The Auction Block Part 49

"Say, wouldn't you like the trade of the whole younger set? I can bring you a lot of fresh customers--fellows like me."

"'Fresh customers' is right," laughed Kurtz, then sobered quickly.

"You're joking, of course?"

"I'm so serious I could cry. How much is it worth to you to make clothes for my crowd?"

"Well--" the tailor considered. "Quite a bit."

"The boys like to see d.i.c.k trimmed--it's a matter of principle with them never to let him win a bet--and they'd do anything for me. You're the best tailor in the city, but too conservative. Now I'm going to bring you fifty new accounts, every one good for better than two thousand a year. That's a hundred thousand dollars. How much am I offered? Going! Going!--"

"Wait a minute! Would you stick to me for six months if I took you on?"

"My dear Kurtz, I'll poultice myself upon you for life. I'll guarantee myself not to slide, slip, wrinkle, or skid. Thirty years hence, when you come hobbling down to business, you'll find me here."

Mr. Kurtz dealt in novelties, and the idea of a society salesman was sufficiently new to appeal to his commercial sense.

"I'll pay you twenty per cent.," he offered, "for all the new names you put on my books."

"Make it twenty-five on first orders and twenty on repeaters. I'll bring my own luncheon and pay my car-fare."

"There wouldn't be any profit left," demurred Kurtz.

"Good! Then it's a bargain--twenty-five and twenty. Now watch me grab the adolescent offshoots of our famous Four Hundred." Bob chased Ying into a corner, captured him, then took a 'bus up the Avenue to the College Club for luncheon.

At three o'clock he returned, accompanied by four flushed young men whose names gave Kurtz a thrill. In spite of their modish appearance they declared themselves indecently shabby, and allowed Bob to order for them--a favor which he performed with a Rajah's lofty disregard of expense. He sat upon one of the carved tables, teasing Ying, and selecting samples as if for a quartette of bridegrooms. Being bosom cronies of Mr. Cady, the four youths needed little urging. When they had gone in to be measured Kurtz said guardedly:

"Whew! That's more stuff than I've sold in two weeks!"

"A mere trifle," Bob grinned, happily. "Say, Kurtz, this is the life! This is the job for me--panhandling juvenile plutocrats--no office hours, no heavy lifting, and Thursdays off. I'm going to make you famous."

"You'll break me with another run like this."

"How much did they order?"

The proprietor ran over his figures incredulously.

"Twenty-four sack suits, two riding-suits, one knicker, four evening suits, four dinner-suits, forty fancy waistcoats, sixteen evening waistcoats, four pairs riding-breeches, four motor-coats, three Vicuna overcoats, two ulsters. You don't think they're bluffing?"

"Why should they bluff? They'll never discover how many suits they have. Now figure it up and tell me the bad news."

Mr. Kurtz did as directed, announcing, "Fifty-five hundred and five dollars."

"Pikers!" exclaimed the new salesman; then he began laboriously to compute twenty-five per cent. of the sum, using as a pad a bolt of expensive white-silk vest material. "Thirteen hundred and seventy- six dollars and twenty-five cents is my blackmail, Kurtz. That's what I call 'a safe and sane Fourth.' Not bad for dull times, and yet it might be better. Anyhow, it's the hardest thirteen hundred and seventy-six dollars I ever earned."

"Hard!" The merchant's lips twitched, oscillating his cigar violently. "Hard! I'll bet those fellows even bought your lunch. I suppose you mean it's the first money you ever--earned." He seemed to choke over the last word. "Well, it's worth something to get men like these on the books, but--thirteen hundred and seventy-six dollars--"

"And twenty-five cents."

Mr. Kurtz gulped. "In one day! Why, I could buy a farm for that.

How much will you have to 'earn' to cover your living expenses for six months?"

"Ah, there we journey into the realm of purest speculation." Bob favored him with a sunny smile. "As well ask me how much my living expenses must be in order to cover my earnings. Whatever one is, the other will be approximately ditto--or perhaps slightly in excess thereof. Anyhow, nothing but rigid economy--bane of my life--will make the one fit into the other. But I have a thought.

Something tells me these boys need white flannels, so get out your stock, Kurtz. If they can't play tennis they must learn, for my sake." Bob's remarkable stroke of fortune called for a celebration, and his four customers clamored that he squander his first profits forthwith. Ordinarily such a course would have been just to his liking; but now he was dying to tell Lorelei of his triumph, and, fearing to trust himself with even one drink, he escaped from his friends as soon as possible. Thus it chanced that he arrived home sober.

It was a happy home-coming, for Ying was adorable and made his way instantly into Lorelei's heart, while Bob was in a state of exaltation. He had no desire to bind himself to Kurtz's service for six months or for any other period; nor had he the least thought of living up to his agreement until Lorelei began to treat the matter seriously. Then he objected blankly:

"Why, it was all right as a joke, but I don't want to be a TAILOR.

There's no romance in woolen goods."

"How much do you owe?" she asked.

"Really, I've no idea. It's something you don't have to remember-- somebody always reminds you in plenty of time, and then you borrow enough to pay up."

"Let's forget the romance and pay up without borrowing. Remember you have two families to support." Noting that the idea of permanent employment galled him, she added, craftily, "Of course you'll never sell another lot of clothes like this, but--"

"Why not? It's like selling candy to a child."

"You can't go with that crowd without drinking."

"Is that so? Now you sit tight and hold your hat on. I can make that business pay if I try, and still stay in the Rain-makers'

Union. There's big money in it--enough so we can live the way we want to. I'm sick of this telephone-booth, anyhow; we'll present it to some nice newsboy and rent an apartment with a closet. This one's so small I don't dare to let my trousers bag. Besides, we've been under cover long enough, and I want you to meet the people I know. We can afford the expense--now that I'm making thirteen hundred and seventy-six dollars and twenty-five cents a day."

"I should like to know nice people," Lorelei confessed. "I'm sick of the kind I've met; the men are indecent and the women are vulgar. I've always wanted to know the other kind."

Bob was delighted; his fancy took fire, and already he was far along toward prosperity. "You'll make a hit with the younger set; you'll be a perfect rave. Bert Hayman told me to-day that his married sister is entertaining a lot, and, since the drama will be tottering on its way to destruction without you in a few days, I'll tell him to see that we're invited out to Long Island for a week-end."

CHAPTER XXII

Under Lorelei's encouragement Bob put in the next two weeks to good advantage. In fact, so obsessed was he with his new employment that it was not long before his imaginary bet with Cady a.s.sumed reality in his mind. Moreover, it became gossip around his clubs; and in quarters where he was well known his method of winning the wager was deemed not only characteristic, but ingenious. His exploits were famous; and his friends, rejoicing in one more display of eccentricity, and relis.h.i.+ng any mild misfortune to d.i.c.k Cady, in the majority of cases changed tailors.

Business at Kurtz's increased so substantially that Bob was treated with a reverential amazement by every one in the shop. The other salesmen gazed upon him with envy; Kurtz's bearing changed in a way that was extremely gratifying to one who had been universally accounted a failure. And Bob expanded under success; he began to feel more than mere amus.e.m.e.nt in his experiment.

His marriage in some way had become public, but, although it occasioned some comment, the affair was too old to be of much news value, and therefore it did not get into the papers except as an announcement. Now that he had escaped the disagreeable notoriety he had expected and was possessed of larger means, Bob-- inordinately proud of his wife's beauty and boyishly eager to display it--undertook to win social recognition for her. It was no difficult task for one with his wide acquaintance to make a beginning. Lorelei was surprised and delighted one day to receive an invitation for her and her husband to spend a week-end at Fennellcourt, the country home of Bert Hayman's sister.

She had not been sorry to give up her theatrical work, and the prospect of meeting nice people, of leaving for good and all the sordid, unhealthy atmosphere of Broadway, bathed her in a glow of antic.i.p.ation. She had considerable knowledge of rich men, in their hours of recreation at least, but of their women she knew little, and nothing whatever of the life which went on in exclusive circles. During the fortnight of preparation before the visit her feelings more nearly approached stage-fright than upon the occasion of her first public appearance.

Fennellcourt is one of the show-places of the Wheatley Hills section. The house itself is a pretentious structure of brick and terra-cotta, crowning a hill. A formal and a sunken garden--the latter with a pergola and a Temple of Venus--gra.s.sy terraces, rows and clumps of ornamental trees and dwarfed shrubs, dazzling patches of flowers and empty green lawns, evidence the skill of a highly paid landscape-artist; while stables, greenhouses, a natatorium, tennis and squash courts in the background, testify to the expensive habits of the owners. The gardens are a feature of the estate; a fortune is represented in the stone pools, the ma.s.sive urns, the statuary, and the potted plants. Spotless, brilliant-hued tiled walks lead between riotous beds ablaze with every color, and the main driveway swings to the crest of a ridge that overlooks this charming prospect.

Bert Hayman drove the Whartons out from the city, and Lorelei's first glimpse of Fennellcourt was such that she forgot her vague dislike of Hayman himself. Bert, who had met her and Bob for luncheon, had turned out to be, instead of a polished man of the world, a glib youth with an artificial laugh and a pair of sober, heavy-lidded eyes. Lorelei's shyness at meeting him had quickly disappeared when she found that he knew more theatrical people than she and that he was quite unable to talk interestingly about anything except choruses and coryphees. Of the former he was a merciless critic, of the latter he was an enthusiastic supporter.

That he possessed a keen appreciation of feminine beauty he showed by surrendering unconditionally to Lorelei's charms. She might have been flattered had he not pressed his attentions over-boldly.

As it was, seeing that Bob was pleased at the tribute to his wife's loveliness rather than offended at his friend's effrontery, she did her best to smother her resentment.

As Hayman's car rolled up the driveway and the beauties of Fennellcourt displayed themselves Lorelei found her heart throbbing violently. Was not this the beginning of a glorious adventure? Was not life unfolding at last? Was she not upon the threshold of a new world? The flutter in her breast was answer.