An American Tragedy Read online

  And Clyde, walking to and fro, from eight until ten, when as though by prearrangement, the crowd in the more congested streets seemed suddenly to fade away, leaving them quite vacant. And throughout this time contrasting it all with Chicago and Kansas City. (What would Ratterer think if he could see him now—his uncle’s great house and factory?) And perhaps because of its smallness, liking it—the Lycurgus Hotel, neat and bright and with a brisk local life seeming to center about it. And the post-office and a handsomely spired church, together with an old and interesting graveyard, cheek by jowl with an automobile sales room. And a new moving picture theater just around the corner in a side street. And various boys and girls, men and women, walking here and there, some of them flirting as Clyde could see. And with a suggestion somehow hovering over it all of hope and zest and youth—the hope and zest and youth that is at the bottom of all the constructive energy of the world everywhere. And finally returning to his room in Thorpe Street with the conclusion that he did like the place and would like to stay here. That beautiful Wykeagy Avenue! His uncle’s great factory! The many pretty and eager girls he had seen hurrying to and fro!

  In the meantime, in so far as Gilbert Griffiths was concerned, and in the absence of his father, who was in New York at the time (a fact which Clyde did not know and of which Gilbert did not trouble to inform him) he had conveyed to his mother and sisters that he had met Clyde, and if he were not the dullest, certainly he was not the most interesting person in the world, either. Encountering Myra, as he first entered at five-thirty, the same day that Clyde had appeared, he troubled to observe: “Well, that Chicago cousin of ours blew in to-day.”

  “Yes!” commented Myra. “What’s he like?” The fact that her father had described Clyde as gentlemanly and intelligent had interested her, although knowing Lycurgus and the nature of the mill life here and its opportunities for those who worked in factories such as her father owned, she had wondered why Clyde had bothered to come.

  “Well, I can’t see that he’s so much,” replied Gilbert. “He’s fairly intelligent and not bad-looking, but he admits that he’s never had any business training of any kind. He’s like all those young fellows who work for hotels. He thinks clothes are the whole thing, I guess. He had on a light brown suit and a brown tie and hat to match and brown shoes. His tie was too bright and he had on one of those bright pink striped shirts like they used to wear three or four years ago. Besides his clothes aren’t cut right. I didn’t want to say anything because he’s just come on, and we don’t know whether he’ll hold out or not. But if he does, and he’s going to pose around as a relative of ours, he’d better tone down, or I’d advise the governor to have a few words with him. Outside of that I guess he’ll do well enough in one of the departments after a while, as foreman or something. He might even be made into a salesman later on, I suppose. But what he sees in all that to make it worth while to come here is more than I can guess. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the governor made it clear to him just how few the chances are here for any one who isn’t really a wizard or something.”

  He stood with his back to the large open fireplace.

  “Oh, well, you know what Mother was saying the other day about his father. She thinks Daddy feels that he’s never had a chance in some way. He’ll probably do something for him whether he wants to keep him in the mill or not. She told me that she thought that Dad felt that his father hadn’t been treated just right by their father.”

  Myra paused, and Gilbert, who had had this same hint from his mother before now, chose to ignore the implication of it.

  “Oh, well, it’s not my funeral,” he went on. “If the governor wants to keep him on here whether he’s fitted for anything special or not, that’s his look-out. Only he’s the one that’s always talking about efficiency in every department and cutting and keeping out dead timber.”

  Meeting his mother and Bella later, he volunteered the same news and much the same ideas. Mrs. Griffiths sighed; for after all, in a place like Lycurgus and established as they were, any one related to them and having their name ought to be most circumspect and have careful manners and taste and judgment. It was not wise for her husband to bring on any one who was not all of that and more.

  On the other hand, Bella was by no means satisfied with the accuracy of her brother’s picture of Clyde. She did not know Clyde, but she did know Gilbert, and as she knew he could decide very swiftly that this or that person was lacking in almost every way, when, as a matter of fact, they might not be at all as she saw it.

  “Oh, well,” she finally observed, after hearing Gilbert comment on more of Clyde’s peculiarities at dinner, “if Daddy wants him, I presume he’ll keep him, or do something with him eventually.” At which Gilbert winced internally for this was a direct slap at his assumed authority in the mill under his father, which authority he was eager to make more and more effective in every direction, as his younger sister well knew.

  In the meanwhile on the following morning, Clyde, returning to the mill, found that the name, or appearance, or both perhaps—his resemblance to Mr. Gilbert Griffiths—was of some peculiar advantage to him which he could not quite sufficiently estimate at present. For on reaching number one entrance, the doorman on guard there looked as though startled.

  “Oh, you’re Mr. Clyde Griffiths?” he queried. “You’re goin’ to work under Mr. Kemerer? Yes, I know. Well, that man there will have your key,” and he pointed to a stodgy, stuffy old man whom later Clyde came to know as “Old Jeff,” the time-clock guard, who, at a stand farther along this same hall, furnished and reclaimed all keys between seven-thirty and seven-forty.

  When Clyde approached him and said: “My name’s Clyde Griffiths and I’m to work downstairs with Mr. Kemerer,” he too started and then said: “Sure, that’s right. Yes, sir. Here you are, Mr. Griffiths. Mr. Kemerer spoke to me about you yesterday. Number seventy-one is to be yours. I’m giving you Mr. Duveny’s old key.” When Clyde had gone down the stairs into the shrinking department, he turned to the doorman who had drawn near and exclaimed: “Don’t it beat all how much that fellow looks like Mr. Gilbert Griffiths? Why, he’s almost his spittin’ image. What is he, do you suppose, a brother or a cousin, or what?”

  “Don’t ask me,” replied the doorman. “I never saw him before. But he’s certainly related to the family all right. When I seen him first, I thought it was Mr. Gilbert. I was just about to tip my hat to him when I saw it wasn’t.”

  And in the shrinking room when he entered, as on the day before, he found Kemerer as respectful and evasive as ever. For, like Whiggam before him, Kemerer had not as yet been able to decide what Clyde’s true position with this company was likely to be. For, as Whiggam had informed Kemerer the day before, Mr. Gilbert had said no least thing which tended to make Mr. Whiggam believe that things were to be made especially easy for him, nor yet hard, either. On the contrary, Mr. Gilbert had said: “He’s to be treated like all the other employees as to time and work. No different.” Yet in introducing Clyde he had said: “This is my cousin, and he’s going to try to learn this business,” which would indicate that as time went on Clyde was to be transferred from department to department until he had surveyed the entire manufacturing end of the business.

  Whiggam, for this reason, after Clyde had gone, whispered to Kemerer as well as to several others, that Clyde might readily prove to be some one who was a protégé of the chief—and therefore they determined to “watch their step,” at least until they knew what his standing here was to be. And Clyde, noticing this, was quite set up by it, for he could not help but feel that this in itself, and apart from whatever his cousin Gilbert might either think or wish to do, might easily presage some favor on the part of his uncle that might lead to some good for him. So when Kemerer proceeded to explain to him that he was not to think that the work was so very hard or that there was so very much to do for the present, Clyde took it with a slight air of condescension. And in consequence Kemerer was all the more respectful.


  “Just hang up your hat and coat over there in one of those lockers,” he proceeded mildly and ingratiatingly even. “Then you can take one of those crate trucks back there and go up to the next floor and bring down some webs. They’ll show you where to get them.”

  The days that followed were diverting and yet troublesome enough to Clyde, who to begin with was puzzled and disturbed at times by the peculiar social and workaday worlds and position in which he found himself. For one thing, those by whom now he found himself immediately surrounded at the factory were not such individuals as he would ordinarily select for companions—far below bell-boys or drivers or clerks anywhere. They were, one and all, as he could now clearly see, meaty or stodgy mentally and physically. They wore such clothes as only the most common laborers would wear—such clothes as are usually worn by those who count their personal appearance among the least of their troubles—their work and their heavy material existence being all. In addition, not knowing just what Clyde was, or what his coming might mean to their separate and individual positions, they were inclined to be dubious and suspicious.

  After a week or two, however, coming to understand that Clyde was a nephew of the president, a cousin of the secretary of the company, and hence not likely to remain here long in any menial capacity, they grew more friendly, but inclined in the face of the sense of subserviency which this inspired in them, to become jealous and suspicious of him in another way. For, after all, Clyde was not one of them, and under such circumstances could not be. He might smile and be civil enough—yet he would always be in touch with those who were above them, would he not—or so they thought. He was, as they saw it, part of the rich and superior class and every poor man knew what that meant. The poor must stand together everywhere.

  For his part, however, and sitting about for the first few days in this particular room eating his lunch, he wondered how these men could interest themselves in what were to him such dull and uninteresting items—the quality of the cloth that was coming down in the webs—some minute flaws in the matter of weight or weave—the last twenty webs hadn’t looked so closely shrunk as the preceding sixteen; or the Cranston Wickwire Company was not carrying as many men as it had the month before—or the Anthony Woodenware Company had posted a notice that the Saturday half-holiday would not begin before June first this year as opposed to the middle of May last year. They all appeared to be lost in the humdrum and routine of their work.

  In consequence his mind went back to happier scenes. He wished at times he were back in Chicago or Kansas City. He thought of Ratterer, Hegglund, Higby, Louise Ratterer, Larry Doyle, Mr. Squires, Hortense—all of the young and thoughtless company of which he had been a part, and wondered what they were doing. What had become of Hortense? She had got that fur coat after all—probably from that cigar clerk and then had gone away with him after she had protested so much feeling for him—the little beast. After she had gotten all that money out of him. The mere thought of her and all that she might have meant to him if things had not turned as they had, made him a little sick at times. To whom was she being nice now? How had she found things since leaving Kansas City? And what would she think if she saw him here now or knew of his present high connections? Gee! That would cool her a little. But she would not think much of his present position. That was true. But she might respect him more if she could see his uncle and his cousin and this factory and their big house. It would be like her then to try to be nice to him. Well, he would show her, if he ever ran into her again—snub her, of course, as no doubt he very well could by then.

  Chapter 7

  IN so far as his life at Mrs. Cuppy’s went, he was not so very happily placed there, either. For that was but a commonplace rooming and boarding house, which drew to it, at best, such conservative mill and business types as looked on work and their wages, and the notions of the middle class religious world of Lycurgus as most essential to the order and well being of the world. From the point of view of entertainment or gayety, it was in the main a very dull place.

  At the same time, because of the presence of one Walter Dillard—a brainless sprig who had recently come here from Fonda, it was not wholly devoid of interest for Clyde. The latter—a youth of about Clyde’s own age and equally ambitious socially—but without Clyde’s tact or discrimination anent the governing facts of life, was connected with the men’s furnishing department of Stark and Company. He was spry, avid, attractive enough physically, with very light hair, a very light and feeble mustache, and the delicate airs and ways of a small town Beau Brummell. Never having had any social standing or the use of any means whatsoever—his father having been a small town dry goods merchant before him, who had failed—he was, because of some atavistic spur or fillip in his own blood, most anxious to attain some sort of social position.

  But failing that so far, he was interested in and envious of those who had it—much more so than Clyde, even. The glory and activity of the leading families of this particular city had enormous weight with him—the Nicholsons, the Starks, the Harriets, Griffiths, Finchleys, et cetera. And learning a few days after Clyde’s arrival of his somewhat left-handed connection with this world, he was most definitely interested. What? A Griffiths! The nephew of the rich Samuel Griffiths of Lycurgus! And in this boarding house! Beside him at this table! At once his interest rose to where he decided that he must cultivate this stranger as speedily as possible. Here was a real social opportunity knocking at his very door—a connecting link to one of the very best families! And besides was he not young, attractive and probably ambitious like himself—a fellow to play around with if one could? He proceeded at once to make overtures to Clyde. It seemed almost too good to be true.

  In consequence he was quick to suggest a walk, the fact that there was a certain movie just on at the Mohawk, which was excellent—very snappy. Didn’t Clyde want to go? And because of his neatness, smartness—a touch of something that was far from humdrum or the heavy practicality of the mill and the remainder of this boarding house world, Clyde was inclined to fall in with him.

  But, as he now thought, here were his great relatives and he must watch his step here. Who knew. but that he might be making a great mistake in holding such free and easy contacts as this. The Griffiths—as well as the entire world of which they were a part—as he guessed from the general manner of all those who even contacted him, must be very removed from the commonality here. More by instinct than reason, he was inclined to stand off and look very superior—more so since those, including this very youth on whom he practised this seemed to respect him the more. And although upon eager—and even—after its fashion, supplicating request, he now went with this youth—still he went cautiously. And his aloof and condescending manner Dillard at once translated as “class” and “connection.” And to think he had met him in this dull, dubby boarding house here. And on his arrival—at the very inception of his career here.

  And so his manner was that of the sycophant—although he had a better position and was earning more money than Clyde was at this time, twenty-two dollars a week.

  “I suppose you’ll be spending a good deal of your time with your relatives and friends here,” he volunteered on the occasion of their first walk together, and after he had extracted as much information as Clyde cared to impart, which was almost nothing, while he volunteered a few, most decidedly furbished bits from his own history. His father owned a dry goods store now. He had come over here to study other methods, et cetera. He had an uncle here—connected with Stark and Company. He had met a few—not so many as yet—nice people here, since he hadn’t been here so very long himself—four months all told.

  But Clyde’s relatives!

  “Say your uncle must be worth over a million, isn’t he? They say he is. Those houses in Wykeagy Avenue are certainly the cats’. You won’t see anything finer in Albany or Utica or Rochester either. Are you Samuel Griffiths’ own nephew? You don’t say! Well, that’ll certainly mean a lot to you here. I wish I had a connecti
on like that. You bet I’d make it count.”

  He beamed on Clyde eagerly and hopefully, and through him Clyde sensed even more how really important this blood relation was. Only think how much it meant to this strange youth.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” replied Clyde dubiously, and yet very much flattered by this assumption of intimacy. “I came on to learn the collar business, you know. Not to play about very much. My uncle wants me to stick to that, pretty much.”

  “Sure, sure. I know how that is,” replied Dillard, “that’s the way my uncle feels about me, too. He wants me to stick close to the work here and not play about very much. He’s the buyer for Stark and Company, you know. But still a man can’t work all the time, either. He’s got to have a little fun.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Clyde—for the first time in his life a little condescendingly.

  They walked along in silence for a few moments. Then:

  “Do you dance?”

  “Yes,” answered Clyde.

  “Well, so do I. There are a lot of cheap dance halls around here, but I never go to any of those. You can’t do it and keep in with the nice people. This is an awfully close town that way, they say. The best people won’t have anything to do with you unless you go with the right crowd. It’s the same way up at Fonda. You have to ‘belong’ or you can’t go out anywhere at all. And that’s right, I guess. But still there are a lot of nice girls here that a fellow can go with—girls of right nice families—not in society, of course—but still, they’re not talked about, see. And they’re not so slow, either. Pretty hot stuff, some of them. And you don’t have to marry any of ’em, either.” Clyde began to think of him as perhaps a little too lusty for his new life here, maybe. At the same time he liked him some. “By the way,” went on Dillard, “what are you doing next Sunday afternoon?”