CHAPTER IV.
JIMMY HUNTS A JOB.
Once again Jimmy walked out onto Madison Street, and, turning to his
right, dropped into a continuous vaudeville show in an attempt to coax
his spirits back to somewhere near their normal high-water mark. Upon
the next day he again haunted the newspaper office without reward, and
again upon the third day with similar results. To say that Jimmy was
dumfounded would be but a futile description of his mental state. It was
simply beyond him to conceive that in one of the largest cities in the
world, the center of a thriving district of fifty million souls, there
was no business man with sufficient acumen to realize how badly he
needed James Torrance, Jr., to conduct his business for him
successfully.
With the close of the fourth day, and no reply, Jimmy was thoroughly
exasperated. The kindly clerk, who by this time had taken a personal
interest in this steadiest of customers, suggested that Jimmy try
applying for positions advertised in the Help Wanted column, and this he
decided to do.
There were only two concerns advertising for general managers in the
issue which Jimmy scanned; one ad called for an experienced executive to
assume the general management of an old established sash, door and blind
factory; the other insisted upon a man with mail-order experience to
take charge of the mail-order department of a large department store.
Neither of these were precisely what Jimmy had hoped for, his preference
really being for the general management of an automobile manufactory or
possibly something in the airplane line. Sash, door and blind sounded
extremely prosaic and uninteresting to Mr. Torrance. The mail-order
proposition, while possibly more interesting, struck him as being too
trifling and unimportant.
"However," he thought, "it will do no harm to have a talk with these
people, and possibly I might even consider giving one of them a trial."
And so, calling a taxi, he drove out onto the west side where, in a
dingy and squalid neighborhood, the taxi stopped in front of a grimy
unpainted three-story brick building, from which a great deal of noise
and dust were issuing. Jimmy found the office on the second floor, after
ascending a narrow, dark, and dirty stairway. Jimmy's experience of
manufacturing plants was extremely limited, but he needed no experience
as he entered the room to see that he was in a busy office of a busy
plant. Everything about the office was plain and rather dingy, but there
were a great many file clerks and typists and considerable bustling
about.
After stating his business to a young lady who sat behind a switchboard,
upon the front of which was the word "Information," and waiting while
she communicated with an inner office over the telephone, he was
directed in the direction of a glass partition at the opposite end of
the room--a partition in which there were doors at intervals, and upon
each door a name.
He had been told that Mr. Brown would see him, and rapping upon the door
bearing that name he was bid to enter, and a moment later found himself
in the presence of a middle-aged man whose every gesture and movement
was charged with suppressed nerve energy.
As Jimmy entered the man was reading a letter. He finished it quickly,
slapped it into a tray, and wheeled in his chair toward his caller.
"Well?" he snapped, as Jimmy approached him.
"I came in reply to your advertisement for a general manager," announced
Jimmy confidently.
The man sized him up quickly from head to foot. His eyes narrowed and
his brows contracted.
"What experience you had? Who you been with, and how many years?" He
snapped the questions at Jimmy with the rapidity of machine-gun fire.
"I have the necessary ability," replied Jimmy, "to manage your
business."
"How many years have you had in the sash, door and blind business?"
snapped Mr. Brown.
"I have never had any experience in the sash, door and blind business,"
replied Jimmy. "I didn't come here to make sash, doors and blinds. I
came here to manage your business."
Mr. Brown half rose from his chair. His eyes opened a little wider than
normal. "What the--" he started; and then, "Well, of all the--" Once
again he found it impossible to go on. "You came here to manage a sash,
door and blind factory, and don't know anything about the business!
Well, of all--"
"I assumed," said Jimmy, "that what you wanted in a general manager was
executive ability, and that's what I have."
"What you have," replied Mr. Brown, "is a hell of a crust. Now, run
along, young fellow. I am a very busy man--and don't forget to close
the door after you as you go out."
Jimmy did not forget to close the door. As he walked the length of the
interminable room between rows of desks, before which were seated young
men and young women, all of whom Jimmy thought were staring at him, he
could feel the deep crimson burning upward from his collar to the roots
of his hair.
Never before in his life had Jimmy's self-esteem received such a
tremendous jolt. He was still blushing when he reached his cab, and as
he drove back toward the Loop he could feel successive hot waves suffuse
his countenance at each recollection of the humiliating scene through
which he had just passed.
It was not until the next day that Jimmy had sufficiently reestablished
his self-confidence to permit him to seek out the party who wished a
mail-order manager, and while in this instance he met with very pleasant
and gentlemanly treatment, his application was no less definitely turned
down.
For a month Jimmy trailed one job after another. At the end of the
first week he decided that the street-cars and sole leather were less
expensive than taxicabs, as his funds were running perilously low; and
he also lowered his aspirations successively from general managerships
through departmental heads, assistants thereto, office managers,
assistant office managers, and various other vocations, all with the
same result; discovering meanwhile that experience, while possibly not
essential as some of the ads stated, was usually the rock upon which his
hopes were dashed.
He also learned something else which surprised him greatly: that rather
than being an aid to his securing employment, his college education was
a drawback, several men telling him bluntly that they had no vacancies
for rah-rah boys.
At the end of the second week Jimmy had moved from his hotel to a still
less expensive one, and a week later to a cheap boarding-house on the
north side. At first he had written his father and his mother regularly,
but now he found it difficult to write them at all. Toward the middle of
the fourth week Jimmy had reached a point where he applied for a
position as office-boy.
"I'll be damned if I'm going to quit," he said to himself, "if I have to
turn street-sweeper. There must be some job here in the city that I am
capable of filling, and I'm pretty sure that I can at least get a job as
office-boy."
And so he presented himself to the office manager of a life-insurance
company that had advertised such a vacancy. A very kindly gentleman
interviewed him.
"What experience have you had?" he asked.
Jimmy looked at him aghast.
"Do I have to have experience to be an office-boy?" he asked.
"Well, of course," replied the gentleman, "it is not essential, but it
is preferable. I already have applications from a dozen or more fellows,
half of whom have had experience, and one in particular, whom I have
about decided to employ, held a similar position with another
life-insurance company."
Jimmy rose. "Good day," he said, and walked out.
That day he ate no lunch, but he had discovered a place where an
abundance might be had for twenty-five cents if one knew how to order
and ordered judiciously. And so to this place he repaired for his
dinner. Perched upon a high stool, he filled at least a corner of the
aching void within.
Sitting in his room that night he took account of his assets and his
liabilities. His room rent was paid until Saturday and this was
Thursday, and in his pocket were one dollar and sixty cents. Opening his
trunk, he drew forth a sheet of paper and an envelope, and, clearing the
top of the rickety little table which stood at the head of his bed, he
sat down on the soiled counterpane and wrote a letter.
DEAR DAD:
I guess I'm through, I have tried and
failed. It is hard to admit it, but I guess I'll
have to. If you will send me the price I'll
come home.
With love,
Jim
Slowly he folded the letter and inserted it in the envelope, his face
mirroring an utter dejection such as Jimmy Torrance had never before
experienced in his life.
"Failure," he muttered, "unutterable failure."
Taking his hat, he walked down the creaking stairway, with its
threadbare carpet, and out onto the street to post his letter.
