended. Through them the interior glimmered darkly. In the
foreground stood a broken bottle, shaped like a mortuary urn and half
full of pink liquid. Beside it reposed a broken packing-box in which
bleary camphor-balls nestled between torn sheets of faded blue paper.
Of these a silent companion in misery stood on the far side of the
window: a towering pagoda-like cage of wire in which (trapped,
doubtless, by means of some mysterious bait known only to alchemists)
three worn but brutal-looking sponges were apparently slumbering in
exhaustion. Back of these a dusty plaster cast of a male figure lightly
draped seemed to represent the survival of the fittest over some
strange and deadly patent medicine. The recessed door bore an
inscription in gold letters, tarnished and half obliterated:

AM GRAHAM
RUGS & CHEM C LS

R SCRIPTION CAREF LY C POUNDED

"Looks like the very place for one of my acknowledged abilities," said
Duncan. He turned the knob and entered, advancing to the middle of the
dingy room. There, standing beside a cold and rusty stove whose pipe
wandered giddily to a hole in the farthest wall (reminding him of some
uncouth cat with its tail over its back), he surveyed with the single
requisite comprehensive glance the tiers of shelves tenanted by a
beggarly array of dingy bottles; the soda fountain with its company of
glasses and syrup jars; the flanking counters with their broken
show-cases housing a heterogenous conglomeration of unsalable wares;
the aged and tattered posters heralding the virtues of potent affronts
to the human interior--to say naught of its intelligence; the drab
walls and debris-littered flooring.

A slight grating noise behind him brought Duncan round with a start. At
a work-bench near the window sat a white-haired man garbed baggily in
an old crash coat and trousers. His head was bowed over something
clamped in a vise, at which he was tinkering busily with a file. He did
not look up, but, as his caller moved, inquired amiably: "Well?"

"Good-morning," stammered Duncan; "er--I should say afternoon."

"So you should," Sam admitted, still fussing with his work. "Anything
you want?"

Duncan swallowed hard and mastered his confusion. "Would it be possible
for me to speak to the proprietor a moment?"

"I should jedge it would. Go right along." Sam filed vigorously.

"Might I ask--are you Mr. Graham?"

"Yes, sir; that's me."

The filing continued stridently. Duncan moved closer. There was scant
encouragement to be gathered from Graham's indifferent attitude; yet
his voice had been pleasant, kindly.

"I--I'm looking for employment," said Duncan hastily. "If--"

"Employment!"

Graham dropped his tools with a clatter and faced round. For a moment
his eyes twinkled and a wintry smile lightened his fine old features.
"Well, I declare!" he said, rising. "You must be the stranger the whole
town's been talkin' about."

"If at any time," Duncan pursued hastily, "you should have an opening
here that you can offer me, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.
Good-day, sir." And he made for the door.

"Eh, just a minute," said Graham. "Are you in a hurry?"

Duncan paused, smiling nervously. "Oh, no--only I mustn't press it, you
know--just say it and get right--I mean I don't want to take up your
valuable time, sir."

Graham chuckled. "Guess the folks haven't been talking much to you
about me," he suggested. "You seem to have a higher opinion of the
value of my time than anybody else in Radville."

"Yes, but--that is to say--"

"But if you're really looking for a job, I'd like to give you one first
rate."

Duncan started toward him in breathless haste. "You--you'd like
to!--You don't mean it!"

"Yes," Graham nodded, smiling with enjoyment of his little joke. It was
harmless; he didn't for a moment believe that Duncan really needed
employment; and on the other hand it tickled him immensely to think
that anyone should apply to him for work.

"Well," said Duncan, staring, "you're the first man I ever met that
felt that way about it."

Sam's amusement dwindled. "The trouble is," he confessed--"the trouble
is, my boy, my business is so small I don't need any help. There isn't
much of anything to do here."

"That's just the sort of a place I'd like," said Duncan impulsively.
Then he laughed a little, uneasily. "I mean, I'm willing to take any
position, no matter how insignificant. I mean it, honestly."

"This might suit you, then--"

"I wish you'd let me try it, sir."

"But you don't understand." Graham was serious enough now; there wasn't
any joke in what he had to say. "To tell you the truth, I can't afford
it. When your pay was due, I'm afraid I shouldn't have any money to
give you."

Duncan dismissed this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I
don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the
drug business I'll work for you for nothing."

He said it earnestly, for he meant it just a bit more seriously than he
himself realised at the moment; and I'm glad to think it was because
Sam's serene and gentle, guileless nature had appealed to the young
man. He had that in him, that instinct for decency and the right, that
made him like this simple, sweet and almost childish old man at
sight--like him and want to help him, though he was hardly conscious of
this and believed his motive rather more than less selfish, that he was
grasping at this opportunity for relief from the deadly ennui that
oppressed him as madly as a famished man at a crust. Indeed, the boy
was eager to deceive himself in this respect, with youth's wholesome
horror of sentiment.

"Between you and me," he hurried on, "it's this way: I've been here for
two weeks with nothing to do but look at a book, and it's got me crazy
enough to want to work!"

But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct
then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and
right-thinking in all of us--buried deep though they may be by many an
acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking
upon the soul....

But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful
deprecation. "Well, I swan!" he said. "I guess you must find it pretty
slow down here. But"--brightening--"if you feel that way about it, I'd
better take you over to Sothern and Lee's. They'd be glad to get you at
the price."

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