CHAPTER IV
CONCERNING SANDWICHES

The arrangement that Barton made for his late client’s son was to enter the banking house of Carter, Rand & Seagraves, on a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. Don found the letter at the Harvard Club the next morning, and immediately telephoned Barton.

“Look here!” he exclaimed. “I appreciate what you’ve tried to do and all that, but what in thunder good is twelve hundred dollars a year?”

“It is at least twelve hundred more than you have now,” suggested Barton.

“But how can I live on it?”

“You must remember you have the house–”

“Hang the house,” Don interrupted. “I must eat and smoke and buy clothes, mustn’t I? Besides, there’s Frances. She needs ten thousand a year.”

“I have no doubt but that, in time, a man of your ability–”

“How long a time?”

“As to that I am not prepared to give an opinion,” replied Barton.

“Because it isn’t when I’m eighty that I want it.”

“I should say the matter was entirely in your own hands. This at least offers you an opening, and I advise you to accept it. However, you must decide for yourself; and if at any later date I may be of service–”

Don returned to the lounge to think the matter over. It was ten o’clock and he had not yet breakfasted. As he had neglected to send any provisions to the house, Nora, acting upon his orders of the day before, had not prepared anything for him–there was nothing to prepare.

However, whether he ate breakfast or not was a detail. That is to say, it was a detail when he left the house; but now, after the brisk walk to the club in the snapping cold air, it had grown in importance. Watson, on his way into the dining-room, passed him.

“Join me?” he asked, waving a greeting with the morning paper.

“Thanks,” answered Don. “Guess I’ll wait a bit.”

Watson went on.

Don returned to a consideration of Barton’s proposal. He was forced to admit that the old lawyer had an irritating knack of ignoring all incidental issues and stripping a problem to a statement of irrefutable fact. It was undeniable, for example, that what Don might desire in the way of salary did not affect the truth of Barton’s contention that twelve hundred dollars was a great deal more than nothing. With a roof over his head assured him, it was possible that he might, with economy, be able at least to keep alive on this salary. That, of course, was a matter to be considered. As for Frances, she was at present well provided for and need not be in the slightest affected by the smallness of his income. Then, there was the possibility of a rapid advance. He had no idea how those things were arranged, but his limited observation was to the effect that his friends who went into business invariably had all the money they needed, and that most of his older acquaintances–friends of his father–were presidents and vice-presidents with unlimited bank accounts. Considering these facts, Don grew decidedly optimistic.

In the mean time his hunger continued to press him. His body, like a greedy child, demanded food. Watson came out and, lighting a fresh cigarette, sank down comfortably into a chair next him.

“What’s the matter, Don–off your feed?” he inquired casually.

“Something of the sort,” nodded Don.

“Party last night?”

“No; guess I haven’t been getting exercise enough.”

He rose. Somehow, Watson bored him this morning.

“I’m going to take a hike down the Avenue. S’long.”

Don secured his hat, gloves, and stick, and started from the club at a brisk clip.

From Forty-fourth Street to the Twenties was as familiar a path as any in his life. He had traversed it probably a thousand times. Yet, this morning it suddenly became almost as strange as some street in Kansas City or San Francisco.

There were three reasons for this, any one of which would have accounted for the phenomenon: he was on his way to secure a job; he had in his pocket just thirteen cents; and he was hungry.

The stores before which he always stopped for a leisurely inspection of their contents took on a different air this morning. Quite automatically he paused before one and another of them and inspected the day’s display of cravats and waistcoats. But, with only thirteen cents in his pocket, a new element entered into his consideration of these things–the element of cost. It was at the florist’s that his situation was brought home to him even more keenly. Frances liked flowers, and she liked to receive them from him. Here were roses that looked as if they had been plucked for her. But they were behind a big plate-glass window. He had never noted before that, besides being transparent, plate-glass was also thick and hard. And he was hungry. The fact continually intruded itself.

At last he reached the address that Barton had given him. “Carter, Rand & Seagraves, Investment Securities,” read the inscription on the window. He passed through the revolving doors and entered the office.

A boy in buttons approached and took his card.

“Mr. Carter, Mr. Rand, or Mr. Seagraves,” said Don.

The boy was soon back.

“Mr. Farnsworth will see you in a few minutes,” he reported.

“Farnsworth?” inquired Don.

“He’s the gent what sees every one,” explained the boy. “Ticker’s over there.”

He pointed to a small machine upon a stand, which was slowly unfurling from its mouth a long strip of paper such as prestidigitators produce from silk hats. Don crossed to it, and studied the strip with interest. It was spattered with cryptic letters and figures, much like those he had learned to use indifferently well in a freshman course in chemistry. The only ones he recalled just then were H₂O and CO₂, and he amused himself by watching to see if they turned up.

“Mr. Pendleton?”

Don turned to find a middle-aged gentleman standing before him with outstretched hand.

“Mr. Barton wrote to us about you,” Farnsworth continued briskly. “I believe he said you had no business experience.”

“No,” admitted Don.

“Harvard man?”

Don named his class.

“Your father was well known to us. We are willing to take you on for a few months, if you wish to try the work. Of course, until you learn something of the business you won’t be of much value; but if you’d like to start at–say twenty-five dollars a week–why, we’d be glad to have you.”

At the beginning Don had a vague notion of estimating his value at considerably more; but Mr. Farnsworth was so decided, it did not seem worth while. At that moment, also, he was reminded again that he had not yet breakfasted.

“Thanks,” he replied. “When shall I begin?”

“Whenever you wish. If you haven’t anything on to-day, you might come in now, meet some of the men, and get your bearings.”

“All right,” assented Don.

Within the next five minutes Farnsworth had introduced him to Blake and Manson and Wheaton and Powers and Jennings and Chandler. Also to Miss Winthrop, a very busy stenographer. Then he left him in a chair by Powers’s desk. Powers was dictating to Miss Winthrop, and Don became engrossed in watching the nimbleness of her fingers.

At the end of his dictation, Powers excused himself and went out, leaving Don alone with Miss Winthrop. For a moment he felt a bit uncomfortable; he was not quite sure what the etiquette of a business office demanded in a situation of this sort. Soon, however, he realized that the question was solving itself by the fact that Miss Winthrop was apparently oblivious to his presence. If he figured in her consciousness any more than one of the office chairs, she gave no indication of it. She was transcribing from her notebook to the typewriter, and her fingers moved with marvelous dexterity and sureness. There was a sureness about every other movement, as when she slipped in a new sheet of paper or addressed an envelope or raised her head. There was a sureness in her eyes. He found himself quite unexpectedly staring into them once, and they didn’t waver, although he was not quite certain, even then, that they saw him. They were brown eyes, honest and direct, above a good nose and a mouth that, while retaining its girlish mobility, also revealed an unexpected trace of almost manlike firmness. It was a face that interested him, but, before he was able to determine in just what way, she finished her last letter and, rising abruptly, disappeared into a rear room. Presently she emerged, wearing a hat and coat.

It was, on the whole, a very becoming hat and a very becoming coat, though they would not have suited at all the critical taste of Frances Stuyvesant. But they had not been designed for that purpose.

Miss Winthrop paused to readjust a pin and the angle of her hat. Then she took a swift glance about the office.

“I guess the boys must have gone,” she said to Don. “This is the lunch hour.”

Don rose.

“Thank you for letting me know,” he replied cordially.

“Most of them get back at one,” she informed him.

“Then you think I may go out until then?”

“I don’t see why not. But I’d be back at one sharp if I were you.”

“Thanks, I will.”

Don gave her an opportunity to go out the door and disappear before he himself followed. He had a notion that she could have told him, had he asked, where in this neighborhood it was possible to get the most food for the least money. He had a notion, also, that such a question would not have shocked her. It was difficult to say by just what process he reached this conclusion, but he felt quite sure of it.

Don was now firmly determined to invest a portion of his thirteen cents in something to eat. It had no longer become a matter of volition, but an acute necessity. For twenty minutes he wandered about rather aimlessly; then, in a sort of alley, he found a dairy lunch where in plain figures coffee was offered at five cents a cup, and egg sandwiches at the same price. The place was well filled, but he was fortunate in slipping into a chair against the wall just as a man was slipping out. It was a chair where one broad arm served as a table. Next to him sat a young woman in a black hat, munching a chocolate éclair. She looked up as he sat down, and frowned. Don rose at once.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here. Honest I didn’t.”

“Well, it’s a public lunch, isn’t it?” she inquired. “I’m almost through.”

“Then you don’t mind if I stay?”

“It’s no business of mine,” she said curtly.

“But I don’t want you to think I–I’m intruding.”

She glanced at him again.

“Let’s forget it,” she decided. “But you might sit there all day and you wouldn’t get anything to eat.”

He looked around, uncertain as to just what she meant.

“You go to the counter, pick out what you want, and bring it back here,” she explained. “I’ll hold your seat for you.”

Don made his way into the crowd at the rear. At the counter he found he had for ten cents a wide choice; but her éclair had looked so good he selected one of those and a cup of coffee. In returning he lost a portion of the coffee, but he brought the éclair through safely. He deposited it on the arm of the chair and sat down. In spite of his utmost effort at self-control, that éclair made just four mouthfuls. It seemed to him that he had no more than picked up his fork than it was gone. However, he still had his coffee, and he settled back to enjoy that in a more temperate fashion.

Without apparently taking the slightest interest in him, Miss Winthrop observed the rapidity with which he concluded his lunch. She knew something about being hungry, and if she was any judge that tidbit produced no more impression upon this six-foot man than a peanut on an elephant.

“That all you’re going to eat?” she demanded.

Don was startled. The question was both unexpected and pointed. He met her eyes–brown eyes and very direct. The conventional explanation that he had ready about not caring for much in the middle of the day seemed scarcely worth while.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Broke?” she inquired.

He nodded.

“Then you ought to have had an egg sandwich instead of one of those things,” she informed him.

“But the one you had looked so good,” he smiled.

“I had an egg sandwich to start with; this was dessert.”

“I didn’t know,” he apologized.

“You ought to get one now. You won’t last until night on just that.”

“How much are they?” he inquired.

“A nickel.”

“Then I guess I won’t have one.”

“Haven’t you five cents?” she cross-examined.

“Only three cents,” he answered.

“And you begin work to-day?”

“Yes.”

“It’s only Tuesday, and you won’t get paid until Saturday.”

“So?”

“Do you expect to make that éclair go until then?”

“I hadn’t thought much about it,” he answered uneasily.

“You don’t look as if you would,” she said. “You are new to this, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

He did not resent her questioning; and it did not occur to him to give her an evasive reply.

“Just out of college?”

“Last fall.”

“What you been doing since then?”

“Why, nothing,” he admitted. “You see, my father died only last month, and–”

“Oh, I see,” she said more gently. “That’s hard luck.”

“It makes a good deal of a difference,” he said.

“I know.”

It had made a difference in her life when her father died.

She turned to her éclair; but, as she was raising the fork to her lips, she caught his eyes and put it down again.

“Look here,” she said; “you must eat something. You can’t get along without food. I’ve tried it.”

“You!” he exclaimed.

“Indeed, yes.”

“Dieting?”

“Hardly,” she replied grimly.

He had heard of men going perforce without food, but he did not remember ever having heard of a woman in that predicament. Certainly he had never before met one.

“You mean that you’ve gone broke, too?”

“Why, certainly,” she answered. “The firm I was with first went broke, and it was a couple of months before I found another position. But that’s over now. What I want to know is what you’re going to do until Saturday.”

“Oh, I’ll worry along,” he answered confidently.

She shook her head.

“Worry won’t carry you along.”

She hesitated a moment, and then said impulsively:–

“Now, look here–don’t get peeved at what I’m going to say, will you?”

“I don’t believe it’s possible to get peeved with you,” he declared.

She frowned.

“Well, let it go at that. What I want to do is to lend you a couple of dollars until Saturday. It isn’t much, but–”

Don caught his breath. “You–”

She did not give him time to finish. From somewhere she produced a two-dollar bill and slipped it into his hand.

“Take this and get an egg sandwich right now.”

“But look here–”

“Don’t talk. Go get a sandwich.”

He seemed to have no alternative; but when he came back with it she had disappeared.

He sat down, but he could not understand why she should have gone like that. He missed her–missed her more than he would have thought possible, considering that he had met her only some two hours before. Without her this place seemed empty and foreign. Without her he felt uneasy here. He hurried through his sandwich and went out–anxious to get back to her.