Success Story By James Gould Cozzens

Success Story By James Gould Cozzens
I met Richards ten years or more ago when I first went down to Cuba. He was a short, sharp-faced, agreeable chap, then about twenty-two. He introduced himself to me on the boat and I was surprised to find that Panamerica Steel & Structure was sending us both to the same job. Richards was from some not very good state university engineering school. Being the same age myself, and just out of tech, I was prepared to patronize him if I needed to; but I soon saw I didn’t need to. There was really not the faintest possibility of anyone supposing that Richards was as smart as I was. In fact, I couldn’t then imagine how he had managed to get his job. I have an idea now. It came to me when I happened to read a few weeks ago that Richards had been made a vice-president and director of Panamerica Steel when the Prossert interests bought the old firm. Richards was naturally likeable, and I liked him a lot, once I was sure that he wasn’t going to outshine me. The firm had a contract for the construction of a private railroad, about seventeen miles of it, to give United Sugar a sea terminal at a small deepwater Caribbean port. For Richards and me it was mostly an easy job of inspections and routine paperwork. At least it was easy for me. It was harder for Richards because he didn’t appear ever to have mastered the use of a slide rule. When he asked me to check his fingers I found it was no mere formality. “Boy,” I was at last obliged to say, “you are undoubtedly the dumbest man in Santa Clara province. If you don’t buck up, Farrell will see you never get another job down here.” Richards grinned and said, “I never want another one. Not a job like this, anyway. I’m the executive type.” “Oh, you are!” “Sure, I am. And what do I care what Farrell things? What can he do for me?” “Plenty. If he thinks you’re any good, he can see you get something that pays money.” “He doesn’t know anything that pays money, my son.” “He knows things that would pay enough for me,” I answered, annoyed. “Oh,” said Richards, “if that’s all you want, when Farrell’s working for me I’ll make him give you a job. A good one.” “Go to the devil!” I said. I was still checking his trial figures for an extra concrete powering at the Nombre de Dios viaduct. “Look, stupid,” I said, “didn’t you ever take arithmetic? How much are seven times thirteen?” “Work that out,” Richards said, “and let me have a report tomorrow.” When I had time, I continued to check his figures for him, and Farrell only caught him in a bad mistake about twice; but Farrell was the best man Panamerica Steel had. He’d been managing construction jobs both in Cuba and Mexico for twenty years. After the first month or so he simply let Richards alone and devoted himself to giving me the whole benefit of his usually sharp and scornful criticism. He was at me every minute he could spare, telling me to forget this or that and use my head, showing me little tricks of figuring and method. He said it would be a good plan to take some Spanish lessons from a clerk he named in the sugar company’s office. “Spanish?” said Richards, when I told him he’d better join the class. “Not for me! Say, it took me twenty-two years to learn English. People who want to talk to me have to know it, or they’d better bring an interpreter with them.” “All right,” I said. “I don’t mind telling you the idea is Farrell’s. He spoke to me about it.” “Well, he didn’t speak to me,” said Richards. “I guess he thinks I’m perfect the way I am. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a beer bottle.” I could easily see that he was coming to no good end. In January several directors of the United Sugar Company came down on their annual jaunt – nominally business, but mostly pleasure; a good excuse to get south on a vacation. They came on a yacht. The yacht belonged to Mr. Joseph Prossert, who was, I think, chairman of United Sugar’s board then. It was the first time I’d ever seen at close quarters one of these really rich and powerful financial figures whose name everyone knows. He was an inconspicuous, rather stout man, with little hair on his head and a fussy, ponderous way of speaking. He dressed in some dark thin cloth that looked like alpaca. His interest in sugar and in Cuba was purely financial – he didn’t know anything about it from the practical standpoint. I really saw him at close quarters, too, for he was delayed on his boat when the directors went up to Santa Inez and Farrell left Richards and me and two or three armed guards to come up that afternoon. Mr. Prossert was very affable. He asked me a number of questions. I knew the job well enough and could have answered almost any intelligent question – I mean, the sort that a trained engineer would be likely to ask. As it was, I suppose I’d said for perhaps the third time, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, sir. We haven’t any calculations on that,” getting a glance of mildly surprised disbelief, when Richards suddenly spoke up. “I think, about nine million cubic feet, sir,” he said. He looked boyishly embarrassed. “I just happened to be working it out last night. Just for my own interest, that is. Not officially.” He blushed. “Oh,” said Mr. Prossert, turning in his seat and giving him a sharp look. “That’s very interesting, Mr. – er – Richards, isn’t it? Well, now, maybe you could tell me about – “ Richards could. He knew everything. He knew to the last car the capacity of every switch and yard; he knew the load limits of every bridge and culvert, he knew the average rainfall for the last twenty years; he knew the population of the various straggling villages we passed through; he knew the heights of the distant blue peaks to the west. He had made himself familiar with local labor costs and wage scales. He had the statistics on accidents and unavoidable delays. He had figured out the cost of moving a cubic yard of earth at practically every cut and fill. All the way up Mr. Prossert fired questions at him and he fired answers right back. When we reached the railhead, a motor was waiting to take Mr. Prossert on. Getting out of the gas car, he nodded absent-mindedly to me, shook hands with Richards. “Very interesting indeed,” he said. “Very interesting indeed, Mr. Richards. Goodbye and thank you.” “Not at all, sir,” Richards said. “Glad if I could be of service to you.” As soon as the motor moved off, I exploded. “Of all the asinine tricks! A little honest bluff doesn’t hurt; but some of your so-called figures – “ “I aim to please,” Richards said, grinning. “If a man like Prossert wants to know something, who am I to hold out on him?” “I suppose you think you’re smart,” I told him. “What’s he going to think when he looks up the figures or asks somebody who does know?”
“Listen, my son,” said Richards kindly. “He wasn’t asking for any information he was going to use. He doesn’t want to know those figures. If he ever does, he has plenty of people to get him the right ones. He won’t remember these. I don’t even remember them myself. What he is going to remember is you and me.” “Oh yes?” “Oh, yes,” said Richards firmly. “He’s going to remember that Panamerica Steel & Structure has a bright young man named Richards who could tell him everything he wanted to know when he wanted to know it – just the sort of chap he can use; not like that other fellow who took no interest in his job, couldn’t answer the simplest question, and who’s going to be doing small-time contracting in Cuba all his life.” “Oh, yeah?” I said. But it is true that I am still in Cuba, still doing a little work in the construction line.
The Happy Man (W.S.Maugham)
It is a dangerous thing to order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the self-confidence of politicians, reformers and such like who are prepared to force upon their fellows measures that must alter their manners, habits and points of view. I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows oneself? Heaven knows, I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbors. And life, unfortunately, is something that you can lead but once; and who am I that I should tell this one and that how he should lead it?
But once I knew that I advised well.
I was a young man and I lived in a modest apartment in London near Victoria Station. Late one afternoon, when I was beginning to think that I had worked enough for that day, I heard a ring at the bell. I opened the door to a total stranger. He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in.
“Certainly”.
I led him into my sitting-room and begged to sit down. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. I offered him a cigarette and he had some difficulty in lighting it.
“I hope you don't mind my coming to see you like this”, he said, “My name is Stephens and I am a doctor. You're in the medical, I believe?”
“Yes, but I don't practice”.
“No, I know. I've just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it”.
“It's not a very good book, I'm afraid”.
“The fact remains that you know something about Spain and there's no one else I know who does. And I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me some information”.
“I shall be very glad”.
He was silent for a moment. He reached out for his hat and holding it in one hand absent-mindedly stroked it with the other.
“I hope you won't think it very odd for a perfect stranger to talk to you like this”. He gave an apologetic laugh. “I'm not going to tell you the story of my life”.
When people say this to me I always know that it is precisely what they are going to do. I do not mind. In fact I rather like it.
“I was brought up by two old aunts. I've never been anywhere. I've never done anything. I've been married for six years. I have no children. I'm a medical officer at the Camberwell Infirmary. I can't bear it anymore”.
There was something very striking in the short, sharp sentences he used. I looked at him with curiosity. He was a little man, thickset and stout, of thirty perhaps, with a round red face from which shone small, dark and very bright eyes. His black hair was cropped close to a bullet-shaped head. He was dressed in a blue suit a good deal the worse for wear. It was baggy at the knees and the pockets bulged untidily.
“You know what the duties are of a medical officer in an infirmary. One day is pretty much like another. And that's all I've got to look forward to for the rest of my life. Do you think it's worth it?”
“It's a means of livelihood”, I answered.
“Yes, I know. The money's pretty good”.
“I don't exactly know why you've come to me”.
“Well, I wanted to know whether you thought there would be any chance for an English doctor in Spain?”
“Why Spain?”
“I don't know, I just have a fancy for it”.
“It's not like Carmen, you know”, I smiled.
“But there's sunshine there, and there's good wine, and there's color, and there's air you can breathe. Let me say what I have to say straight out. I heard by accident that there was no English doctor in Seville. Do you think I could earn a living there? Is it madness to give up a good safe job for an uncertainty?”
“What does your wife think about it?”
“She's willing”.
“It's a great risk”.
“I know. But if you say take it, I will: if you say stay where you are, I'll stay”.
He was looking at me with those bright dark eyes of his and I knew that he meant what he said. I reflected for a moment.
“Your whole future is concerned: you must decide for yourself. But this I can tell you: if you don't want money but are content to earn just enough to keep body and soul together, then go. For you will lead a wonderful life”.
He left me, I thought about him for a day or two, and then forgot. The episode passed completely from my memory.
Many years later, fifteen at least, I happened to be in Seville and having some trifling indisposition asked the hotel porter whether there was an English doctor in the town. He said there was and gave me the address. I took a cab and as I drove up to the house a little fat man came out of it. He hesitated, when he caught sight of me.
“Have you come to see me?” he said. “I'm the English doctor”.
I explained my matter and he asked me to come in. He lived in an ordinary Spanish house, and his consulting room was littered with papers, books, medical appliances and lumber. We did our business and then I asked the doctor what his fee was. He shook his head and smiled.
“There's no fee”.
“Why on earth not?”
“Don't you remember me? Why, I'm here because of something you said to me. You changed my whole life for me. I'm Stephens”.
I had not the least notion what he was talking about. He reminded me of our interview, he repeated to me what we had said, and gradually, out of the night, a dim recollection of the incident came back to me.
“I was wondering if I'd ever see you again”, he said, “I was wondering if ever I'd have a chance of thanking you for all you've done for me”.
“It's been a success then?”
I looked at him. He was very fat now and bald, but his eyes twinkled gaily and his fleshy, red face bore an expression of perfect good humor. The clothes he wore, terribly shabby they were, had been made obviously by a Spanish tailor and his hat was the wide brimmed sombrero of the Spaniard. He looked to me as though he knew a good bottle of wine when he saw it. He had an entirely sympathetic appearance. “You might have hesitated to let him remove your appendix”, but you could not have imagined a more delightful creature to drink a glass of wine with.
“Surely you were married?” I said.
“Yes. My wife didn't like Spain, she went back to Camberwell, she was more at home there”.
“Oh, I'm sorry for that”.
His black eyes flashed a smile.
“Life is full of compensations”, he murmured.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a Spanish woman, no longer in her first youth, but still beautiful, appeared at the door. She spoke to him in Spanish, and I could not fail to feel that she was the mistress of the house.
As he stood at the door to let me out he said to me:
“You told me when last I saw you that if I came here I should earn just enough money to keep body and soul together, but that I should lead a wonderful life. Well, I want to tell you that you were right. Poor I have been and poor I shall always be, but by heaven I've enjoyed myself. I wouldn't exchange the life I've had with that of any king in the world”.
Footprints in the Jungle (W.S.Maugham)
It was in Malaya that I met the Cartwrights. I was staying with a man called Gaze who was head of the police and he came into the billiard-room, where I was sitting, and asked if I would play bridge with them. The Cartwrights were planters and they came to Malaya because it gave their daughter a chance of a little fun. They were very nice people and played a very pleasant game of bridge. I followed Gaze into the cardroom and was introduced to them.
Mrs. Cartwright was a woman somewhere in the fifties. I thought her a very agreeable person. I liked her frankness, her quick wit, her plain face. As for Mr. Cartwright, he looked tired and old. He talked little, but it was plain that he enjoyed his wife's humor. They were evidently very good friends. It was pleasing to see so solid and tolerant affection between two people who were almost elderly and must have lived together for so many years.
When we separated, Gaze and I set out to walk to his house.
"What did you think of the Cartwrights?" he asked me.
"I liked them and their daughter who is just the image of her father."
To my surprise Gaze told me that Cartwright wasn't her father. Mrs. Cartwright was a widow when he married her. Olive was born after her father's death.
And when we came to Gaze's house he told me the Cartwrights' story.
"I've known Mrs. Cartwright for over twenty years," he said slowly. "She was married to a man called Bronson. He was a planter in Selantan. It was a much smaller place than it is now, but they had a jolly little club, and we used to have a very good time. Bronson was a handsome chap. He hadn't much to talk about but tennis, golf and shooting; and I don't suppose he read a book from year's end to year's end. He was about thirty-five when I first knew him, but he had the mind of a boy of eighteen. But he was no fool. He knew his work from A to Z. He was generous with his money and always ready to do anybody a good turn.
One day Mrs. Bronson told us that she was expecting a friend to stay with them and a few days later they brought Cartwright along. Cartwright was an old friend of Bronson's. He had been out of work for a long time and when he wrote to Bronson asking him whether he could do anything for him, Bronson wrote back inviting him to come and stay till things got better. When Cartwright came Mrs. Bronson told him that he was to look upon the place as his home and stay as long as he liked. Cartwright was very pleasant and unassuming; he fell into our little company very naturally and the Bronsons, like everyone else, liked him."
"Hadn't the Bronsons any children at that time?" I asked Gaze.
"No," Gaze answered. "I don't know why, they could have afforded it. Bronson was murdered," he said suddenly. "Killed?"
"Yes, murdered. That night we had been playing tennis without Cartwright who had gone shooting to the jungle and without Bronson who had cycled to Kabulong to get the money to pay his coolies' their wages and he was to come along to the club when he got back. Cartwright came back when we started playing bridge. Suddenly I was called to police sergeant outside. I went out. He told me that the Malays had come to the police station and said that there was a white man with red hair lying dead on the path that led through the jungle to Kabulong. I understood that it was Bronson.
For a moment I didn't know what to do and how to break the news to Mrs. Bronson. I came up to her and said that there had been an accident and her husband had been wounded. She leapt to her feet and stared at Cartwright who went as pale as death. Then I said that he was dead after which she collapsed into her chair and burst into tears.
When the sergeant, the doctor and I arrived at the scene of the accident we saw that he had been shot through the head and there was no money about him. From the footprints I saw that he had stopped to talk to someone before he was shot. Whoever had murdered
Bronson hadn't done it for money. It was obvious that he had stopped to talk with a friend.
Meanwhile Cartwright took up the management of Bronson's estate. He moved in at once. Four months later Olive, the daughter, was born. And soon Mrs. Bronson and Cartwright were married. The murderer was never found. Suspicion fell on the coolies, of course. We examined them all – pretty carefully – but there was not a scrap of evidence to connect them with the crime. I knew who the murderer was..."
"Who?" "Don't you guess?"
The Verger (W.S.Maugham)
There had been a wedding that afternoon at St. Peter's Church, and Edward Foreman still wore his verger's gown. He had been verger for 16 years and liked his job. The verger was waiting for the vicar. The vicar had just been appointed. He was a red-faced energetic man and the verger disliked him. Soon the vicar came in and said: "Foreman, I've got something unpleasant to say to you. You have been here a great many years and I think you've fulfilled your duties quite satisfactorily here; but I found out a most striking thing the other day. I discovered to my astonishment that you could neither read nor write. I think you must learn, Foreman."
"I'm afraid I can't now, sir. I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks."
"In that case, Foreman, I'm afraid you must go."
"Yes, sir, I quite understand. I shall be happy to hand in my resignation as soon as you have found somebody to take my place."
Up to now Edward's face hadn't shown any signs of emotion. But when he had closed the door of the church behind him his lips trembled. He walked slowly with a heavy heart. He didn't know what to do with himself. True, he had saved a small sum of money but it was not enough to live on without doing something, and life cost more and more every year.
It occurred to him now that a cigarette would comfort him and since he was not a smoker and never had any in his pockets he looked for a shop where he could buy a packet of good cigarettes. It was a long street with all sorts of. shops in it but there was not a single one where you could buy cigarettes.
"That's strange," said Edward. "I can't be the only man who walks along the street and wants to have a smoke," he thought. An idea struck him. Why shouldn't he open a little shop there? "Tobacco and Sweets." "That's an idea," he said. "It is strange how things come to you when you least expect it."
He turned, walked home and had his tea.
"You are very silent this afternoon, Edward," his wife remarked.
"I'm thinking," he said. He thought the matter over from every point of view and the next day he went to look for a suitable shop. And within a week the shop was opened and Edward was behind the counter selling cigarettes.
Edward Foreman did very well. Soon he decided that he might open another shop and employ a manager. He looked for another long street that didn't have a tobacconist's in it and opened another shop. This was a success too. In the course of ten years he acquired no less than ten shops and was making a lot of money. Every Monday he went to all his shops, collected the week's takings and took them to the bank.
One morning the bank manager said that he wanted to talk to him.
"Mr. Foreman, do you know how much money you have got in the bank?"
"Well, I have a rough idea."
"You have 30 thousand dollars and it's a large sum. You should invest it." We shall make you out a list of securities' which will bring you a better rate of interest' than the bank can give you."
There was a troubled look on Mr. Foreman's face. "And what will I have to do?"
"Oh, you needn't worry," the banker smiled. "All you have to do is to read and to sign the papers."
"That's the trouble, sir. I can sign my name but I can't read." The manager was so surprised that he jumped up from his seat. He couldn't believe his ears.
"Good God, man, what would you be if you had been able to read?!"
"I can tell you that, sir," said Mr. Foreman. "I would be verger of St. Peter's church."
The Dinner Party (N.Monsarrat)
There are still some rich people in the world. Many of them lead lives of particular pleasure. But rich people do have their problems. They are seldom problems of finance, since most rich people have enough sense to hire other people to take care of their worries. But there are other, more genuine problems. They are the problems of behavior.
Let me tell you a story which happened to my uncle Octavian a full thirty years ago. At that time I myself was fifteen. My uncle Octavian was then a rich man. He was a charming and accomplished host whose villa was an accepted rendezvous of the great. He was a hospitable and most amiable man – until January 3, 1925.
There was nothing special about that day in the life of my uncle Octavian, except that it was his fifty-fifth birthday. As usual on such a day he was giving a party, a party for twelve people. All of them were old friends.
I, myself, aged fifteen, was deeply privileged. I was staying with my uncle at his exquisite villa, on holiday from school, and as a special concession on this happy day, I was allowed to come down to dinner. It was exciting for me to be admitted to such company, which included a newspaper proprietor of exceptional intelligence and his fabulous' American wife, a recent prime-minister of France and a distinguished German prince and princess.
At that age, you will guess, I was dazzled. Even today, 30 years later, one may fairly admit that the company was distinguished. But I should also stress that they were all old and intimate friends of my uncle Octavian.
Towards the end of a wonderful dinner, when dessert had been brought in and the servants had left, my uncle leant forward to admire a magnificent diamond ring on the princess's hand. She was a handsome woman. She turned her hand gracefully towards my uncle. Across the table, the newspaper proprietor leant across and said: "May I also have a look?" She smiled and nodded. Then she took off the ring and held it out to him. "It was my grandmother's – the old empress," she said. "I have not worn it for many years. It is said to have once belonged to Genghis Khan."
There were exclamations of delight and admiration. The ring was passed from hand to hand. For a moment it rested on my own palm, gleaming splendidly. Then I passed it on to my neighbor. As I turned away again, I saw her pass it on.
It was some 20 minutes later when the princess stood up and said: "Before we leave you, may I have my ring back?" ... There was a pause, while each of us looked expectantly at his neighbor. Then there was silence.
The princess was still smiling, though less easily. She was unused to asking for things twice. The silence continued, I still thought that it could only be a practical joke, and that one of us – probably the prince himself – would produce the ring with a laugh. But when nothing happened at all, I knew that the rest of the night would be dreadful.
I am sure that you can guess the sort of scene that followed. There was the embarrassment of the guests – all of them old and valued friends. There was a nervous search of the whole room. But it did not bring the princess's ring back again. It had vanished – an irreplaceable thing, worth possibly two hundred thousand pounds – in a roomful of twelve people, all known to each other.
No servants had entered the room. No one had left it for a moment. The thief (for now it could only be theft) was one of us, one of my uncle Octavian's cherished friends.
I remember it was the French cabinet minister who was most insistent on being searched, indeed, in his excitement he had already started to turn out his pockets, before my uncle held up his hand and stopped him. "There will be no search in my house," he commanded. "You are all my friends. The ring can only be lost. If it is not found" – he bowed towards the princess – "I will naturally make amends myself."
The ring was never found, it never appeared, either then or later.
To our family's surprise, uncle Octavian was a comparatively poor man, when he died (which happened, in fact, a few weeks ago). And I should say that he died with the special sadness of a hospitable host who never gave a single lunch or dinner party for the last thirty years of his life.
Lautisse paints again
Everybody knows by this time that we met Lautisse on board a ship, but few people know that in the beginning, Betsy and I had no idea who he was.
At first he introduced himself as Monsieur Roland, but as we talked he asked me a lot of questions about myself and my business and finally he asked me if I could keep a secret and said: "I am Lautisse."
I had no idea who he was. I told Betsy and after lunch we went up and talked to the ship's librarian, asked him a few questions. And then we found out that my new friend was probably the world's best living painter. The librarian found a book with his biography and a photograph. Though the photograph was bad, we decided that our new acquaintance was Laisse all right. The book said that he suddenly stopped painting at 53 and lived in a villa in Rivera. He hadn't painted anything in a dozen years and was heard to say he would never touch the brush again.
Well, we got to be real friends and Betsy invited him to come up to our place for a weekend.
Lautisse arrived on the noon train Saturday, and I met him at the station. We had promised him that we wouldn’t have any people and that we wouldn't try to talk to him about art. It wasn't very difficult since we were not very keen on art.
I was up at seven-thirty the next morning and I remembered that I had a job to do. Our vegetable garden had a fence around it which needed a coat of paint. I took out a bucket half full of white paint and a brush and an old kitchen chair. I was sitting on the chair thinking, when I heard footsteps and there stood Lautisse. I said that I was getting ready to paint the garden fence but now that he was up, I would stop it. He protested, then took the brush from my hand and said, "First, I'll show you!" At that moment Betsy cried from the kitchen door that breakfast was ready. "No, no," he said. "No breakfast, – I will paint the fence." I argued with him but he wouldn't even look up from his work. Betsy laughed and assured me that he was having a good time. He spent three hours at it and fin- back to town on the 9. 10 that evening and at the station he shook my hand and said that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much in years.
We didn't hear anything from him for about 10 days but the newspapers learnt about the visit and came to our place. I was out but Betsy told the reporters everything and about the fence too. The next day the papers had quite a story and the headlines said: LAUTISSE PAINTS AGAIN. On the same day three men came to my place from different art galleries and offered 4.000 dollars for the fence. I refused. The next day I was offered 25.000 and then 50.000. On the fourth day a sculptor named Gerston came to my place. He was a friend of Lautisse. He advised me to allow the Palmer Museum in New York to exhibit it for a few weeks. He said that the gallery people were interested in the fence because Lautisse had never before used a bit of white paint. I agreed. So the fence was put in the Palmer Museum. I went down myself to have a look at it. Hundreds of people came to see the fence, and I couldn't help laughing when I saw my fence because it had a fence around it.
A week later Gerston telephoned me and asked to come to him. He had something important to tell me. It turned out that Lautisse visited the exhibition and signed all the thirty sections of my fence. "Now," said Gerston, "you have really got something to sell." And indeed with Gerston's help, 29 of the 30 sections were sold within a month's time and the price was 10.000 each section. I didn't want to sell the 30th section and it's hanging now in our living-room.
The Bramble Bush
Ch. Mergendahl

As Fran Walker, one of the nurses of the Mills Memorial Hospital, was sitting between rounds behind her duty desk, she often recollected1 her childhood, which would return1 to her as it had existed in reality — bewildering, lonely, and frustrating.
Her father, Mr. Walker, had owned a small lumber business in Sagamore, one of Indiana's numerous smaller towns, where Fran had lived in a large frame house on six acres of unused pasture land. The first Mrs. Walker had died, when Fran was still a baby, so she did not remember her real mother at all. She remembered her stepmother, though — small, tight-lipped2, thin-faced2, extremely possessive of her new husband and the new house which had suddenly become her own. Fran had adored her father, tried desperately to please him. And since he desired nothing more than a good relationship between his daughter and his second wife, she had made endless attempts to win over her new mother. But her displays of affection had not been returned. Her stepmother had remained constantly jealous, resentful, without the slightest understanding of the small girl's motives and emotions.
Fran felt herself losing out, slipping away into an inferior position. She began to exaggerate — often lie — about friends, feelings, grades at school, anything possible to keep herself high in her father's esteem, and at the same time gain some small bit of admiration from her mother. The exaggerations, though, had constantly turned back on her, until eventually a disgusted Mrs. Walker had insisted she be sent away3 to a nearby summer camp. “They award a badge of honor there,” she had said, “and if you win it – not a single untruth all summer – then we’ll know you’ve stopped lying and we’ll do something very special for you.”
“We’ll give you a pony,” her father had promised.
Fran wanted the pony. More than that pony, she wanted to prove herself. After two months of nearly painful honesty, she finally won the badge of honor, and brought it home clutched tight in her fist, hidden in her pocket while she waited, waited, all the way from the station, all during the tea in the living-room for the exact proper moment to make her announcement of glorious victory.
“Well?” her mother had said finally. “Well, Fran?”
“Well –“, Fran began, with the excitement building higher and higher4 as she drew in her breath and thought of exactly how to say it.
“You can’t hide it any longer, Fran.” Her mother had sighed in hopeless resignation. “We know you didn’t win it, so there’s simply no point in lying5 about it now.”
Fran had closed her mouth. She’d stared at her mother, then stood and gone out to the yard and looked across the green meadow where the pony was going to graze. She had taken the green badge from her pocket, fingered it tenderly, then buried it beneath a rock in the garden. She had gone back into the house and said, “No, I didn’t win it,” and her mother had said “Well, at least you didn’t lie this time,” and her father had held her while she had cried and known finally that there was no further use in trying5.
Her father had bought her an Irish setter as a consolation prize.
The Beard (G.Clark)
I was going by train to London. I didn't have the trouble to take anything to eat with me and soon was very hungry. I decided to go to the dining-car to have a meal.
As I was about to seat myself, I saw that the gentleman I was to face wore a large beard. He was a young man. His beard was full, loose and very black. I glanced at him uneasily and noted that he was a big pleasant fellow with dark laughing eyes.
Indeed I could feel his eyes on me as I f fumbled with the knives and forks. It was hard to pull myself together. It is not easy to face a beard. But when I could escape no longer, I raised my eyes and found the young man's on my face.
"Good evening," I said cheerily, "Good evening," he replied pleasantly, inserting a big buttered roll within the bush of his beard. Not even a crumb fell off. He ordered soup. It was a difficult soup for even the most barefaced of men to eat, but not a drop did he waste on his whiskers'. He kept his eyes on me in between bites. But I knew he knew that I was watching his every bite with acute fascination.
"I'm impressed," I said, "with your beard."
"I suspected as much," smiled the young man.
"Is it a wartime device?" I inquired.
"No," said he; "I'm too young to have been in the war. I grew this beard two years ago."
"It's magnificent," I informed him.
"Thank you," he replied. "As a matter of fact this beard is an experiment in psychology. I suffered horribly from shyness. I was so shy it amounted to a phobia. At university I took up psychology and began reading books on psychology'. And one day I came across a chapter on human defense mechanisms, explaining how so many of us resort to all kinds of tricks to escape from the world, or from conditions in the world which we find hateful. Well, I just turned a thing around. I decided to make other people shy of me. So I grew this beard.
The effect was astonishing. I found people, even tough, hard-boiled people, were shy of looking in the face. They were panicked by my whiskers. It made them uneasy. And my shyness vanished completely."
He pulled his fine black whiskers affectionately and said: "Psychology is a great thing. Unfortunately people don't know about it. Psychology should help people discover such most helpful tricks. Life is too short to be wasted in desperately striving to be normal."
"Tell me," I said finally. "How did you master eating the way you have? You never got a crumb or a drop on your beard, all through dinner."
"Nothing to it, sir," said he. "When you have a beard, you keep your eyes on those of your dinner partner. And whenever you note his eyes fixed in horror on your chin, you wipe it off."
Letters in the Mail
E. Caldwell
Almost everybody likes to receive letters. And perhaps nobody in Stillwater liked to get letters more than Ray Buffin. But unfortunately Ray received fewer letters in his box at the post-office than anybody else.
Guy Hodge and Ralph Barnhill were two young men in town who liked to play jokes on people. But they never meant anything bad. One afternoon they decided to play a joke on Ray Buffin. Their plan was to ask a girl in town to send Ray a love letter without signing it, and then tell everybody in the post-office to watch Ray read the letter; then somebody was to ask Ray if he had received a love letter from a girl. After that somebody was to snatch the letter out of his hand and read it aloud.
They bought blue writing paper and went round the corner to the office of the telephone company where Grace Brooks worked as a night telephone operator. Grace was pretty though not very young. She had begun working for the company many years ago, after she had finished school. She had remained unmarried all those years, and because she worked at night and slept in the daytime it was very difficult for her to find a husband.
At first, after Guy and Ralf had explained to her what they wanted to do and had asked her to write the letter to Ray, Grace refused to do it.
"Now, be a good girl, Grace, do us a favour and write the letter." Suddenly she turned away. She didn't want the young men to see her crying. She remembered the time she had got acquainted with Ray. Ray wanted to marry her. But she had just finished school then and had started to work for the telephone company; she was very young then and did not want to marry anybody. Time passed. During all those years she had seen him a few times but only a polite word had passed between them, and each time he looked sadder and sadder.
Finally she agreed to write the letter for Guy and Ralph and said that she would send it in the morning.
After they left the telephone office Grace thought about Ray and cried. Late at night she wrote the letter.
The next day Guy and Ralph were in the post-office at 4 o'clock. By that time there was a large crowd in the post-office. When Ray came in and saw a letter in his box he looked at it in surprise. He couldn't believe his eyes. He opened the box, took out the blue envelope and went to the corner of the room to read it. When he finished he behaved like mad. He smiled happily and ran out of the room before Guy and Ralph had time to say anything to stop him. Ray hurried round the corner to the telephone office.
When Guy and Ralph ran into the room where Grace worked they saw Ray Buffin standing near the girl with the widest and happiest smile they had ever seen on his face. It was clear they had not spoken a word yet. They just stood in silence, too happy to worry about Guy and Ralph watching them.

A Foul Play
R. Ruark
In 1943 Lieutenant Alexander Barr was ordered into the Armed Guard aboard the merchant ship, like many other civilian officers with no real mechanical skills - teachers, writers, lawyers.
His men were the rag-tag of merchant service and knew very little of it. Lieutenant Alec Barr had his crew well in hand except one particularly unpleasant character, a youngster called Zabinski. Every ship has its problem child, and Zabinski was Alec's cross. If anybody was drunk and in trouble ashore, it was Zabinski. If anybody was smoking on watch, or asleep on watch, it always was Zabinski. Discipline on board was hard to keep and Zabinski made it worse.
Alec called the boy to his cabin. "I've tried to reason with you," he said. "I've punished you with everything from confinement to ship to extra duty. I've come to the conclusion that the only thing you may understand is force. I've got some boxing gloves. Navy Regulations say they should be used for recreation. We are going to have some."
"That's all right", Zabinski said smiling.
Alec announced the exhibition of boxing skill. A lot of people gathered on deck to watch the match.
It didn't take Lieutenant Barr long to discover that he was in the ring with a semiprofessional. They were fighting two-minute rounds. But from the first five seconds of the first round Alec knew that Zabinski could knock him out with a single punch if he wanted to. But Zabinski didn't want to, he was toying with his commander, and the snickers grew into laughter.
In the third round Alec held up a glove. "Time out!", he said. "I'm going to my cabin, I'll soon be back". He turned and ran up to his cabin. In the cabin there was a safe. Alec's duty was to pay wages to his personnel. Alec Barr opened the safe and took out a paper-wrapped roll of ten-cent coins. He put this roll of silver coins into his glove and returned on deck.
"Let's go!" he said and touched gloves with Zabinski. It had pleased Zabinski before to allow the officer to knock him from time to time because it gave him a chance for a short and painful punch. But now the silver-weighted glove crashed into the boy's chin and Zabinski was out. He was lying on the floor motionless. Alec Barr looked briefly at the boy. "Somebody throw some water on him," he said coldly to the seamen. And he went up to his room to clean his cuts and put the roll of coins back to the safe. After that Lieutenant Alexander Barr had no more personnel trouble aboard ship.
Hunting for a Job
S.S. McClure

I reached Boston late that night and got out at the South Station. I knew no one in Boston except Miss Bennet. She lived in Somerville1, and I immediately started out for Somerville. Miss Bennet and her family did all they could to make me comfortable and help me to get myself established2 in some way. I had only six dollars and their hospitality was of utmost importance to me.
My first application for a job in Boston was made in accordance with an idea of my own. Every boy in the Western states knew the Pope Manufacturing Company, which produced bicycles. When I published my first work "History of Western College Journalism" the Pope Company had given me an advertisement, and that seemed to be a "connection" of some kind. So I decided to go to the offices of the Pope Manufacturing Company to ask for a job. I walked into the general office and said that I wanted the president of the company.
"Colonel Pope?" asked the clerk.
I answered, "Yes, Colonel Pope."
I was taken to Colonel Pope, who was then an alert energetic man of thirty-nine. I told Colonel Pope, by way of introduction, that he had once given me an advertisement for a little book I had published, that I had been a College editor and out of a job. What I wanted was work and I wanted it badly.
He said he was sorry, but they were laying off hands3. I still hung on4. It seemed to me that everything would be all up with me5, if I had to go out of that room without a job. I asked him if there wasn't anything at all that I could do. My earnestness made him look at me sharply.
"Willing to wash windows and scrub floors?" he asked.
I told him that I was, and he turned to one of his clerks.
"Has Wilmot got anybody yet to help him in the downtown6 rink?" he asked.
The clerk said he thought not.
"Very well", said Colonel Pope. "You can go to the rink and help Wilmot out for tomorrow."
The next day I went to the bicycle rink and found that what Wilmot wanted was a man to teach beginners to ride. I had never been on a bicycle in my life nor even very close to one, but in a couple of hours I had learnt to ride a bicycle myself and was teaching other people.
Next day Mr. Wilmot paid me a dollar. He didn't say anything about my coming back the next morning, but I came and went to work, very much afraid that I would be told I wasn't needed. After that Mr. Wilmot did not exactly engage me, but he forgot to discharge me, and I came back every day and went to work. At the end of the week Colonel Pope sent for me and placed me in charge of the uptown7 rink.
Colonel Pope was a man who watched his workmen. I hadn't been mistaken when I felt that a young man would have a chance with him. He often used to say that "water would find its level", and he kept an eye on us. One day he called me into his office and asked me if I could edit a magazine.
"Yes, sir," I replied quickly. I remember it flashed through my mind that I could do anything I was put at — that if I were required to run an ocean steamer I could somehow manage to do it. I could learn to do it as I went along8. I answered as quickly as I could get the words out of my mouth, afraid that Colonel Pope would change his mind before I could get them out.
This is how I got my first job. And I have never doubted ever since that one of the reasons why I got it was that I had been "willing to wash windows and scrub floors". I had been ready for anything.
The Escape (W.S.Maugham)
It is a dangerous thing to order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the self-confidence of politicians, reformers and such like who are prepared to force upon their fellows measures that must alter their manners, habits and points of view. I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows oneself? Heaven knows, I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbors. And life, unfortunately, is something that you can lead but once; and who am I that I should tell this one and that how he should lead it?
But once I knew that I advised well.
I was a young man and I lived in a modest apartment in London near Victoria Station. Late one afternoon, when I was beginning to think that I had worked enough for that day, I heard a ring at the bell. I opened the door to a total stranger. He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in.
“Certainly”.
I led him into my sitting-room and begged to sit down. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. I offered him a cigarette and he had some difficulty in lighting it.
“I hope you don't mind my coming to see you like this”, he said, “My name is Stephens and I am a doctor. You're in the medical, I believe?”
“Yes, but I don't practice”.
“No, I know. I've just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it”.
“It's not a very good book, I'm afraid”.
“The fact remains that you know something about Spain and there's no one else I know who does. And I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me some information”.
“I shall be very glad”.
He was silent for a moment. He reached out for his hat and holding it in one hand absent-mindedly stroked it with the other.
“I hope you won't think it very odd for a perfect stranger to talk to you like this”. He gave an apologetic laugh. “I'm not going to tell you the story of my life”.
When people say this to me I always know that it is precisely what they are going to do. I do not mind. In fact I rather like it.
“I was brought up by two old aunts. I've never been anywhere. I've never done anything. I've been married for six years. I have no children. I'm a medical officer at the Camberwell Infirmary. I can't bear it anymore”.
There was something very striking in the short, sharp sentences he used. I looked at him with curiosity. He was a little man, thickset and stout, of thirty perhaps, with a round red face from which shone small, dark and very bright eyes. His black hair was cropped close to a bullet-shaped head. He was dressed in a blue suit a good deal the worse for wear. It was baggy at the knees and the pockets bulged untidily.
“You know what the duties are of a medical officer in an infirmary. One day is pretty much like another. And that's all I've got to look forward to for the rest of my life. Do you think it's worth it?”
“It's a means of livelihood”, I answered.
“Yes, I know. The money's pretty good”.
“I don't exactly know why you've come to me”.
“Well, I wanted to know whether you thought there would be any chance for an English doctor in Spain?”
“Why Spain?”
“I don't know, I just have a fancy for it”.
“It's not like Carmen, you know”, I smiled.
“But there's sunshine there, and there's good wine, and there's color, and there's air you can breathe. Let me say what I have to say straight out. I heard by accident that there was no English doctor in Seville. Do you think I could earn a living there? Is it madness to give up a good safe job for an uncertainty?”
“What does your wife think about it?”
“She's willing”.
“It's a great risk”.
“I know. But if you say take it, I will: if you say stay where you are, I'll stay”.
He was looking at me with those bright dark eyes of his and I knew that he meant what he said. I reflected for a moment.
“Your whole future is concerned: you must decide for yourself. But this I can tell you: if you don't want money but are content to earn just enough to keep body and soul together, then go. For you will lead a wonderful life”.
He left me, I thought about him for a day or two, and then forgot. The episode passed completely from my memory.
Many years later, fifteen at least, I happened to be in Seville and having some trifling indisposition asked the hotel porter whether there was an English doctor in the town. He said there was and gave me the address. I took a cab and as I drove up to the house a little fat man came out of it. He hesitated, when he caught sight of me.
“Have you come to see me?” he said. “I'm the English doctor”.
I explained my matter and he asked me to come in. He lived in an ordinary Spanish house, and his consulting room was littered with papers, books, medical appliances and lumber. We did our business and then I asked the doctor what his fee was. He shook his head and smiled.
“There's no fee”.
“Why on earth not?”
“Don't you remember me? Why, I'm here because of something you said to me. You changed my whole life for me. I'm Stephens”.
I had not the least notion what he was talking about. He reminded me of our interview, he repeated to me what we had said, and gradually, out of the night, a dim recollection of the incident came back to me.
“I was wondering if I'd ever see you again”, he said, “I was wondering if ever I'd have a chance of thanking you for all you've done for me”.
“It's been a success then?”
I looked at him. He was very fat now and bald, but his eyes twinkled gaily and his fleshy, red face bore an expression of perfect good humor. The clothes he wore, terribly shabby they were, had been made obviously by a Spanish tailor and his hat was the wide brimmed sombrero of the Spaniard. He looked to me as though he knew a good bottle of wine when he saw it. He had an entirely sympathetic appearance. “You might have hesitated to let him remove your appendix”, but you could not have imagined a more delightful creature to drink a glass of wine with.
“Surely you were married?” I said.
“Yes. My wife didn't like Spain, she went back to Camberwell, she was more at home there”.
“Oh, I'm sorry for that”.
His black eyes flashed a smile.
“Life is full of compensations”, he murmured.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a Spanish woman, no longer in her first youth, but still beautiful, appeared at the door. She spoke to him in Spanish, and I could not fail to feel that she was the mistress of the house.
As he stood at the door to let me out he said to me:
“You told me when last I saw you that if I came here I should earn just enough money to keep body and soul together, but that I should lead a wonderful life. Well, I want to tell you that you were right. Poor I have been and poor I shall always be, but by heaven I've enjoyed myself. I wouldn't exchange the life I've had with that of any king in the world”.
The TV Blackout Art Buchwald
A week ago Sunday New York city had a blackout and all nine television stations in the area went out for several hours. This created tremendous crises in families all over New York and proved that TV plays a much greater role in people's lives than anyone can imagine.
For example, when the TV went off in the Bufkins's house panic set in. First Bufkins thought it was his set in the living-room, so he rushed into his bedroom and turned on that set. Nothing. The phone rang, and Mrs. Bufkins heard her sister in Manhattan tell her that there was a blackout.
She hung up and said to her husband, "It isn't your set. Something's happened to the top of the Empire State Building."
Bufkins looked at her and said, "Who are you?"
"I'm your wife, Edith."
"Oh," Bufkins said. "Then I suppose those kids2 in there are mine."
"That's right," Mrs. Bufkins said. "If you ever got out of that armchair in front of the TV set you'd know who we are."
"Oh! they've really grown," Bufkins said, looking at his son and daughter. "How old are they now?"
"Thirteen and fourteen," Mrs. Bufkins replied.
"Hi, kids!"
"Who's he?' Bufkins's son, Henry, asked.
"It's your father," Mrs. Bufkins said.
"I'm pleased to meet you," Bufkins's daughter, Mary, said shyly. There was silence all around.
"Look," said Bufkins finally. "I know I haven't been a good father but now that the TV's out I'd like to know you better."
"How?" asked Henry.
"Well, let's just talk," Bufkins said. "That’s the best way to get to know each other."
"What do you want to talk about?" Mary asked.
"Well, to begin with, what school do you go to?"
"We go to High School," Henry said.
"So you're both in high school!" There was a dead silence.
"What do you do?" Mary asked.
'I’m an accountant3," Bufkins said.
"I thought you were a car salesman," Mrs. Bufkins said in surprise.
"That was two years ago. Didn't I tell you I changed jobs?" Bufkins said.
"No, you didn't. You haven't told me anything for two years."
“I’m doing quite well too," Bufkins said.
"Then why am I working in a department store?"Mrs. Bufkins gernanded.
"Oh, are you still working in a department store? If I had known that, I would have told you could quit last year. You should have mentioned it," Bufkins said.
There was more dead silence.
Finally Henry said, "Hey, you want to hear me play the guitar?"
"You know how to play the guitar? Say, didn't I have a daughter who played the guitar?"
"That was Susie," Mrs. Bufkins said.
"Where is she?"
"She got married a year ago, just about the time you were watching the World Series4."
"You know," Bufkins said, very pleased. "I hope they don't fix the antenna for another couple hours. There's nothing better than a blackout for a man who really wants to know his family."
A Good Start

Bill liked painting more than anything in life. He started painting when he was 15 and people said that as a painter he had quite a lot of talent and had mastered most of the technical requirements. At 22 he had his first one-man show when he was discovered by the critics and his pictures were all sold out, With the money he could afford to marry Leila, rent a studio and stop being a student. To complete his education he went to Italy but after 5 months all the money was spent and he had to return.
Bill never had another show like the first one, though he became a better painter. The critics did not think him modern enough and said he was too academic. From time to time he managed to sell some of his paintings but eventually things had got very tight and he was obliged to look for a job.
The day before he went for an interview with his uncle Bill was especially gloomy. In the morning he went up to one of his unfinished pictures in the studio but he felt he couldn't paint. He threw down his brush and a bright red spot appeared on the board already covered with black and yellow paint from his previous work. The board had been used to protect the floor and was at that moment a mixture of bright colours.
When Bill left, Leila got down to cleaning the studio. She took up the board and put it against the wall to clean the floor. At that moment Garrad, Bill's dealer, came in. Bill had asked him to come, look at his work and arrange a show but the dealer had for some time been uncertain on the matter. So he was looking around the studio, explaining how the gallery was booked up for a year and how he could not really promise Bill a show yet for two years or so.
Suddenly the board against the wall attracted his attention.
"Leila, my dear," he exclaimed. "I felt that there must be something like this. Tell me, why is he keeping it away from us?"
Leila was too shocked to answer. But Garrad went on: "I think it's wonderful. I never doubted Bill would catch up with the modern trends. Now Leila, are there more pictures for a full show? I must go now but I'll be ringing him up. I'm going to change the whole plan and show his new work in the autumn. Tell him not to waste time. As to this one if he wants to sell it, I'll buy it myself."
Leila stayed in the studio till Bill came back. She was too excited to tell him the story clearly and Bill could not understand anything at first. When he realised what had happened he shook with laughter. "You didn't explain the whole thing about the board to him, did you?" he managed to say at last.
"No, I didn't. I couldn't really, I believe I should have, but it would have made him look too silly. I just said I didn't think you'd sell it".
What was Bill to do?
Think of your own ending.
(What was Bill to do? What a thing, he thought, to find waiting for you on your return from taking a job at two pounds a week. He could paint more for an exhibition that very evening and show them to Garrad the next day. After all, why not use it as a start for a good painter's career?)
Mr. Know-All
W. Somerset Maugham
I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or Brown.
When I went on board I found Mr. Kelada's luggage already below. I did not like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hair wash and his brilliantine.
Mr. Kelada's brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr. Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience.
I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so and so.
"I am Mr. Kelada," he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.
"Oh, yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think."
"Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you're going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard you were English. I'm all for us English sticking together when we're abroad, if you understand what I mean."
I blinked.
"Are you English?" I asked, perhaps tactlessly.
"Rather. You don't think I look like an American, do you? British to the backbone, that's what I am."
To prove it, Mr. Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.
King George has many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.
"What will you have?" he asked me.
I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship was bone dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale or lemon squash. But Mr. Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.
"Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have only to say the word."
From each of his hip pockets he furnished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I chose the martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.
"A very good cocktail," I said.
"Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you've got any friends on board, you tell them you've got a pal who's got all the liquor in the world."
Mr. Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses me. Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.
"The three on the four," said Mr. Kelada.
There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be told where to put the card you have turned up before you have a chance to look for yourself.
"It's coming out, it's coming out," he cried. "The ten on the knave."
With rage and hatred in my heart I finished.
Then he seized the pack.
"Do you like card tricks?"
"No, I hate card tricks," I answered.
"Well, I'll just show you this one."
He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at the table.
"Oh, that's all right," he said, "I've already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same stateroom we might just as well sit at the same table."
I did not like Mr. Kelada.
I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at mealtimes that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor's table. Mr. Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr. Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine's cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.
Ramsay was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsay was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humor. The Consular Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanor. It shone in her like a flower on a coat.
One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the cultured pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be perfect. Mr. Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr. Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted.
"Well, I ought to know what I am talking about, I'm going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I'm in the trade and there's not a man in it who won't tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and what I don't know about pearls isn't worth knowing."
Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked around the table triumphantly.
"They'll never be able to get a cultured pearl that an expert like me can't tell with half an eye." He pointed to a chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore. "You take my word for it, Mrs. Ramsay, that chain you're wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now."
Mrs. Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.
"That's a pretty chain of Mrs. Ramsay's, isn't it?"
"I noticed it at once," answered Mr. Kelada. "Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right."
"I didn't buy it myself, of course. I'd be interested to know how much you think it cost."
"Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn't be surprised to hear anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it."
Ramsay smiled grimly.
"You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars."
Mr. Kelada flushed.
"Rot. It's not only real, but it's as fine a string for its size as I've ever seen."
"Will you bet on it? I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's imitation."
"Done."
"Oh, Elmer, you can't bet on a certainty," said Mrs. Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.
"Can't I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it."
"But how can it be proved?" she continued. "It's only my word against Mr. Kelada's."
"Let me look at the chain, and if it's imitation I'll tell you quickly enough. I can afford to lose a hundred dollars," said Mr. Kelada.
"Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants."
Mrs. Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.
"I can't undo it," she said, "Mr. Kelada will just have to take my word for it."
I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.
Ramsay jumped up.
"I'll undo it."
He handed the chain to Mr. Kelada. The Levantine took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swarthy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs. Ramsay's face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was staring at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not see it.
Mr. Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself.
"I was mistaken," he said. "It's very good imitation, but of course as soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn't real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damned thing's worth."
He took out his pocketbook and from it a hundred dollar note. He handed it to Ramsay without a word.
"Perhaps that'll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young friend," said Ramsay as he took the note.
I noticed that Mr. Kelada's hands were trembling.
The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr. Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs. Ramsay retired to her stateroom with a headache.
Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr. Kelada lay on his bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written in block letters. I handed it to him.
"Who's this from?" He opened it. "Oh!"
He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but a hundred-dollar note. He looked at me and again he reddened. He tore the envelope into little bits and gave them to me.
"Do you mind just throwing them out of the porthole?"
I did as he asked, and then I looked at him with a smile.
"No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool," he said.
"Were the pearls real?"
"If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe," said he.
At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada. He reached out for his pocketbook and carefully put in it the hundred-dollar note.