The Fortune Hunter | Page 2

sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and
with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with
one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of dignity
(tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his fate.
Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a little time
he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and confidence.
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he
dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened
his expression and made it quite engaging.
"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat little
fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just get in,
Duncan?"
"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails
with impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a
natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got
me--overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
"You haven't wasted time."
"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired me to come home that
you wanted my advice."
A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly
surprised out of his pose. "Your advice!..."
"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your
customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
"Well...." Spaulding admitted.

"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have
guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been
sending you."
"You've had bad luck...."
"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be
drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man
who could earn them."
His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not
seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to
give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection,
distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his shirt-cuffs
frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing weirdly
ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think he might
amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something, given
half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding sought
from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"
"I thought you knew that; I thought that was why you called me in with
my route half-covered."
"You mean--?"
"I mean I can't sell your line."
"Why?"
"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general
incompetence, I presume."
"What makes you think that?"
Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
"You've tried--what else?"
"A little of everything--all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of
Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk,
time-keeper, cashier--all of 'em."
"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together
at college. That's why he stands for me."
"He says you only need the right opening--."
"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers:

it's the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his--like
yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor cars
and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day--and all that sort of thing. My
father's failure--you know about that?"
Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
freely than he would at any other time--suffering, in fact, from that
species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man
down on his luck.
"That smash came when I was five years out of college--I'd never
thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
more coin than I could spend--never had to consider the worth of
money or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed
not to want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed and
died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive wardrobe,
expensive tastes, an impractical education--and not so much of that that