In his white-painted steerage berth Mr. Wrenn lay, with a scratch-pad on his raised knees and a small mean pillow doubled under his head, writing sample follow-up letters to present to the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company, interrupting his work at intervals to add to a list of the books which, beginning about five minutes after he landed in New York, he was going to master. He puzzled over Marie Corelli. Morton liked Miss Corelli so much; but would her works appeal to Istra Nash?
He had worked for many hours on a letter to Istra in which he avoided mention of such indecent matters as steerages and immigrants. He was grateful, he told her, for “all you learned me,” and he had thought that Aengusmere was a beautiful place, though he now saw “what you meant about them interesting people,” and his New York address would be the Souvenir Company.
He tore up the several pages that repeated that oldest most melancholy cry of the lover, which rang among the deodars, from viking ships, from the moonlit courtyards of Provence, the cry which always sounded about Mr. Wrenn as he walked the deck: “I want you so much; I miss you so unendingly; I am so lonely for you, dear.” For no more clearly, no more nobly did the golden Aucassin or lean Dante word that cry in their thoughts than did Mr. William Wrenn, Our Mr. Wrenn.
A third-class steward with a mangy mustache and setter-like tan eyes came teetering down-stairs, each step like a nervous pencil tap on a table, and peered over the side of Mr. Wrenn’s berth. He loved Mr. Wrenn, who was proven a scholar by the reading of real bound books — an English history and a second-hand copy of Haunts of Historic English Writers, purchased in Liverpool — and who was willing to listen to the steward’s serial story of how his woman, Mrs. Wargle, faithlessly consorted with Foddle, the cat’s-meat man, when the steward was away, and, when he was home, cooked for him lights and liver that unquestionably were purchased from the same cat’s-meat man. He now leered with a fond and watery gaze upon Mr. Wrenn’s scholarly pursuits, and announced in a whisper:
“They’ve sighted land.”
“Land?”
“Oh aye.”
Mr. Wrenn sat up so vigorously that he bumped his head. He chucked his papers beneath the pillow with his right hand, while the left was feeling for the side of the berth. “Land!” he bellowed to drowsing cabin-mates as he vaulted out.
The steerage promenade-deck, iron-sided, black-floored, ending in the iron approaches to the galley at one end and the iron superstructures about a hatch at the other, was like a grim swart oilily clean machine-shop aisle, so inclosed, so over-roofed, that the side toward the sea seemed merely a long factory window. But he loved it and, except when he had guiltily remembered the books he had to read, he had stayed on deck, worshiping the naive bright attire of immigrants and the dark roll and glory of the sea.
Now, out there was a blue shading, made by a magic pencil; land, his land, where he was going to become the beloved comrade of all the friends whose likenesses he saw in the white-caps flashing before him.
Humming, he paraded down to the buffet, where small beer and smaller tobacco were sold, to buy another pound of striped candy for the offspring of the Russian Jews.
The children knew he was coming. “Fat rascals,” he chuckled, touching their dark cheeks, pretending to be frightened as they pounded soft fists against the iron side of the ship or rolled unregarded in the scuppers. Their shawled mothers knew him, too, and as he shyly handed about the candy the chattering stately line of Jewish elders nodded their beards like the forest primeval in a breeze, saying words of blessing in a strange tongue.
He smiled back and made gestures, and shouted “Land! Land!” with several variations in key, to make it sound foreign.
But he withdrew for the sacred moment of seeing the Land of Promise he was newly discovering — the Long Island shore; the grass-clad redouts at Fort Wadsworth; the vast pile of New York sky-scrapers, standing in a mist like an enormous burned forest.
“Singer Tower. . . . Butterick Building,” he murmured, as they proceeded toward their dock. “That’s something like. . . . Let’s see; yes, sir, by golly, right up there between the Met. Tower and the Times — good old Souvenir Company office. Jiminy! ‘One Dollar to Albany’— something like a sign, that is — good old dollar! To thunder with their darn shillings. Home! . . . Gee! there’s where I used to moon on a wharf! . . . Gosh! the old town looks good.”
And all this was his to conquer, for friendship’s sake.
He went to a hotel. While he had to go back to the Zapps’, of course, he did not wish, by meeting those old friends, to spoil his first day. No, it was cheerfuler to stand at a window of his cheap hotel on Seventh Avenue, watching the “good old American crowd”— Germans, Irishmen, Italians, and Jews. He went to the Nickelorion and grasped the hand of the ticket-taker, the Brass-button Man, ejaculating: “How are you? Well, how’s things going with the old show? . . . I been away couple of months.”
“Fine and dandy! Been away, uh? Well, it’s good to get back to the old town, heh? Summer hotel?”
“Unk?”
“Why, you’re the waiter at Pat Maloney’s, ain’t you?”
Next morning Mr. Wrenn made himself go to the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company. He wanted to get the teasing, due him for staying away so short a time, over as soon as possible. The office girl, addressing circulars, seemed surprised when he stepped from the elevator, and blushed her usual shy gratitude to the men of the office for allowing her to exist and take away six dollars weekly.
Then into the entry-room ran Rabin, one of the traveling salesmen.
“Why, hul-lo, Wrenn! Wondered if that could be you. Back so soon? Thought you were going to Europe.”
“Just got back. Couldn’t stand it away from you, old scout!”
“You must have been learning to sass back real smart, in the Old Country, heh? Going to be with us again? Well, see you again soon. Glad see you back.”
He was not madly excited at seeing Rabin; still, the drummer was part of the good old Souvenir Company, the one place in the world on which he could absolutely depend, the one place where they always wanted him.
He had been absently staring at the sample-tables, noting new novelties. The office girl, speaking sweetly, but as to an outsider, inquired, “Who did you wish to see, Mr. Wrenn?”
“Why! Mr. Guilfogle.”
“He’s busy, but if you’ll sit down I think you can see him in a few minutes.”
Mr. Wrenn felt like the prodigal son, with no calf in sight, at having to wait on the callers’ bench, but he shook with faint excited gurgles of mirth at the thought of the delightful surprise Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle, the office manager, was going to have. He kept an eye out for Charley Carpenter. If Charley didn’t come through the entry-room he’d go into the bookkeeping-room, and —“talk about your surprises —”
“Mr. Guilfogle will see you now,” said the office girl.
As he entered the manager’s office Mr. Guilfogle made much of glancing up with busy amazement.
“Well, well, Wrenn! Back so soon? Thought you were going to be gone quite a while.”
“Couldn’t keep away from the office, Mr. Guilfogle,” with an uneasy smile.
“Have a good trip?”
“Yes, a dandy.”
“How’d you happen to get back so soon?”
“Oh, I wanted to — Say, Mr. Guilfogle, I really wanted to get back to the office again. I’m awfully glad to see it again.”
“Glad see you. Well, where did you go? I got the card you sent me from Chesterton with the picture of the old church on it.”
“Why, I went to Liverpool and Oxford and London and — well — Kew and Ealing and places and — And I tramped through Essex and Suffolk — all through — on foot. Aengusmere and them places.”
“Just a moment. (Well, Rabin, what is it? Why certainly. I’ve told you that already about five times. Yes, I said — that’s what I had the samples made up for. I wish you’d be a little more careful, d’ ye hear?) You went to London, did you, Wrenn? Say, did you notice any novelties we could copy?”
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t, Mr. Guilfogle. I’m awfully sorry. I hunted around, but I couldn’t find a thing we could use. I mean I couldn’t find anything that began to come up to our line. Them English are pretty slow.”
“Didn’t, eh? Well, what’s your plans now?”
“Why — uh — I kind of thought — Honestly, Mr. Guilfogle, I’d like to get back on my old job. You remember — it was to be fixed so —”
“Afraid there’s nothing doing just now, Wrenn. Not a thing. Course I can’t tell what may happen, and you want to keep in touch with us, but we’re pretty well filled up just now. Jake is getting along better than we thought. He’s learning —” Not one word regarding Jake’s excellence did Mr. Wrenn hear.
Not get the job back? He sat down and stammered:
“Gee! I hadn’t thought of that. I’d kind of banked on the Souvenir Company, Mr. Guilfogle.”
“Well, you know I told you I thought you were an idiot to go. I warned you.”
He timidly agreed, mourning: “Yes, that so; I know you did. But uh — well —”
“Sorry, Wrenn. That’s the way it goes in business, though. If you will go beating it around — A rolling stone don’t gather any moss. Well, cheer up! Possibly there may be something doing in —”
“Tr-r-r-r-r-r-r,” said the telephone.
Mr. Guilfogle remarked into it: “Hello. Yes, it’s me. Well, who did you think it was? The cat? Yuh. Sure. No. Well, to-morrow, probably. All right. Good-by.”
Then he glanced at his watch and up at Mr. Wrenn impatiently.
“Say, Mr. Guilfogle, you say there’ll be — when will there be likely to be an opening?”
“Now, how can I tell, my boy? We’ll work you in if we can — you ain’t a bad clerk; or at least you wouldn’t be if you’d be a little more careful. By the way, of course you understand that if we try to work you in it’ll take lots of trouble, and we’ll expect you to not go flirting round with other firms, looking for a job. Understand that?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“All right. We appreciate your work all right, but of course you can ‘t expect us to fire any of our present force just because you take the notion to come back whenever you want to. . . . Hiking off to Europe, leaving a good job! . . . You didn’t get on the Continent, did you?”
“No, I—”
“Well. . . . Oh, say, how’s the grub in London? Cheaper than it is here? The wife was saying this morning we’d have to stop eating if the high cost of living goes on going up.”
“Yes, it’s quite a little cheaper. You can get fine tea for two and three cents a cup. Clothes is cheaper, too. But I don’t care much for the English, though there is all sorts of quaint places with a real flavor. . . . Say, Mr. Guilfogle, you know I inherited a little money, and I can wait awhile, and you’ll kind of keep me in mind for a place if one —”
“Didn’t I say I would?”
“Yes, but —”
“You come around and see me a week from now. And leave your address with Rosey. I don’t know, though, as we can afford to pay you quite the same salary at first, even if we can work you in — the season’s been very slack. But I’ll do what I can for you. Come in and see me in about a week. Goo’ day.”
Rabin, the salesman, waylaid Mr. Wrenn in the corridor.
“You look kind of peeked, Wrenn. Old Goglefogle been lighting into you? Say, I ought to have told you first. I forgot it. The old rat, he’s been planning to stick the knife into you all the while. ‘Bout two weeks ago me and him had a couple of cocktails at Mouquin’s. You know how chummy he always gets after a couple of smiles. Well, he was talking about — I was saying you’re a good man and hoping you were having a good time — and he said, ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘he’s a good man, but he sure did lay himself wide open by taking this trip. I’ve got him dead to rights,’ he says to me. ‘I’ve got a hunch he’ll be back here in three or four months,’ he says to me. ‘And do you think he’ll walk in and get what he wants? Not him. I’ll keep him waiting a month before I give him back his job, and then you watch, Rabin,’ he says to me, ‘you’ll see he’ll be tickled to death to go back to work at less salary than he was getting, and he’ll have sense enough to not try this stunt of getting off the job again after that. And the trip’ll be good for him, anyway — he’ll do better work — vacation at his own expense — save us money all round. I tell you, Rabin,’ he says to me, ‘if any of you boys think you can get the best of the company or me you just want to try it, that’s all.’ Yessir, that’s what the old rat told me. You want to watch out for him.”
“Oh, I will; indeed I will —”
“Did he spring any of this fairy tale just now?”
“Well, kind of. Say, thanks, I’m awful obliged to —”
“Say, for the love of Mike, don’t let him know I told you.”
“No, no, I sure won’t.”
They parted. Eager though he was for the great moment of again seeing his comrade, Charley Carpenter, Mr. Wrenn dribbled toward the bookkeeping-room mournfully, planning to tell Charley of Guilfogle’s wickedness.
The head bookkeeper shook his head at Mr. Wrenn’s inquiry:
“Charley ain’t here any longer.”
“Ain’t here?”
“No. He got through. He got to boozing pretty bad, and one morning about three weeks ago, when he had a pretty bad hang-over, he told Guilfogle what he thought of him, so of course Guilfogle fired him.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Say, you don’t know his address, do you?”
“— East a Hundred and Eighteenth. . . . Well, I’m glad to see you back, Wrenn. Didn’t expect to see you back so soon, but always glad to see you. Going to be with us?”
“I ain’t sure,” said Mr. Wrenn, crabbedly, then shook hands warmly with the bookkeeper, to show there was nothing personal in his snippishness.
For nearly a hundred blocks Mr. Wrenn scowled at an advertisement of Corn Flakes in the Third Avenue Elevated without really seeing it. . . . Should he go back to the Souvenir Company at all?
Yes. He would. That was the best way to start making friends. But he would “get our friend Guilfogle at recess,” he assured himself, with an out-thrust of the jaw like that of the great Bill Wrenn. He knew Guilfogle’s lead now, and he would show that gentleman that he could play the game. He’d take that lower salary and pretend to be frightened, but when he got the chance —
He did not proclaim even to himself what dreadful thing he was going to do, but as he left the Elevated he said over and over, shaking his closed fist inside his coat pocket:
“When I get the chance — when I get it —”
The flat-building where Charley Carpenter lived was one of hundreds of pressed-brick structures, apparently all turned out of the same mold. It was filled with the smells of steamy washing and fried fish. Languid with the heat, Mr. Wrenn crawled up an infinity of iron steps and knocked three times at Charley’s door. No answer. He crawled down again and sought out the janitress, who stopped watching an ice-wagon in the street to say:
“I guess you’ll be finding him asleep up there, sir. He do be lying there drunk most of the day. His wife’s left him. The landlord’s give him notice to quit, end of August. Warm day, sir. Be you a bill-collector? Mostly, it’s bill-collectors that —”
“Yes, it is hot.”
Superior in manner............