Guiltily he tiptoed down-stairs and went snuffling along the dusty unvaried brick side streets, wondering where in all New York he could go. He read minutely a placard advertising an excursion to the Catskills, to start that evening. For an exhilarated moment he resolved to go, but-" oh, there was a lot of them rich society folks up there." He bought a morning American and, sitting in Union Square, gravely studied the humorous drawings.
He casually noticed the "Help Wanted" advertisements.
They suggested an uninteresting idea that somehow he might find it economical to go venturing as a waiter or farm-hand.
And so he came to the gate of paradise:
MEN WANTED. Free passage on cattle-boats to Liverpool feeding cattle. Low fee. Easy work. Fast boats. Apply International and Atlantic Employment Bureau,-Greenwich Street.
"Gee!" he cried, "I guess Providence has picked out my first hike for me."
CHAPTER III. HE STARTS FOR THE LAND OF ELSEWHERE
The International and Atlantic Employment Bureau is a long dirty room with the plaster cracked like the outlines on a map, hung with steamship posters and the laws of New York regarding employment offices, which are regarded as humorous by the proprietor, M. Baraieff, a short slender ejaculatory person with a nervous black beard, lively blandness, and a knowledge of all the incorrect usages of nine languages. Mr. Wrenn edged into this junk-heap of nationalities with interested wonder. M. Baraieff rubbed his smooth wicked hands together and bowed a number of times.
Confidentially leaning across the counter, Mr. Wrenn murmured: "Say, I read your ad. about wanting cattlemen. I want to make a trip to Europe. How-?"
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, Mistaire. I feex you up right away. Ten dollars pleas-s-s-s."
"Well, what does that entitle me to?"
"I tole you I feex you up. Ha! Ha! I know it; you are a gentleman; you want a nice leetle trip on Europe. Sure. I feex you right up. I send you off on a nice easy cattleboat where you won't have to work much hardly any. Right away it goes. Ten dollars pleas-s-s-s."
"But when does the boat start? Where does it start from?" Mr. Wrenn was a bit confused. He had never met a man who grimaced so politely and so rapidly.
"Next Tuesday I send you right off."
Mr. Wrenn regretfully exchanged ten dollars for a card informing Trubiggs, Atlantic Avenue, Boston, that Mr. "Ren" was to be "ship 1st poss. catel boat right away and charge my acct. fee paid Baraieff." Brightly declaring "I geef you a fine ship," M. Baraieff added, on the margin of the card, in copper-plate script, "Best ship, easy work." He caroled, "Come early next Tuesday morning, "and bowed out Mr. Wrenn like a Parisian shopkeeper. The row of waiting servant-girls curtsied as though they were a hedge swayed by the wind, while Mr. Wrenn self-consciously hurried to get past them.
He was too excited to worry over the patient and quiet suffering with which Mrs. Zapp heard the announcement that he was going. That Theresa laughed at him for a cattleman, while Goaty, in the kitchen, audibly observed that "nobody but a Yankee would travel in a pig-pen, "merely increased his joy in moving his belongings to a storage warehouse.
Tuesday morning, clad in a sweater-jacket, tennis-shoes, an old felt hat, a khaki shirt and corduroys, carrying a suit-case packed to bursting with clothes and Baedekers, with one hundred and fifty dollars in express-company drafts craftily concealed, he dashed down to Baraieff's hole. Though it was only eight-thirty, he was afraid he was going to be late.
Till 2 P.M. he sat waiting, then was sent to the Joy Steamship Line wharf with a ticket to Boston and a letter to Trubiggs's shipping-office: "Give bearer Ren as per inclosed receet one trip England catel boat charge my acct. SYLVESTRE BARAIEFF, N. Y."
Standing on the hurricane-deck of the Joy Line boat, with his suit-case guardedly beside him, he crooned to himself tuneless chants with the refrain, "Free, free, out to sea. Free, free, that's me! " He had persuaded himself that there was practically no danger of the boat's sinking or catching fire. Anyway, he just wasn't going to be scared. As the steamer trudged up East River he watched the late afternoon sun brighten the Manhattan factories and make soft the stretches of Westchester fields. (Of course, he "thrilled.")
He had no state-room, but was entitled to a place in a twelve-berth room in the hold. Here large farmers without their shoes were grumpily talking all at once, so he returned to the deck; and the rest of the night, while the other passengers snored, he sat modestly on a canvas stool, unblinkingly gloating over a sea-fabric of frosty blue that was shot through with golden threads when they passed lighthouses or ships. At dawn he was weary, peppery-eyed, but he viewed the flooding light with approval.
At last, Boston.
The front part of the shipping-office on Atlantic Avenue was a glass-inclosed room littered with chairs, piles of circulars, old pictures of Cunarders, older calendars, and directories to be ranked as antiques. In the midst of these remains a red-headed Yankee of forty, smoking a Pittsburg stogie, sat tilted back in a kitchen chair, reading the Boston American. Mr. Wrenn delivered M. Baraieff's letter and stood waiting, holding his suit-case, ready to skip out and go aboard a cattle-boat immediately.
The shipping-agent glanced through the letter, then snapped:
"Bryff's crazy. Always sends 'em too early. Wrenn, you ought to come to me first. What j'yuh go to that Jew first for? Here he goes and sends you a day late-or couple days too early. 'F you'd got here last night I could 've sent you off this morning on a Dominion Line boat. All I got now is a Leyland boat that starts from Portland Saturday. Le's see; this is Wednesday. Thursday, Friday-you'll have to wait three days. Now you want me to fix you up, don't you? I might not be able to get you off till a week from now, but you'd like to get off on a good boat Saturday instead, wouldn't you?"
"Oh yes; I would. I-"
"Well, I'll try to fix it. You can see for yourself; boats ain't leaving every minute just to please Bryff. And it's the busy season. Bunches of rah-rah boys wanting to cross, and Canadians wanting to get back to England, and Jews beating it to Poland-to sling bombs at the Czar, I guess. And lemme tell you, them Jews is all right. They're willing to pay for a man's time and trouble in getting 'em fixed up, and so-"
With dignity Mr. William Wrenn stated, "Of course I'll be glad to-uh-make it worth your while."
"I thought you was a gentleman. Hey, Al! Al!" An underfed boy with few teeth, dusty and grown out of his trousers, appeared. "Clear off a chair for the gentleman. Stick that valise on top my desk.... Sit down, Mr. Wrenn. You see, it's like this: I'll tell you in confidence, you understand. This letter from Bryff ain't worth the paper it's written on. He ain't got any right to be sending out men for cattle-boats. Me, I'm running that. I deal direct with all the Boston and Portland lines. If you don't believe it just go out in the back room and ask any of the cattlemen out there."
"Yes, I see," Mr. Wrenn observed, as though he were ill, and toed an old almanac about the floor. "Uh-Mr.-Trubiggs, is it?"
"Yump. Yump, my boy. Trubiggs. Tru by name and true by nature. Heh?"
This last was said quite without conviction. It was evidently a joke which had come down from earlier years. Mr. Wrenn ignored it and declared, as stoutly as he could:
"You see, Mr. Trubiggs, I'd be willing to pay you-"
"I'll tell you just how it is, Mr. Wrenn. I ain't one of these Sheeny employment bureaus; I'm an American; I like to look out for Americans. Even if you didn't come to me first I'll watch out for your interests, same's if they was mine. Now, do you want to get fixed up with a nice fast boat that leaves Portland next Saturday, just a couple of days' wait?"