Crowded Out o' Crofield Part 38

"There!" he exclaimed. "There's very little of the 'green' left. It's not altogether the hat and the collar, either. Nor the necktie. Maybe some of it was starved out!"

He was a different looking boy, at all events, and the cas.h.i.+er at the desk of the Hotel Dantzic looked twice at him when he came in, and Mr.

Keifelheimer remarked:

"Dot vas a smart boy! His boss vas here, und I haf safe money. Mr.

Guilderaufenberg vas right about dot boy."

Jack was eager to begin his "drumming," but he ate a hearty supper before he went out.

"I must learn something about hotels," he remarked thoughtfully. "I'll take a look at some of them."

The Hotel Dantzic was not small, but it was small compared to some of the larger hotels that Jack was now to investigate. He walked into the first one he found, and he looked about it, and then he walked out, and went into another and looked that over, and then he thought he would try another. He strolled around through the halls, and offices, and reading-rooms, and all the public places; but the more he saw, the more he wondered what good it would do him to study them.

It was about eight o'clock in the evening when he stood in front of the office of the great Equatorial Hotel, feeling very keenly that he was still only a country boy, with very little knowledge of the men and things he saw around him.

A broad, heavy hand came down upon his shoulder, and a voice he had heard before asked, heartily:

"John Ogden? You here? Didn't I tell you not to stay too long in the city?"

"Yes, you did, Governor," said Jack, turning quickly. "But I had to stay here. I've gone into the wholesale and retail grocery business."

Jack already knew that the Governor could laugh merrily, and that any other men who might happen to be standing by were more than likely to join with him in his mirth, but the color came at once to his cheeks when the Governor began to smile.

"In the grocery business?" laughed the Governor. "Do you supply the Equatorial?"

"No, not yet; but I'd like to," said Jack. "I think our house could give them what they need."

"Let me have your card then," said one of the gentlemen who had joined in the Governor's merriment; "for the Governor has no time to spare--"

Jack handed him the card of Gifford & Company.

"Take it, Boulder, take it," said the Governor. "Mr. Ogden and I are old acquaintances."

"He's a protege of yours, eh?" said Boulder. "Well, I mean business.

Write your own name there, Mr. Ogden. I'll send our buyer down there, to-morrow, and we'll see what can be done. Shall we go in, Governor?"

Jack understood, at once, that Mr. Boulder was one of the proprietors of the Equatorial Hotel.

"I'm called for, Jack," said the Governor. "You will be in the city awhile, will you not? Well, don't stay here too long. I came here once, when I was about your age. I staid a year, and then I went away.

A year in the city will be of great benefit to you, I hope. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Governor," said Jack, seriously. "We'll do the right thing by Mr. Boulder;" and there was another laugh as Jack shook hands with the Governor, and then with the very dignified manager of the Equatorial Hotel.

"That will do, for one evening," thought Jack, as the distinguished party of gentlemen walked away. "I'd better go right home and go to bed. The Governor's a brick anyhow!"

Back he went to the Hotel Dantzic, and he was soon asleep.

The Alligator press in Gifford & Company's was opening and shutting its black jaws regularly over the sheets of paper it was turning into circulars, about the middle of Wednesday forenoon, when a dapper gentleman with a rather prominent scarf-pin walked briskly into the store and up to the desk.

"Mr. Gifford?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I'm Mr. Barnes," said the dapper man. "General buyer for the Equatorial Hotel. Your Mr. Ogden was up with us, last night, to see some of his friends, and I've come down to look at your price-list, and so forth."

"Oh!" quietly remarked Mr. Gifford, "our Mr. Ogden. Oh, quite right!

I think we can satisfy you. We'll do our best, certainly. Mr. Jones, please confer with Mr. Barnes--I'll be back in a minute."

Up toward the door walked Mr. Gifford, but not too fast. He stood still when he arrived at the Alligator press.

"Ogden," he said, "you can leave that work. I've another printing hand coming."

Jack's heart beat quickly, for a moment. What,--could he be discharged so suddenly? He was dismayed. But Mr. Gifford went on:

"Wash your hands, Ogden, and stand behind the counter there. I'll see you again, by and by. The buyer is here from the Equatorial."

"I promised them you'd give them all they wanted, and as good prices as could be had anywhere," said Jack, with a great sense of relief, and recovering his courage.

"We will," said Mr. Gifford, as he turned away, and he did not think he must explain to Jack that it would not do for Mr. Barnes to find Gifford & Company's salesman, "Mr. Ogden," running an Alligator press.

Mr. Barnes was in the store for some time, but Jack was not called up to talk with him. Mr. Gifford was the right man for that part of the affair, and in the course of his conversation with Mr. Barnes he learned further particulars concerning the intimacy between "your Mr.

Ogden" and the Governor, with the addition that "Mr. Boulder thinks well of Mr. Ogden too."

Jack waited upon customers as they came, and he did well, for "a new hand." But he felt very ignorant of both articles and prices, and the first thing he said, when Mr. Gifford again came near him, was:

"Mr. Gifford, I ought to know more than I do about the stock and prices."

"Of course you ought," said Mr. Gifford. "I don't care to have you try any more 'drumming' till you do. You must stay a few months behind the counter and learn all you can. You must dress neatly, too. I wonder you've looked as well as you have. We'll make your salary fifteen dollars a week. You'll need more money as a salesman."

Jack flushed with pleasure, but a customer was at hand, and the interruption prevented him from making an answer.

"Jones," remarked Mr. Gifford to his head clerk, "Ogden is going to become a fine salesman!"

"I thought so," said Jones.

They both were confirmed in this opinion, about three weeks later.

Jack was two hours behind time, one morning; but when he did come, he brought with him Mr. Guilderaufenberg of Was.h.i.+ngton, with reference to a whole winter's supplies for a "peeg poarding-house," and two United States Army contractors. Jack had convinced these gentlemen that they were paying too much for several articles that could be found on the list of Gifford & Company in better quality and at cheaper rates.

"Meester Giffort," said the German gentleman, "I haf drafel de vorlt over, und I haf nefer met a better boy dan dot Jack Ogden. He knows not mooch yet, alretty, but den he ees a very goot boy."

"We like him," said Mr. Gifford, smiling.

"So do I, und so does Mrs. Guilderaufenberg, und Miss Hildebrand, und Miss Podgr-ms-chski," said the German. "Some day you lets him visit us in Vas.h.i.+ngton? So?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I will," said Mr. Gifford; but he afterward remarked grimly to Mr. Jones: "If I should, and he should meet the President, Ogden would never let him go until he bought some of our tea and coffee!"

That day was a notable one in both Crofield and Mertonville. Jack's first long letter, telling that he was in the grocery business, had been almost a damper to the Ogden family. They had kept alive a small hope that he would come back soon, until Aunt Melinda opened an envelope that morning and held up samples of paper bags, cards, and circulars of Gifford & Company, while Mrs. Ogden read the letter that came with them. Bob and Jim claimed the bags next, while Susie and Bessie read the circulars, and the tall blacksmith himself straightened up as if he had suddenly grown prouder.

"Mary!" he exclaimed. "Jack always said he'd get to the city. And he's there--and earning his living!"