THE GENERAL OUTFITTING AND
MERCHANTIZING CORPORATION
Then he saw a card on the wall beside the door with a hand holding a torch drawn out on it and under it the words “Truthseeker Inc.” He tapped gingerly on the glass. No answer. He tapped again.
“Come in… Don’t knock,” called out a deep voice. Fainy found himself stuttering as he opened the door and stepped into a dark, narrow room completely filled up by two huge rolltop desks:
“Please, I called to see Mr. Bingham, sir.”
At the further desk, in front of the single window sat a big man with a big drooping jaw that gave him a little of the expression of a setter dog. His black hair was long and curled a little over each ear, on the back of his head was a broad black felt hat. He leaned back in his chair and looked Fainy up and down.
“How do you do, young man? What kind of books are you inclined to purchase this morning? What can I do for you this morning?” he boomed.
“Are you Mr. Bingham, sir, please?”
“This is Doc Bingham right here before you.”
“Please, sir, I… I came about that job.”
Doc Bingham’s expression changed. He twisted his mouth as if he’d just tasted something sour. He spun round in his swivelchair and spat into a brass spittoon in the corner of the room. Then he turned to Fainy again and leveled a fat finger at him, “Young man, how do you spell experience?”
“E… x… p… er… er… er… i… a… n…”
“That’ll do… No education… I thought as much… No culture, none of those finer feelings that distinguish the civilized man from the savage aborigines of the wilds… No enthusiasm for truth, for bringing light into dark places… Do you realize, young man, that it is not a job I’m offering you, it is a great opportunity… a splendid opportunity for service and selfimprovement. I’m offering you an education gratis.”
Fainy shuffled his feet. He had a husk in his throat.
“If it’s in the printin’ line I guess I could do it.”
“Well, young man, during the brief interrogatory through which I’m going to put you, remember that you stand on the threshold of opportunity.”
Doc Bingham ferreted in the pigeonholes of his desk for a long time, found himself a cigar, bit off the end, lit it, and then turned again to Fainy, who was standing first on one foot and then on the other.
“Well, if you’ll tell me your name.”
“Fenian O’Hara McCreary…”
“Hum… Scotch and Irish… that’s pretty good stock… that’s the stock I come from.”
“Religion?”
Fainy squirmed. “Pop was a Catholic but…” He turned red.
Dr. Bingham laughed, and rubbed his hands.
“Oh, religion, what crimes are committed in thy name. I’m an agnostic myself… caring nothing for class or creed when among friends; though sometimes, my boy, you have to bow with the wind… No, sir, my God is the truth, that rising ever higher in the hands of honest men will dispel the mists of ignorance and greed, and bring freedom and knowledge to mankind… Do you agree with me?”
“I’ve been working for my uncle. He’s a social-democrat.”
“Ah, hotheaded youth… Can you drive a horse?”
“Why, yessir, I guess I could.”
“Well, I don’t see why I shouldn’t hire you.”
“The advertisement in the Tribune said fifteen dollars a week.”
Doc Bingham’s voice assumed a particularly velvety tone.
“Why, Fenian my boy, fifteen dollars a week will be the minimum you will make… Have you ever heard of the cooperative system? That is how I’m going to hire you… As sole owner and representative of the Truthseeker Corporation, I have here a magnificent line of small books and pamphlets covering every phase of human knowledge and endeavor… I am embarking immediately on a sales campaign to cover the whole country. You will be one of my distributors. The books sell at from ten to fifty cents. On each tencent book you make a cent, on the fifty-cent book you make five cents…”
“And don’t I get anything every week?” stammered Fainy.
“Would you be penny-wise and pound-foolish? Throwing away the most magnificent opportunity of a lifetime for the assurance of a paltry pittance. No, I can see by your flaming eye, by your rebellious name out of old Ireland’s history, that you are a young man of spirit and determination… Are we on? Shake hands on it then and by gad, Fenian, you shall never regret it.”
Doc Bingham jumped to his feet and seized Fainy’s hand and shook it.
“Now, Fenian, come with me; we have an important preliminary errand to perform.” Doc Bingham pulled his hat forward on his head and they walked down the stairs to the front door; he was a big man and the fat hung loosely on him as he walked. Anyway, it’s a job, Fainy told himself.
First they went to a tailorshop where a longnosed yellow man whom Doc Bingham addressed as Lee shuffled out to meet them. The tailorshop smelt of steamed cloth and cleansing fluid. Lee talked as if he had no palate to his mouth.
“’M pretty sick man,” he said. “Spen’ mor’n thou’an’ dollarm on doctor, no get well.”
“Well, I’ll stand by you; you know that, Lee.”
“Hure, Mannie, hure, only you owe me too much money.”
Dr. Emmanuel Bingham glanced at Fainy out of the corner of his eye.
“I can assure you that the entire financial situation will be clarified within sixty days… But what I want you to do now is to lend me two of your big cartons, those cardboard boxes you send suits home in.” “What you wan’ to do?”
“My young friend and I have a little project.”
“Don’t you do nothin’ crooked with them cartons; my name’s on them.”
Doc Bingham laughed heartily as they walked out the door, carrying under each arm one of the big flat cartons that had Levy and Goldstein, Reliable Tailoring, written on them in florid lettering.
“He’s a great joker, Fenian,” he said. “But let that man’s lamentable condition be a lesson to you… The poor unfortunate is suffering from the consequences of a horrible social disease, contracted through some youthful folly.”
They were passing the taxidermist’s store again. There were the wildcats and the golden pheasant and the big sawfish… Frequents shallow bays and inlets. Fainy had a temptation to drop the tailor’s cartons and run for it. But anyhow, it was a job.
“Fenian,” said Doc Bingham, confidentially, “do you know the Mohawk House?”
“Yessir, we used to do their printing for them.”
“They don’t know you there, do they?”
“Naw, they wouldn’t know me from Adam… I just delivered some writin’ paper there once.”
“That’s superb… Now get this right; my room is 303. You wait and come in about five minutes. You’re the boy from the tailor’s, see, getting some suits to be cleaned. Then you come up to my room and get the suits and take ’em round to my office. If anybody asks you where you’re going with ’em, you’re goin’ to Levy and Goldstein, see?”
Fainy drew a deep breath.
“Sure, I get you.”
When he reached the small room in the top of the Mohawk House, Doc Bingham was pacing the floor.
“Levy and Goldstein, sir,” said Fainy, keeping his face straight.
“My boy,” said Doc Bingham, “you’ll be an able assistant; I’m glad I picked you out. I’ll give you a dollar in advance on your wages.” While he talked he was taking clothes, papers, old books, out of a big trunk that stood in the middle of the floor. He packed them carefully in one of the cartons. In the other he put a furlined overcoat. “That coat cost two hundred dollars, Fenian, a remnant of former splendors… Ah, the autumn leaves at Vallombrosa… Et tu in Arcadia vixisti… That’s Latin, a language of scholars.”