The Auction Block Part 48

Bob hated to haggle, but he showed that his ability to drive a sharp bargain was merely latent, and he finally bore the animal away in triumph. To outgeneral a dog-fancier was a tribute to his shrewdness; to save two hundred dollars on a single purchase was economy of a high order. Much elated, he set out briskly for his tailor's place of business.

CHAPTER XXI

It still lacked something of luncheon-time when Bob Wharton swung into Fifth Avenue with Ying snugly ensconced in his coat pocket.

Bob was in fine fettle, what with the antic.i.p.ation of Lorelei's delight at his gift and the certainty of an agreeable hour with his tailor. It was always a pleasure to deal with Kurtz, for in his shop customers were treated with the most delicate consideration. Salesmen, cutters, fitters, all were pleasant acquaintances who displayed neither the fawning obsequiousness of Fifth Avenue trades-people nor the sullen apathy of Broadway clerks. Kurtz himself was an artist; he was also a person of generally cultivated taste and a man about town. His pleasure in making a sale was less than his delight at meeting and serving his customers, and his books were open only to those he considered his equals. A stony-faced doorman kept watch and ward in the Gothic hallway to discourage the general public from entering the premises. The fact that Bob owed several hundred dollars dismayed that young man not in the least, for Kurtz never mentioned money matters--the price of garments being after all of far less consequence than fit, and style, and that elusive something which Kurtz called "effect."

Our daily actions are controlled by a variety of opposing influences which are like threads pulling at us from various directions. When for any reason certain of these threads are snapped and the balance is disturbed we are drawn into strange pathways, and our whole lives may be changed through the operation of what seems a most trivial case. In Bob's case the cause approached, all unheralded, in the person of Mr. Richard Cady, a youth whose magnificent vacuity of purpose was the envy of his friends. Comet-like, he was destined to appear, flash brightly, then disappear below the horizon of this tale. Mr. Cady greeted Bob with listless enthusiasm, teetering the while upon his cane like a j.a.panese equilibrist.

"Haven't seen you for ages," he began. "Been abroad?"

Bob explained that he was spending the summer in New York, a statement that filled his listener with the same horror he would have felt had he learned that Bob was pa.s.sing the heated season in the miasmatic jungles of the Amazon.

"Just ran down from Newport," Cady volunteered. "I'm sailing to- day. Better join me for a trip. I know--" he cut Bob's refusal short--"travel's an awful nuisance; I get seasick myself."

"Then why play at it?"

Cady rolled a mournful eye upon his friend. "Girl!" said he, hollowly. "Show-girl! If I stay I'll marry her, and that wouldn't do. Posi-TIVE-ly not! So I'm running away. I'll wait over if you'll join me."

"I'm a working-man."

"Haw!" Mr. Cady expelled a short laugh.

"True! And I've quit drinking."

Now Cady was blase, but he had a heart; his sympathies were slow, but he was not insensible to misfortune. Accordingly he responded with a cry of pity, running his eye over his friend to estimate the ravages of Temperance. Midway in its course his gaze halted, he pa.s.sed a silk-gloved palm lightly across his brow, and looked again. A tiny head seemed to protrude from Bob's pocket, a pair of bright, inquiring eyes seemed to be peering directly at the observer.

"I--guess I'd better quit, too," said Cady, faintly. "Are you-- alone?" Bob gently extracted Ying from his resting-place, and the two men studied him gravely.

"Little beggar, isn't he?" Cady remarked. "Has he got a brother?

I'd like to give one to--you know!"

"He's alone in the world. I'm his nearest of kin."

"Give you five dollars for him," Cady offered.

"I just paid five hundred, and he's worth a thousand. Why, his people came over ahead of the Mayflower."

The gloomy lover was interested; in his face there gleamed a faint desire. "Think of it! Well, make it a thousand. I'll send him in a bunch of orchids. Haw!" He doubled over his stick, convulsed with appreciation of his own originality. But again Bob refused. "Don't be nasty, I'll make it fifteen hundred."

Bob carefully replaced the canine atom and grinned at his friend.

"I need the money, but--nothing doing."

"Up against it?" hopefully inquired the other.

"Broke! I couldn't afford a nickel to see an earthquake."

"I'll lend you fifteen hundred and take Ying as security."

But Bob remained inflexible, and Mr. Cady relapsed into gloom, muttering:

"Gee! You're a rotten business man!"

"So says my heartless father. He has sewed up my pockets and scuttled my drawing-account, hence the dinner-pail on my arm. I'm in quest of toil."

"I'll bet you starve," brightly predicted Mr. Cady, in an effort at encouragement. "I'll lay you five thousand that you make a flivver of anything you try."

"I've quit gambling, too."

As they shook hands Cady grunted: "My invitation to globe-trot is withdrawn. Fine company you'd be!"

As Bob walked up the Avenue he pondered deeply, wondering if he really were so lacking in ability as his friends believed. Money was such a common thing, after all; the silly labor of acquiring it could not be half so interesting as the spending of it. Anybody could make money, but to enjoy it, to circulate it judiciously, one must possess individuality--of a sort. Money seemed to come to some people without effort, and from the strangest sources--Kurtz, for instance, had grown rich out of coats and trousers!

Bob halted, frowning, while Ying peered out from his hiding-place at the pa.s.sing throngs, exposing a tiny, limp, pink-ribbon tongue.

If Kurtz, armed only with a pair of shears and a foolish tape, had won to affluence, why couldn't another? Stock-broking was no longer profitable; none of Bob's friends had earned their salt for months; and old Hannibal's opposition evidently forced a change of occupation.

The prospect of such a change was annoying, but scarcely alarming to an ingrained optimist, and Bob took comfort in reflecting that the best-selling literature of the day was replete with instances of disinherited sons, impoverished society men, ruined bankers, or mere idlers, who by lightning strokes of genius had mended their fortunes overnight. Some few, in the earlier days of frenzied fiction, had played the market, others the ponies, still others had gone West and developed abandoned gold-mines or obscure water- powers. A number also had grown disgustingly rich from patenting rat-traps or shoe-b.u.t.tons. One young man had discovered a way to keep worms out of railroad-ties and had promptly bludgeoned the railroad companies out of fabulous royalties.

Over the stock-market idea Bob could work up no enthusiasm--he knew too much about it--and, inasmuch as horse-racing was no longer fas.h.i.+onable, opportunities for a Pittsburg Phil future seemed limited. Moreover, he had never saved a jockey's life nor a jockey's mother from eviction, hence feed-box tips were not likely. Nor did he know a single soul in the business of inventing rat-traps or shoe-b.u.t.tons. As for going West, he was clearly of the opinion that a search for abandoned gold-mines or forgotten waterfalls wasn't in his line; and the secret of creosoting railroad-ties, now that he came to think of it, was still locked up in the breast of its affluent discoverer. Besides, as the whole episode had occurred in the second act of a play, the safety of building upon it was doubtful at best.

No, evidently the well-recognized short cuts to wealth had all been obliterated by many feet, and he must find another. But where? At length Bob's wrinkled brow smoothed itself, and he nodded. His path was plain; it led around the nearest corner to his tailor's door.

Mr. Kurtz's greeting was warm as Bob strolled into the stately show-room with its high-backed Flemish-oak chairs, its great carved tables, its paneled walls with their antlered decorations.

This, it may be said, was not a shop, not a store where clothes were sold, but a studio where men's distinctive garments were draped, and the difference was perfectly apparent on the first of each month.

Bob gave Ying his freedom, to the great interest of the proprietor, who studied the dog's points with a practised eye.

"Kurtz," began Bob, abruptly, "I just bet d.i.c.k Cady five thousand dollars that I can make my own living for six months." This falsehood troubled him vaguely until he remembered that high finance must be often conducted behind a veil.

Mr. Kurtz, genial, shrewd, gray, raised admiring eyes from the capering puppy and said:

"I'll take another five thousand."

But Bob declined. "No, I'm going to work."

This announcement interested the tailor deeply. "Who's going to hire you?" he asked.

"You are."

Kurtz blinked. "Maybe you'd like to bet on that, too," he ventured. "I'll give you odds."

"Work is one of the few things I haven't tried. You need a good salesman."

"No, I don't. I have seven already."