Chapter 7

SKINNER AND THE "GOLD BUGS"

A new and unforseen, but perfectly logical, development from the purchase of the new business suit awaited Skinner a few days later. It came about in this way. He was making his customary heel-and-toe sprint for the depot when Stephen Colby came bowling along in his 60 H.P. That gentleman nodded to Skinner, pulled up, and took him in.

"You're late," he said genially.

"I am, by Jove, and thank you for the lift," said Skinner.

"I've been wanting to tell you a story," said Colby. "I had it on my list the other night, but somehow I did n't get to it. You know, you can't always follow the list you make out. Stories have got to be apropos of something somebody else says, so my list always gets mixed up and I miss telling some of the best ones."

It was one of the multi-millionaire's pleasures to regale his friends with anecdotal matter of his own experience. But before he had finished this particular story, they had reached the depot. The train had already pulled in and Colby, still talking, led the way into the Pullman. Skinner hesitated on the threshold of that unaccustomed domain, but he felt that the magnate expected him to go in with him, and he followed.

In the "cage man" Colby found a fresh audience. All the way into town he talked about his past efforts, from the time he slept under the grocery-store counter until he reached the Presidency of the Steel Company, and Skinner, fascinated and sympathetic, "listened" his way into the magnate's esteem.

Quite a number of the other "gold bugs"--as Skinner had dubbed them--whom he had seen at the Crawford affair were in the Pullman. They nodded to Skinner in a cordial way, which put him at once at his ease, and he soon felt quite as much at home in the Pullman as he had in the smoker.

That night he told Honey all about it.

"It only costs twenty-five cents extra," he said apologetically.

"That's nothing. I'm glad you did it, Dearie. You must do it every day."

"Very well," said Skinner.

A few days later Skinner said to Honey, as he stretched his long legs under the table and sipped his second demi-tasse, "Well, Honey, I've joined the Pullman Club for keeps. It only costs a dollar and a half a week."

"It's well worth the money," said Honey.

Skinner regarded his beautiful little wife through half-closed eyes. He was puzzled. What curious change had been wrought in this exponent--this almost symbol--of thrift that she should actually encourage him in the pursuit of the ruinous course into which he'd been thrust by the wonderful dress suit! He said nothing, but he jotted down in his little book:--

_Dress-Suit Account_

_Debit_ _Credit_

To operating expenses: $1.50 a week.

The trip into town in the Pullman each day was a social event with Skinner. He looked forward to it and what he learned was each night a subject of gossip at the dinner table.

"It's a regular 'joy ride' and I'm getting all kinds of good out of it," said he enthusiastically one evening. "By Jove, clothes are a good commercial proposition."

"Don't talk about the commercial side of it, Dearie. Tell me about the 'gold bugs.'"

"They're wonderful fellows," said Skinner, with the air of a man who had always been accustomed to traveling with such people and was now unbending to confide familiar items of special interest to some unsophisticated listener. "You'd find them fascinating."

"They 're just like other men, are n't they?"

Skinner rather pitied her inexperience. "No, they're not. They're just like great, big boys. The most natural talkers in the world--simple, direct, clear."

"Do you ever talk?"

This question brought Skinner back to earth again. He was just Dearie now.

"_Do_ I? Say, Honey, I've been isolated in that cage of mine so long that I thought I'd forgotten how to talk. But you'd be surprised to hear me--right in with the rest of them!"

"But you can't talk big things, Dearie, like them. You don't _know_ big things."

"Bless you, they don't talk big things. They tell anecdotes. And they talk about the time when they were boys--and their early struggles. Every darned one of them came from a farm or a blacksmith shop. They all love to tell how often their fathers licked 'em. And they gossip about their old friends and things. The ride in is not business, Honey, it's social. There's one thing I've discovered in that Pullman Club," he went on. "These fellows are n't any cleverer than many a man in my position, but they've realized that it's just as easy to play with blue chips as with white ones--and they've got the nerve to do it."

"I don't catch on."

"It's just as easy to play with dollars as with dimes--just as easy to write an order for a thousand as for ten. And it's easier to do business with big men. They're more imaginative, quicker to grasp."

"That's how they got there," Honey interjected.

"But particularly, Honey, these men are all keen students of human nature. They can size a man up--gee! 'Brown's able,' says one. 'Yes, but he's tricky,' says another. 'Carpenter's honest, but he's a fool.' With the 'gold bugs' credit is a combination of honesty and ability."

Skinner sipped his demi-tasse reflectively.

"Honey, you remember what Russell Sage said in reply to Horace Greeley's, 'Go West, young man!' No? Well, this is what he said: 'If you want to make money, go where the money is.' _I 've_ begun to go where the money is. See the connection?"

"I'm glad you have," said Honey, nodding her head. "Those clerks you used to travel with never thought big thoughts or they would n't have been clerks."

"But remember, Honey, I'm only a clerk."

"But you never did belong in the clerk class."

"You're right! I never did! I'm beginning to realize it now. Why, do you know,"--leaning over the table and counting off his words with his finger,--"I've had ideas that if I 'd only been able to carry out, ideas that I got right in that little cage of mine--"

Thus Skinner's education progressed. He took as enthusiastic a delight in studying the "gold bugs" as a naturalist would in some very ancient, but recently discovered, insect.

"I 'm finding out lots of good things in that Pullman Club, Honey," said Skinner a week later at the dinner table. "Every one of these 'gold bugs' has something under his skin. They may be Dick Turpins and Claude Duvals and Sam Basses, their methods of getting things may not be ideal, but you can't beat their methods of giving. They've all got lovable qualities. They do a lot of things that show it--and they don't use a brass band accompaniment either."

"For instance?" said Honey, simply and sweetly.

"Well," said Skinner, "take old John Mackensie. He's so close that they say his grandfather was the man who chased the last Jew out of Aberdeen."

Skinner picked up the paper.

"See those initials, honey? 'D. C. D.'"

"I've noticed them."

"Old Mackensie, when he was a boy, came near starving to death. A reporter got hold of his case and printed a paragraph about it just like those you see every day. I got it on the quiet. Mackensie was saved by an anonymous friend who signed himself 'D. C. D.' He never could find out who it was. Several years passed. He watched the papers, but these initials never appeared again. So Mackensie concluded that his unknown savior was dead.

"But he made up his mind to pass the good deed along and here's the romance of it. He wants whoever it was that helped him to get all the credit for it. He wants him to be reminded--if he happens to be alive and 'broke'--that the good thought started is being pushed along. So to-day a newspaper tells a story of an unfortunate girl--a starving boy picked up by the police--a helpless widow--a friendless old man. The next day you read, 'Rec'd from D. C. D. $20.'--'D. C. D. $50'--as the case may be. That's old man Mackensie."

"And yet they say money kills romance." Honey's eyes shone with appreciation.

"And there's Solon Wright," Skinner went on, "another 'gold bug.' For years every night he has handed a dollar to a certain shambling fellow outside the ferry gate."

"How curious!"

"Briscom told me about it. The strange thing is, it's a man Wright used to detest when he was flush. He does n't like him even now. That's why he gives him the money. Moral discipline, the way he puts it. Can you beat it?"

As a result of these observations in the Pullman, Skinner jotted down in his little book:--

_Dress-Suit Account_

_Debit_ _Credit_

Interesting discovery of generally unsuspected facts in the habits of "gold bugs."

While Skinner was sailing over a fair sea, untroubled by anything but the growing fear that some day Honey might find him out,--about the "raise,"--storm clouds were gathering in a wholly unsuspected quarter.

"I saw our Skinner getting out of the Pullman this morning," said Perkins to the senior partner.

"What of it?" said McLaughlin.

"I see him getting out of it every morning."

"Still what of it?" persisted McLaughlin. "The Pullman habit isn't expensive--only a quarter from Meadeville."

"Oh, nothing," observed Perkins. "Nothing in itself, but new clothes and traveling round in a Pullman don't square with the fact that Skinner did n't get his raise."

McLaughlin swung around in his chair. "Say, Perk, what do you mean by these hints? You never _did_ like Skinner."

"You're mistaken, Mac. It was his clothes I did n't like."

"You've been throwing out hints," McLaughlin reiterated, "and bothering me so much lately about Skinner, I wish to goodness I _had_ raised his salary."

"I know," Perkins persisted, "but see what our Skinner's habits have been in the past--penurious. Why the sudden change? You know just as well as I do that a clerk can't travel around with the rich."

"Why not? The man's been saving money for years--got a bank account. All these little things we've noticed you could cover with a few hundred dollars. Come, Perk, out with it! Just what do you mean?"

"It's only a suggestion, Mac, not even a hint--but Pullman cars are great hot-beds for hatching all kinds of financial schemes. That's where you get your Wall Street tips--that's where they grow."

McLaughlin looked serious. He drummed on his desk with the paper-cutter and waited.

"Tips are very good when they go right," Perkins went on, "but when they go wrong--" He hesitated.

"I get you. They're dangerous to a man who is employed in a fiduciary capacity," said McLaughlin very quietly.

"I believe as you do," urged Perkins, "that Skinner is the most honest and loyal man in America--but other honest and loyal men--well, darn it, they're all human."

"Well?" McLaughlin observed, and waited.

"It's a part of wisdom to be cautious. It's just as much for his good as it is for ours. An ounce of prevention, you know. Besides, it's _our_ money he's handling."

"You may be right," said McLaughlin, rising. "But go slow--wait a little. I'll keep my eye on the Meadeville end of it for a while."

Skinner not only "listened" himself into the affections of Stephen Colby, but into the affections of other members of the "gold-bug" set as well. He won his way more with his ears than with his tongue. He'd only been a member of the Pullman contingent a fortnight when he and Honey were invited to dine with the Howard Hemingways. There they met all the vicarious members of the Pullman Club--the wives.

The Hemingway dinner was an open sesame to the Skinners. The ladies of the "walled-in" element began to take Honey up. They called on her. She was made a member of the bridge club.

It cost Honey something to learn the game,--some small money losses,--but these were never charged to the dress-suit account, for a very obvious reason.

So popular did the Skinners become that it was seldom they dined at home. Skinner, methodical man that he was, put down in his little book to the credit of the dress-suit account, not the value of the dinner they got, but what they'd actually saved on each occasion. And he began to feel that the dress suit was earning good interest in cash on the investment.

The Skinners, now that they had engaged in active social life, learned one valuable lesson, which was something of an eye-opener to them both. They found that they had constantly to be on dress parade, as it were, and that in the manners of the social devotee, no less than in his clothes, there can be no letdown. Also, they found that, on occasions, their dining out cost them more in the wear and tear on their patience than a dinner at home would have cost them in cash. For instance, when they returned from the Brewsters' dinner one night. Skinner jotted down in his little book:--

_Dress-Suit Account_

_Debit_ _Credit_

Never again!

One bad evening!

When you go to the Brewsters, you've got to talk all the time about their prodigy son who writes plays.

Anything else bores them, and if you do talk about him, you 're bored.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't! It's a draw, and a draw is a waste of time!

"Well, Perk," said McLaughlin one morning, "I've got an interesting bit for you. The Skinners are doing the society stunt: bridge and that sort of thing."

"That's not enough to convict."

"They're splurging. They're buying rugs and pictures!"

As a matter of fact, Honey had bought one modest rug and one modest picture to fill up certain bare spaces over against the meeting of the bridge club at her house, and being a good manager she could make any purchase "show off" to the limit. But the Skinners' ice man in detailing the thing to the McLaughlins' maid had assiduously applied the multiplication table.

McLaughlin paused.

"Well," said Perkins, "what do you make of it?"

"He's getting too big for his breeches."

"Well?" said Perkins.

"I hate to do it," said McLaughlin, "but--"

"Well?" said Perkins.

"Don't stand there saying 'well,' Perk. Help me out."

"What are you going to do about it, Mac?"

"Did you notice him this morning? He looks as worried as the devil!" McLaughlin drummed on his desk with the paper-cutter. "Perk, we've got to do something--and we've got to do it sudden."

McLaughlin turned. "Come in!" he shouted.

The boy entered and handed the senior partner a card.

"Send him in." He turned to Perkins. "It's Billings. Just you think this over to-night, Perk."

"Hello, Billings."