“Well,” hesitating, “your college.”
“How do you know I had one?”
“Oh, that is easy! Anyone could tell that.”
Carl laughed, pleased. Nothing is more delightful to a man than such a tribute to his alma mater.
Perhaps the girl knew it; at any rate, she got from Carl all that she wanted to know. It is always dangerous to tell a man that you want to hear about himself. In thirty minutes you are sure to think him either a bore or a hero.
And they are equally uncomfortable, though for different reasons.
But the girl was certainly not bored. Carl told her of Caxton; its people, its play, its life; his friends, his mother, his ambitions. When once started, he spoke with an easy earnestness that was charming.
Besides, you can talk forever, and well, to a pretty girl who admits that she likes to hear you.
When he came to his departure for New York he stopped short. “The rest,” he declared, “is funny. And I don’t want you to laugh at me.”
“You know I won’t,” she said earnestly. “Please.”
And so he told of his high hopes and silly pretensions, his disappointment and shame, and finally of the ignominious fall that landed him in the office of Cohen & Aduchefsky.
“The truth is,” he concluded, “that New York is too big for me. There’s nothing for me to get hold of.”
“The truth is,” she contradicted, “that you are foolish to expect to do anything in New York without knowing someone. No one ever has.”
Their luncheon was finished and they arose to go. As they left the restaurant and started toward Broadway, Carl remarked that on account of the Saturday half-holiday he need not return to the office.
“I’m so sorry I have an engagement,” said the girl. “Wouldn’t it be pleasant to walk?”
Carl nodded. “With you?”
“Of course, with me,” she agreed. “Because,” smiling, “I let you talk all you want to.”
But he was in no mood for badinage. What, he reflected, was he to do for the rest of the day, when she was gone? And the next, and the next, and all the others?
He turned and looked at her beseechingly. They had stopped on the platform of the elevated railroad station, waiting for her train. “Won’t you please tell me?” he pleaded.
She returned his gaze steadily, smiling. “No,” she replied. “I would, but—”
Her train rolled in alongside the platform.
“Here,” she said, and handed him a card. Before he had time to move she was on the car, and gone. He gazed at the receding train stupidly, and when it had disappeared, looked at the card. It read:
INSPECTOR
Bureau of Labor
City of New York
He tore the card in pieces and threw them on the platform, then carefully picked them up again and put them in his pocket. Two or three waiting passengers stared at him in wonder. He returned the stare with indifference and made his way to the street.
His first impulse was to go to the offices of the bureau of labor; but he thought better of it, and went to walk in the square. After half an hour of indecision he went to a telephone and called up the bureau.
The office was closed.
“It’s lucky they were closed,” he commented to himself. “What could I have said? ‘Have you an inspector in your office with brown hair and beautiful eyes?’ Of course they’d tell me all about it.”
He wandered down Broadway, musing. When a sudden impact with a lamppost made him realize that he was in no condition to take care of himself, he returned to his room and tried to read; but he could see nothing but a sweet, laughing face and teasing eyes.
He started to write a letter, and finished one paragraph in two hours. And yet, after all this, it was nearly eleven o’clock before he admitted to himself that he was in love.
Sunday passed, dull and eventless. On Monday morning he approached Mr. Cohen with an air of satisfaction and announced that he would leave on the following Saturday. Mr. Cohen was astonished and excited.
“That’s the way!” he exclaimed. “After you learn the job a whole month’s expenses you go at once. What do they give you?”
“Who?”
“Why, where you’re going.”
“Nothing. I have no other position. I am only leaving this one.”
Mr. Cohen was called to wait on a customer, and Carl commenced his daily task with a light heart. Why, Heaven only knows.
At noon he went to the factory and asked the foreman what instructions had been given him by the labor inspector. The foreman was very obliging.
“Didn’t she say the thing would be looked over?” Carl asked carelessly.
“Yes,” answered the foreman. “Said she’d be around Tuesday.” Which explains the light heart.
On Tuesday morning, therefore, Carl entered the office whistling. Miss Alteresko handed him a letter. He tore open the envelope and found, on an embossed sheet, the somewhat startling information that Mr. R. U. Carson of R. U. Carson & Co., would be pleased to have him call and see him at his office on Tuesday morning after ten.
Mr. Carson was well known to Carl, as indeed he was to everyone who read the newspapers. In the war of finance, though perhaps not a general, he was at the very least a colonel. His name was one of the household words of the metropolis, and not the least important.
Carl wondered vaguely what the great Carson could want with him.
At ten o’clock he told Mr. Cohen that he wished to go downtown on business. Mr. Cohen eyed him suspiciously, but said nothing; and fifteen minutes later Carl entered the imposing offices of R. U. Carson & Co. and handed in the letter he had received.
The boy returned with me information that Mr. Carson was engaged, but would see him presently.
Carl seated himself, full of conjectures as to the purpose of this unexpected invitation. Five, ten minutes passed, and he began to feel worried; for the inspector — he smiled at the title — had promised to return on Tuesday, and he had decided that, Carson or no Carson, he would be back in the office by eleven.
By half past ten he was decidedly anxious, and was watching the clock.
“Mr. Carson will see you now, sir,” announced the boy. “This way.”
And Carl was led through a succession of passages and rooms to a large, elegantly furnished apartment overlooking the street. The great Carson himself was seated at a desk in the center of the room, dictating to his stenographer. At Carl’s approach he arose and extended his hand.
“Mr. McNair,” he said, “I am glad to know you.”
“And I you, sir,” taking the hand.
Mr. Carson dismissed the stenographer, and conducting Carl to an inner room, waved him to a seat.
“Now, my boy,” he began abruptly, “to come to the point at once, you have been recommended to me as a very worthy young man. In the first place, would a position with our firm be agreeable to you?”
Carl concealed his surprise. “Certainly, sir. That is,” he added, “it depends a little on the position.”
“Of course,” agreed Mr. Carson. “But that will be arranged to your satisfaction. What I want is the man. I prefer to teach him myself; the less he knows the better, if he isn’t a blockhead. And now to details.”
For a quarter of an hour Carl was kept busy answering questions. Finally Mr. Carson expressed himself as satisfied. He arose and again extended his hand.
“There is one thing, sir, that I would like to know,” said Carl as he prepared to leave. “I can’t imagine which of my friends has done me this favor. In fact, I didn’t know that—”
He was interrupted by a voice from the outer room. “Oh, dear, he’s always busy,” someone was saying.
Carl’s heart leaped; it was the girl’s voice! Mr. Carson walked to the door, smiling. “Come in,” he invited.