The Grain of Dust Part 1

The Grain Of Dust.

by David Graham Phillips.

I

Into the offices of Lockyer, Sanders, Benchley, Lockyer & Norman, corporation lawyers, there drifted on a December afternoon a girl in search of work at stenography and typewriting. The firm was about the most important and most famous--radical orators often said infamous--in New York. The girl seemed, at a glance, about as unimportant and obscure an atom as the city hid in its vast ferment. She was blonde--tawny hair, fair skin, blue eyes. Aside from this hardly conclusive mark of ident.i.ty there was nothing positive, nothing definite, about her. She was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, neither grave nor gay. She gave the impression of a young person of the feminine gender--that, and nothing more. She was plainly dressed, like thousands of other girls, in darkish blue jacket and skirt and white s.h.i.+rt waist. Her boots and gloves were neat, her hair simply and well arranged. Perhaps in these respects--in neatness and taste--she did excel the average, which is depressingly low. But in a city where more or less strikingly pretty women, bent upon being seen, are as plentiful as the blackberries of Kentucky's July--in New York no one would have given her a second look, this quiet young woman screened in an atmosphere of self-effacement.

She applied to the head clerk. It so happened that need for another typewriter had just arisen. She got a trial, showed enough skill to warrant the modest wage of ten dollars a week; she became part of the office force of twenty or twenty-five young men and women similarly employed. As her lack of skill was compensated by industry and regularity, she would have a job so long as business did not slacken.

When it did, she would be among the first to be let go. She shrank into her obscure niche in the great firm, came and went in mouse-like fas.h.i.+on, said little, obtruded herself never, was all but forgotten.

Nothing could have been more commonplace, more trivial than the whole incident. The name of the girl was Hallowell--Miss Hallowell. On the chief clerk's pay roll appeared the additional information that her first name was Dorothea. The head office boy, in one of his occasional spells of "freshness," addressed her as Miss Dottie. She looked at him with a puzzled expression; it presently changed to a slight, sweet smile, and she went about her business. There was no rebuke in her manner, she was far too self-effacing for anything so positive as the mildest rebuke. But the head office boy blushed awkwardly--why he did not know and could not discover, though he often cogitated upon it. She remained Miss Hallowell.

Opposites suggest each other. The dimmest personality in those offices was the girl whose name imaged to everyone little more than a pencil, notebook, and typewriting machine. The vividest personality was Frederick Norman. In the list of names upon the outer doors of the firm's vast labyrinthine suite, on the seventeenth floor of the Syndicate Building, his name came last--and, in the newest lettering, suggesting recentness of partners.h.i.+p. In age he was the youngest of the partners. Lockyer was archaic, Sanders an antique; Benchley, actually only about fifty-five, had the air of one born in the grandfather cla.s.s.

Lockyer the son dyed his hair and affected jauntiness, but was in fact not many years younger than Benchley and had the stiffening jerky legs of one paying for a lively youth. Norman was thirty-seven--at the age the Greeks extolled as divine because it means all the best of youth combined with all the best of manhood. Some people thought Norman younger, almost boyish. Those knew him uptown only, where he hid the man of affairs beneath the man of the world-that-amuses-itself. Some people thought he looked, and was, older than the age with which the biographical notices credited him. They knew him down town only--where he dominated by sheer force of intellect and will.

As has been said, the firm ranked among the greatest in New York.

It was a trusted counselor in large affairs--commercial, financial, political--in all parts of America, in all parts of the globe, for many of its clients were international traffickers. Yet this young man, this youngest and most recent of the partners, had within the month forced a reorganization of the firm--or, rather, of its profits--on a basis that gave him no less than one half of the whole.

His demand threw his four a.s.sociates into paroxysms of rage and fear--the fear serving as a wholesome antidote to the rage.

It certainly was infuriating that a youth, admitted to partners.h.i.+p barely three years ago, should thus maltreat his a.s.sociates. Ingrate was precisely the epithet for him. At least, so they honestly thought, after the quaint human fas.h.i.+on; for, because they had given him the partners.h.i.+p, they looked on themselves as his benefactors, and neglected as unimportant detail the sole and entirely selfish reason for their graciousness. But enraged though these worthy gentlemen were, and eagerly though they longed to treat the "conceited and grasping upstart"

as he richly deserved, they accepted his ultimatum. Even the venerable and venerated Lockyer--than whom a more convinced self-deceiver on the subject of his own virtues never wore white whiskers, black garments, and the other badges of eminent respectability--even old Joseph Lockyer could not twist the acceptance into another manifestation of the benevolence of himself and his a.s.sociates. They had to stare the grimacing truth straight in the face; they were yielding because they dared not refuse. To refuse would mean the departure of Norman with the firm's most profitable business. It costs heavily to live in New York; the families of successful men are extravagant; so conduct unbecoming a gentleman may not there be resented if to resent is to cut down one's income. The time was, as the dignified and nicely honorable Sanders observed, when these and many similar low standards did not prevail in the legal profession. But such is the frailty of human nature--or so savage the pressure of the need of the material necessities of civilized life, let a profession become profitable or develop possibilities of profit--even the profession of statesman, even that of lawyer--or doctor--or priest--or wife--and straightway it begins to tumble down toward the brawl and stew of the market place.

In a last effort to rouse the gentleman in Norman or to shame him into pretense of gentlemanliness, Lockyer expostulated with him like a prophet priest in full panoply of saintly virtue. And Lockyer was pa.s.sing good at that exalted gesture. He was a Websterian figure, with the venality of the great Daniel in all its pompous dignity modernized--and correspondingly expanded. He abounded in those idealist sonorosities that are the stock-in-trade of all solemn old-fas.h.i.+oned frauds. The young man listened with his wonted attentive courtesy until the dolorous appeal disguised as fatherly counsel came to an end. Then in his blue-gray eyes appeared the gleam that revealed the tenacity and the penetration of his mind. He said:

"Mr. Lockyer, you have been absent six years--except an occasional two or three weeks--absent as American Amba.s.sador to France. You have done nothing for the firm in that time. Yet you have not scorned to take profits you did not earn. Why should I scorn to take profits I do earn?"

Mr. Lockyer shook his picturesque head in sad remonstrance at this vulgar, coa.r.s.e, but latterly frequent retort of insurgent democracy upon indignant aristocracy. But he answered nothing.

"Also," proceeded the graceless youth in the clear and concise way that won the instant attention of juries and Judges, "also, our profession is no longer a profession but a business." His humorous eyes twinkled merrily. "It divides into two parts--teaching capitalists how to loot without being caught, and teaching them how to get off if by chance they have been caught. There are other branches of the profession, but they're not lucrative, so we do not practice them. Do I make myself clear?"

Mr. Lockyer again shook his head and sighed.

"I am not an Utopian," continued young Norman. "Law and custom permit--not to say sanctify--our sort of business. So--I do my best. But I shall not conceal from you that it's distasteful to me. I wish to get out of it. I shall get out as soon as I've made enough capital to a.s.sure me the income I have and need. Naturally, I wish to gather in the necessary amount as speedily as possible."

"Fred, my boy, I regret that you take such low views of our n.o.ble profession."

"Yes--as a profession it is n.o.ble. But not as a practice. _My_ regret is that it invites and compels such low views."

"You will look at these things more--more mellowly when you are older."

"I doubt if I'll ever rise very high in the art of self-deception,"

replied Norman. "If I'd had any bent that way I'd not have got so far so quickly."

It was a boastful remark--of a kind he, and other similar young men, have the habit of making. But from him it did not sound boastful--simply a frank and timely expression of an indisputable truth, which indeed it was. Once more Mr. Lockyer sighed. "I see you are incorrigible," said he.

"I have not acted without reflection," said Norman.

And Lockyer knew that to persist was simply to endanger his dignity.

"I am getting old," said he. "Indeed, I am old. I have gotten into the habit of leaning on you, my boy. I can't consent to your going, hard though you make it for us to keep you. I shall try to persuade our colleagues to accept your terms."

Norman showed neither appreciation nor triumph. He merely bowed slightly. And so the matter was settled. Instead of moving into the suite of offices in the Mills Building on which he had taken an option, young Norman remained where he had been toiling for twelve years.

After this specimen of Norman's quality, no one will be surprised to learn that in figure he was one of those solidly built men of medium height who look as if they were made to sustain and to deliver shocks, to bear up easily under heavy burdens; or that his head thickly covered with fairish hair, was hatchet-shaped with the helve or face suggesting that while it could and would cleave any obstacle, it would wear a merry if somewhat sardonic smile the while. No one had ever seen Norman angry, though a few persevering offenders against what he regarded as his rights had felt the results of swift and powerful action of the same sort that is usually accompanied--and weakened--by outward show of anger. Invariably good-humored, he was soon seen to be more dangerous than the men of flaring temper. In most instances good humor of thus unbreakable species issues from weakness, from a desire to conciliate--usually with a view to plucking the more easily. Norman's good humor arose from a sense of absolute security which in turn was the product of confidence in himself and amiable disdain for his fellow men.

The ma.s.ses he held in derision for permitting the cla.s.ses to rule and rob and spit upon them. The cla.s.ses he scorned for caring to occupy themselves with so cheap and sordid a game as the ruling, robbing, and spitting aforesaid. Coming down to the specific, he despised men as individuals because he had always found in each and everyone of them a weakness that made it easy for him to use them as he pleased.

Not an altogether pleasant character, this. But not so unpleasant as it may seem to those unable impartially to a.n.a.lyze human character, even their own--especially their own. And let anyone who is disposed to condemn Norman first look within himself--in some less hypocritical and self-deceiving moment, if he have such moments--and let him note what are the qualities he relies upon and uses in his own struggle to save himself from being submerged and sunk. Further, there were in Norman many agreeable qualities, important, but less fundamental, therefore less deep-hidden--therefore generally regarded as the real man and as the cause of his success in which they in fact had almost no part. He was, for example, of striking physical appearance, was attractively dressed and mannered, was prodigally generous. Neither as lawyer nor as man did he practice justice. But while as lawyer he practiced injustice, as man he practiced mercy. Whenever a weakling appealed to him for protection, he gave it--at times with splendid recklessness as to the cost to himself in antagonisms and enmities. Indeed, so great were the generosities of his character that, had he not been arrogant, disdainful, self-confident, resolutely and single-heartedly ambitious, he must inevitably have ruined himself--if he had ever been able to rise high enough to be worthy the dignity of catastrophe.

Successful men are usually trying persons to know well. Lambs, a.s.ses, and chickens do not a.s.sociate happily with lions, wolves, and hawks--nor do birds and beasts of prey get on well with one another. Norman was regarded as "difficult" by his friends--by those of them who happened to get into the path of his ambition, in front of instead of behind him, and by those who fell into the not unnatural error of misunderstanding his good nature and presuming upon it. His clients regarded him as insolent. The big businesses, seeking the rich spoils of commerce, frequent highly perilous waters. They need skillful pilots. Usually these lawyer-pilots "know their place" and put on no airs upon the quarter-deck while they are temporarily in command. Not so Norman. He took the full rank, authority--and emoluments--of commander. And as his power, fame, and income were swiftly growing, it is fair to a.s.sume that he knew what he was about.

He was admired--extravagantly admired--by young men with not too broad a vein of envy. He was no woman hater--anything but that. Indeed, those who wished him ill had from time to time hoped to see him tumble down, through miscalculation in some of his audacities with women. No--he did not hate women. But there were several women who hated him--or tried to; and if wounded vanity and baffled machination be admitted as just causes for hatred, they had cause. He liked--but he did not wholly trust. When he went to sleep, it was not where Delilah could wield the shears. A most irritating prudence--irritating to friends and intimates of all degrees and kinds, in a race of beings with a mania for being trusted implicitly but with no balancing mania for deserving trust of the implicit variety.

And he ate hugely--and whatever he pleased. He could drink beyond belief, all sorts of things, with no apparent ill effect upon either body or brain. He had all the appet.i.tes developed abnormally, and abnormal capacity for gratifying them. Where there was one man who envied him his eminence, there were a dozen who envied him his physical capacities. We cannot live and act without doing mischief, as well as that which most of us would rather do, provided that in the doing we are not ourselves undone. Probably in no direction did Norman do so much mischief as in unconsciously leading men of his sets down town and up to imitate his colossal dissipations--which were not dissipation for him who was abnormal.

Withal, he was a monster for work. There is not much truth in men's unending talk of how hard they work or are worked. The ravages from their indulgences in smoking, drinking, gallantry, eating too much and too fast and too often, have to be explained away creditably, to themselves and to others--notably to the wives or mothers who nurse them and suffer from their diminis.h.i.+ng incomes. Hence the wailing about work.

But once in a while a real worker appears--a man with enormous ingenuity at devising difficult tasks for himself and with enormous persistence in doing them. Frederick Norman was one of these blue-moon prodigies.

Obviously, such a man could not but be observed and talked about.

Endless stories, some of them more or less true, most of them apocryphal, were told of him--stories of his shrewd, unexpected moves in big cases, of his witty retorts, of his generosities, of his peculiarities of dress, of eating and drinking; stories of his adventures with women. Whatever he did, however trivial, took color and charm from his personality, so easy yet so difficult, so simple yet so complex, so baffling. Was he wholly selfish? Was he a friend to almost anybody or to n.o.body? Did he ever love? No one knew, not even himself, for life interested him too intensely and too incessantly to leave him time for self-a.n.a.lysis. One thing he was certain of; he hated n.o.body, envied n.o.body. He was too successful for that.

He did as he pleased. And, on the whole, he pleased to do far less inconsiderately than his desires, his abilities, and his opportunities tempted. Have not men been acclaimed good for less?

In the offices, where he was canvased daily by partners, clerks, everyone down to the cleaners whose labors he so often delayed, opinion varied from day to day. They wors.h.i.+ped him; they hated him. They loved him; they feared him. They regarded him as more than human, as less than human; but never as just human--though always as endowed with fine human virtues and even finer human weaknesses. Miss Tillotson, next to the head clerk in rank and pay--and a pretty and pus.h.i.+ng young person--dreamed of getting acquainted with him--really well acquainted.

It was a vain dream. For him, between up town and down town a great gulf was fixed. Also, he had no interest in or ammunition for sparrows.

It was in December that Miss Hallowell--Miss Dorothea Hallowell--got her temporary place at ten dollars a week--that obscure event, somewhat like a field mouse taking quarters in a horizon-bounded grain field. It was not until mid-February that she, the palest of personalities, came into direct contact with Norman, about the most refulgent. This is how it happened.

Late in that February afternoon, an hour or more after the last of the office force should have left, Norman threw open the door of his private office and glanced round at the rows on rows of desks. The lights in the big room were on, apparently only because he was still within. With an exclamation of disappointment he turned to re-enter his office. He heard the click of typewriter keys. Again he looked round, but could see no one.

"Isn't there some one here?" he cried. "Don't I hear a typewriter?"

The noise stopped. There was a slight rustling from a far corner, beyond his view, and presently he saw advancing a slim and shrinking slip of a girl with a face that impressed him only as small and insignificant. In a quiet little voice she said, "Yes, sir. Do you wish anything?"

"Why, what are you doing here?" he asked. "I don't think I've ever seen you before."

"Yes. I took dictation from you several times," replied she.

He was instantly afraid he might have hurt her feelings, and he, who in the days when he was far, far less than now, had often suffered from that commonplace form of brutality, was most careful not to commit it.

"I never know what's going on round me when I'm thinking," explained he, though he was saying to himself that the next time he would probably again be unable to remember one with nothing distinctive to fix ident.i.ty. "You are--Miss----?"

"Miss Hallowell."

"How do you happen to be here? I've given particular instructions that no one is ever to be detained after hours."

A little color appeared in the pale, small face--and now he saw that she had a singularly fair and smooth skin, singularly beautiful--and he wondered why he had not noticed it before. Being a close observer, he had long ago noted and learned to appreciate the wonders of that most amazing of tissues, the human skin; and he had come to be a connoisseur.

"I'm staying of my own accord," said she.