Part 16

To him came a sinking, lost feeling; a cold emptiness; the feeling of a gentle Doctor Jekyll who wakes to find himself in the shell of a fierce Mr. Hyde. For a second or two Croly Addicks regretted that he had not gone on to the river.

The voice of the soda clerk brought him back to the world.

"If your drink isn't the way you like it, sir," said the grand duke amiably, "just say the word and I'll mix you up another."

Croly started up.

"'Sall right," he murmured, and fumbled his way out to Madison Square.

He decided to live a while longer, face and all. It was something to be deferred to by soda clerks.

He sank down on a bench and considered what he should do. At the twitter of familiar voices he looked up and saw the blond stenographer and the brunette stenographer from his former company passing on the way to lunch.

He rose, advanced a step toward them, tipped his hat and said, "Hello."

The blond stenographer drew herself up regally, as she had seen some one do in the movies, and chilled Croly with an icy stare.

"Don't get so fresh!" she said coldly. "To whom do you think you're speaking to?"

"You gotta crust," observed the brunette, outdoing her companion in crushing hauteur. "Just take yourself and your baby scarer away, Mister Masher, and get yourself a job posing for animal crackers."

They swept on as majestically as tight skirts and French heels would permit, and Croly, confused, subsided back on his bench again. Into his brain, buzzing now from the impact of so many new sensations, came a still stronger impression that he was not Croly Addicks at all, but an entirely different and fresh-born being, unrecognized by his old associates. He pondered on the trick fate had played on him until hunger beckoned him to the Help Yourself Buffet. He was inside before he realized what he was doing, and before he recalled his vow never to enter there again. The same spotter was moving in and out among the patrons, the same derby cocked over one eye, and an untasted sandwich, doubtless the same one, in his hand. He paid no special heed to the renovated Croly Addicks.

Croly was hungry and under the spotter's very nose he helped himself to hamburger steak and a double order of strawberry shortcake with thick cream. Satisfied, he started toward the blasé check boy with the brassy voice; as he went his hand felt casually in his change pocket, and he stopped short, gripped by horror. The coins he counted there amounted to exactly forty-five cents and his meal totaled a dollar at least. Furthermore, that was his last cent in the world. He cast a quick frightened glance around him. The spotter was lounging against the check desk, and his beady eye seemed focused on Croly Addicks. Croly knew that his only chance lay in bluffing; he drew in a deep breath, thrust forward his new chin, and said to the boy, "Forty-five." "Fawty-fi'," screamed the boy. The spotter pricked up his ears.

"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little mistake?"

Summoning every ounce of nerve he could Croly looked straight back into the spotter's eyes.

"No," said Croly loudly.

For the briefest part of a second the spotter wavered between duty and discretion. Then the beady eyes dropped and he murmured, "Oh, I beg pahdun. I thought you was the guy that just got outside of a raft of strawb'ry shortcake and hamboiger. Guess I made a little mistake myself."

With the brisk firm step of a conqueror Croly Addicks strode into the air, away from the scene he had once left so humiliated.

Again, for many reflective minutes he occupied one of those chairs of philosophy, a park bench, and revolved in his mind the problem, "Where do I go from here?" The vacuum in his pockets warned him that his need of a job was imperative. Suddenly he released his thoughtful clutch on his new jaw, and his eyes brightened and his spine straightened with a startling idea that at once fascinated and frightened him. He would try to get his old job back again.

Inside him the old shrinking Croly fought it out with the new Croly.

"Don't be foolish!" bleated the old Croly. "You haven't the nerve to face Cowdin again."

"Buck up!" argued back the new Croly. "You made that soda clerk hop, and that spotter quail. The worst Cowdin can say is 'No!'"

"You haven't a chance in the piano company, anyhow," demurred the old Croly. "They know you too well; your old reputation is against you. The spineless jellyfish class at twenty-two-fifty per is your limit there."

"Nonsense," declared the new Croly masterfully. "It's the one job you know. Ten to one they need you this minute. You've invested eleven years of training in it. Make that experience count."

"But--but Cowdin may take a wallop at me," protested the old Croly.

"Not while you have a face like Kid McNulty, the Chelsea Bearcat," flashed back the new Croly. The new Croly won.

Ten minutes later Samuel Cowdin swiveled round in his chair to face a young man with a pale, grim face and an oversized jaw.

"Well?" demanded Cowdin.

"Mr. Cowdin," said Croly Addicks, holding his tremors in check by a great effort of will, "I understand you need a man in the purchasing department. I want the job."

Cowdin shot him a puzzled look. The chief purchasing agent's countenance wore the expression of one who says "Where have I seen that face before?"

"We do need a man," Cowdin admitted, staring hard at Croly, "though I don't know how you knew it. Who are you?"

"I'm Addicks," said Croly, thrusting out his new chin.

Cowdin started. His brow wrinkled in perplexity; he stared even more intently at the firm-visaged man, and then shook his head as if giving up a problem.

"That's odd," he muttered, reminiscently stroking his chin. "There was a young fellow by that name here. Croly was his first name. You're not related to him, I suppose?"

Croly, the unrecognized, straightened up in his chair as if he had sat on a hornet. With difficulty he gained control over his breathing, and managed to growl, "No, I'm not related to him."

Cowdin obviously was relieved.

"Didn't think you were," he remarked, almost amiably. "You're not the same type of man at all."

"Do I get that job?" asked Croly. In his own ears his voice sounded hard.

"What experience have you had?" questioned Cowdin briskly.

"Eleven years," replied Croly.

"With what company?"

"With this company," answered Croly evenly.

"With this company?" Cowdin's voice jumped a full octave higher to an incredulous treble.

"Yes," said Croly. "You asked me if I was related to Croly Addicks. I said 'No.' That's true. I'm not related to him--because I am Croly Addicks."

With a gasp of alarm Cowdin jumped to his feet and prepared to defend himself from instant onslaught.

"The devil you are!" he cried.

"Sit down, please," said Croly, quietly.

Cowdin in a daze sank back into his chair and sat staring, hypnotized, at the man opposite him as one might stare who found a young pink elephant in his bed.

"I'll forget what happened if you will," said Croly. "Let's talk about the future. Do I get the job?"

"Eh? What's that?" Cowdin began to realize that he was not dreaming.

"Do I get the job?" Croly repeated.

A measure of his accustomed self-possession had returned to the chief purchasing agent and he answered with as much of his old manner as he could muster, "I'll give you another chance if you think you can behave yourself."

"Thanks," said Croly, and inside his new self sniggered at his old self.

The chief purchasing agent was master of himself by now, and he rapped out in the voice that Croly knew only too well, "Get right to work. Same desk. Same salary. And remember, no more monkey business, Mr. Addicks, because if----"

He stopped short. There was something in the face of Croly Addicks that told him to stop. The big new jaw was pointing straight at him as if it were a pistol.

"You said, just now," said Croly, and his voice was hoarse, "that I wasn't the same type of man as the Croly Addicks who worked here before. I'm not. I'm no longer the sort of man it's safe to ride. Please don't call me Mister unless you mean it."

Cowdin's eyes strayed from the snapping eyes of Croly Addicks to the taut jaw; he shrugged his shoulders.

"Report to Baldwin," was all he said.

As Croly turned away, his back hid from Cowdin the smile that had come to his new face.

The reincarnated Croly had been back at his old job for ten days, or, more accurately, ten days and nights, for it had taken that long to straighten out the snarl in which Baldwin, not quite so sure of himself now, had been immersed to the eyebrows. Baldwin was watching, a species of awe in his eye, while Croly swiftly and expertly checked off a complicated price list. Croly looked up.

"Baldwin," he said, laying down the work, "I'm going to make a suggestion to you. It's for your own good."

"Shoot!" said the assistant purchasing agent warily.

"You're not cut out for this game," said Croly Addicks.

"Wha-a-at?" sputtered Baldwin.

Croly leveled his chin at him. Baldwin listened as the new Addicks continued: "You're not the buying type, Baldwin. You're the selling type. Take my advice and get transferred to the selling end. You'll be happier--and you'll get farther."

"Say," began Baldwin truculently, "you've got a nerve. I've a good notion to----"

Abruptly he stopped. Croly's chin was set at an ominous angle.

"Better think it over," said Croly Addicks, taking up the price list again.

Baldwin gazed for a full minute or more at the remade jaw of his assistant. Then he conceded, "Maybe I will."

A week later Baldwin announced that he had taken Croly's advice. The old Addicks would have waited, with anxious nerves on edge, for the announcement of Baldwin's successor; the new Addicks went straight to the chief purchasing agent.

"Mr. Cowdin," said Croly, as calmly as a bumping heart would permit, "shall I take over Baldwin's work?"

The chief purchasing agent crinkled his brow petulantly.

"I had Heaton in mind for the job," he said shortly without looking up.

"I want it," said Croly Addicks, and his jaw snapped. His tone made Cowdin look up. "Heaton isn't ripe for the work," said Croly. "I am."

Cowdin could not see that inside Croly was quivering; he could not see that the new Croly was struggling with the old and was exerting every ounce of will power he possessed to wring out the words. All Cowdin could see was the big jaw, bulging and threatening.

He cautiously poked back his office chair so that it rolled on its casters out of range of the man with the dangerous face.

"I told you once before, Addicks," began the chief purchasing agent----

"You told me once before," interrupted Croly Addicks sternly, "that the job required a man with a jaw. What do you call this?"

He tapped his own remodeled prow. Cowdin found it impossible not to rest his gaze on the spot indicated by Croly's forefinger. Unconsciously, perhaps, his beads of eyes roved over his desk in search of a convenient paperweight or other weapon. Finding none the chief purchasing agent affected to consider the merits of Croly's demand.

"Well," he said with a judicial air, "I've a notion to give you a month's trial at the job."

"Good," said Croly; and inside he buzzed and tingled warmly.

Cowdin wheeled his office chair back within range again.

A month after Croly Addicks had taken up his duties as assistant purchasing agent he was sitting late one afternoon in serious conference with the chief purchasing agent. The day was an anxious one for all the employees of the great piano company. It was the day when the directors met in solemn and awful conclave, and the ancient and acidulous chairman of the board, Cephas Langdon, who owned most of the stock, emerged, woodchucklike, from his hole, to conduct his annual much-dreaded inquisition into the corporation's affairs, and to demand, with many searching queries, why in blue thunder the company was not making more money. On this day dignified and confident executives wriggled and wilted like tardy schoolboys under his grilling, and official heads were lopped off with a few sharp words.

As frightened secretaries slipped in and out of the mahogany-doored board room information seeped out, and breaths were held and tiptoes walked on as the reports flashed about from office to office.

"Old Langdon's on a rampage."

"He's raking the sales manager over the coals."

"He's fired Sherman, the advertising manager."

"He's fired the whole advertising department too."

"He's asking what in blue thunder is the matter with the purchasing department."

When this last ringside bulletin reached Cowdin he scowled, muttered, and reached for his hat.

"If anybody should come looking for me," he said to Croly, "tell 'em I went home sick."

"But," protested Croly, who knew well the habits of the exigent chairman of the board, "Mr. Langdon may send down here any minute for an explanation of the purchasing department's report."

Cowdin smiled sardonically.

"So he may, so he may," he said, clapping his hat firmly on his head. "Perhaps you'd be so good as to tell him what he wants to know."

And still smiling the chief purchasing agent hurried to the freight elevator and made his timely and prudent exit.

"Gawsh," said the blond stenographer, "Grizzly Cowdin's ducked again this year."

"Gee," said the brunette stenographer, "here's where poor Mr. Addicks gets it where Nellie wore the beads."

Croly knew what they were saying; he knew that he had been left to be a scapegoat. He looked around for his own hat. But as he did so he caught the reflection of his new face in the plate-glass top of his desk. The image of his big impressive jaw heartened him. He smiled grimly and waited.

He did not have long to wait. The door was thrust open and President Flagstead's head was thrust in.

"Where's Cowdin?" he demanded nervously. Tiny worried pearls of dew on the presidential brow bore evidence that even he had not escaped the grill.

"Home," said Croly. "Sick."

Mr. Flagstead frowned. The furrows of worry in his face deepened.

"Mr. Langdon is furious at the purchasing department," he said. "He wants some things in the report explained, and he won't wait. Confound Cowdin!"

Croly's eyes rested for a moment on the reflection of his chin in the glass on his desk; then he raised them to the president's.

"Mr. Cowdin left me in charge," he said, hoping that his voice wouldn't break. "I'll see if I can answer Mr. Langdon's questions."

The president fired a swift look at Croly; at first it was dubious; then, as it appraised Croly's set face, it grew relieved.

"Who are you?" asked the president.

"Addicks, assistant purchasing agent," said Croly.

"Oh, the new man. I've noticed you around," said the president. "Meant to introduce myself. How long have you been here?"

"Eleven years," said Croly.

"Eleven years?" The president was unbelieving. "You couldn't have been. I certainly would have noticed your face." He paused a bit awkwardly. Just then they reached the mahogany door of the board room.

Croly Addicks, outwardly a picture of determination, inwardly quaking, followed the president. Old Cephas Langdon was squatting in his chair, his face red from his efforts, his eyes, beneath their tufts of brow, irate. When he spoke, his words exploded in bunches like packs of firecrackers.

"Well, well?" he snapped. "Where's Cowdin? Why didn't Cowdin come? I sent for Cowdin, didn't I? I wanted to see the chief purchasing agent. Where's Cowdin anyhow? Who are you?"

"Cowdin's sick. I'm Addicks," said Croly.

His voice trembled, and his hands went up to play with his necktie. They came in contact with the point of his new chin, and fresh courage came back to him. He plunged his hands into his coat pockets, pushed the chin forward.

He felt the eyes under the bushy brows surveying his chin.

"Cowdin sick, eh?" inquired Cephas Langdon acidly. "Seems to me he's always sick when I want to find out what in blue thunder ails his department." He held up a report. "I installed a purchasing system in 1913," he said, slapping the report angrily, "and look here how it has been foozled." He slammed the report down on the table. "What I want to know, young man," he exploded, "is why material in the Syracuse factories cost 29 per cent more for the past three months than for the same period last year. Why? Why? Why?"

He glared at Croly Addicks as if he held him personally responsible. Croly did not drop his eyes before the glare; instead he stuck his chin out another notch. His jaw muscles knotted. His breathing was difficult. The chance he'd been working for, praying for, had come.

"Your purchasing system is all wrong, Mr. Langdon," he said, in a voice so loud that it made them all jump.

For a second it seemed as if Cephas Langdon would uncoil and leap at the presumptuous underling with the big chin. But he didn't. Instead, with a smile in which there was a lot of irony, and some interest, he asked, "Oh, indeed? Perhaps, young man, you'll be so good as to tell me what's wrong with it? You appear to think you know a thing or two."

Croly told him. Eleven years of work and study were behind what he said, and he emphasized each point with a thrust of his jaw that would have carried conviction even had his analysis of the system been less logical and concise than it was. Old Cephas Langdon leaning on the directors' table turned up his ear trumpet so that he wouldn't miss a word.

"Well? Well? And what would you suggest instead of the old way?" he interjected frequently.

Croly had the answer ready every time. Darkness and dinnertime had come before Croly had finished.

"Flagstead," said Old Cephas Langdon, turning to the president, "haven't I always told you that what we needed in the purchasing department was a man with a chin on him? Just drop a note to Cowdin to-morrow, will you, and tell him he needn't come back?"

He turned toward Croly and twisted his leathery old face into what passed for a smile.

"Young man," he said, "don't let anything happen to that jaw of yours. One of these bright days it's going to be worth twenty-five thousand dollars a year to you."

That night a young man with a prodigious jaw sat very near a young woman named Emily Mackie, who from time to time looked from his face to the ring finger of her left hand.

"Oh, Croly dear," she said softly, "how did you do it?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Guess I just tried to live up to my jaw."

THE END

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and formatting markup have been normalized.

Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.

Page 134, "this" changed to "his". (Horace tried to do his work, but he couldn't remember when he had had such a poor day)

Page 195, "gaging" changed to "gauging". (Chester paused at the Greek Candy Kitchen on Main Street to buy a box of candy, richly bedight with purple silk, and by carefully gauging his saunter, contrived to arrive at the Wrigley residence at fourteen minutes after eight.)

Page 247, "much" changed to "must". (At twenty paces they must each discharge two horse-pistols;)

End of Project Gutenberg's The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon, by Richard Connell