CHAPTER XXV.
Tom sauntered into Halliday’s now and then, as he always had, but Thorndyke saw something, he couldn’t tell what, that worried him more and more; at all events Tom looked more hopeless and forlorn every time.
“What a man you’re making, Thorndyke!” he said one day; “it was in you, I suppose, and it wasn’t in me; that’s the difference. But you don’t know what a chance you’ve had. Did Aleck ever badger you or crowd you in all the time you were together?”
“Aleck! Why, you know him, Tom!”
“Yes, I suppose so; only I can’t imagine anybody’s leaving you in peace and quiet all the time. Well, I might have made something, perhaps, if I’d been here, though not much, probably. I always was a stupid, blundering fellow, and never should have been of much account, anyhow. I’m none at all now, though, and I’d give up and let everything go to the bottom, if there was nobody that thought he could hold on to me if I didn’t. They’ll find out their mistake some day; but I suppose I ought to hold on till they do.”
“You wouldn’t like any one else to say that,” said Thorndyke, greatly troubled.
“Well, it’s not very amusing, but I do hear it every day of my life, and so I suppose it must be the truth, even if there are some people kind enough not to tell me so.”
A customer came before Thorndyke had time to answer, and Tom left the store with a slow, listless step. Work was waiting for him, however, and lively enough to stir him up and make him forget whether he could do it well or not, and when this happened, he was sure to do it well. If he had known how often the other partners thought so, it would have changed everything; but he came almost altogether in Hal’s way, and by the time he had done with him, he couldn’t believe that any kind word he had from the others was more than out of charity, and he never had a summons into the counting-room without expecting to be told what a stupid fellow he was, and wondering that it did not come.
But this time “stupid” certainly wasn’t the word. Tom was getting more and more on his mettle as buyers came thicker and faster, and he “was making things fly,” as Aleck would have called it, in a way that Hal almost looked on with envy. Business hours were just coming to a close when his run was over, and he stood near the door having a word with his last customer, and with a record of sales that made him feel as if he was somebody, for a few minutes at least.
“Oh, by the way,” said the customer, “I want a drygoods-box. What is that one worth, and can I have it?”
“Yes,” said Tom, “you can have it; about fifty cents will cover it, I suppose.”
He handed him the amount, and Tom put it in his vest-pocket, and went on laughing and chatting a few moments, feeling his extra spirits a luxury he was tempted to extend over as much ground as possible, and in fact they lasted him fairly home, and even the ghost of them came back with him to business hours in the morning.
But the sound of Hal’s voice calling for the hoosier general dispelled all that was left in a minute; there was nothing that tormented Tom like that nickname, and it seemed as if it never would be done with. Even if it was dropped once in a while, until he began to flatter himself it had really gone under, up it came again, always at a moment when he felt least like bearing it, and he was sure to see some of the younger clerks daring to grin; and what could he say if they did? Hadn’t he made a blunder that almost any of them would have been disgraced for; and if the junior partner chose to remind him of it, he supposed they had a right to grin.
He got through with what Hal wanted, but it seemed to him Hal gave him a peculiar look now and then. There was no mistake about it, and it came oftener and oftener as the day went on. What did it mean? It followed him home after hours, and worried him every time he knew where he was through the night. What had he done now, and how many people would hear of it as soon as he did? He should hear of it soon, he was sure, for the same look was there when he came in the next morning.
“Sent in your accounts, since Thursday’s sales, general?” asked Hal.
“Why, yes, of course,” said Tom.
“Oh, very good,” and the look was more significant than ever.
Poor Tom was miserable again. Should he ever get through life, and be done with it? Unluckily he had to get through to-day first, and it dragged miserably enough, but the next promised no better. There was the look again, and the same question: “Sent in your accounts, general?”
What did it mean? He couldn’t get Hal to say that it meant anything, but the same look and the same question came every day, until it seemed to Tom he should go distracted, and he was divided between thankfulness and agony when he heard Mr. Vickery, the next partner, ask suddenly,
“What do you mean, Fenimore? I’ve heard you ask Haggarty that same thing every day for a week; doesn’t he send in his accounts as a matter of course?”
“I don’t know that he doesn’t,” said Hal, “but I’ve noticed a little deficiency, and I’ve been waiting to see it made up.”
“Deficiency!” exclaimed Tom; “what do you mean?”
“Perhaps you thought the item too trifling for a place in the books,” said Hal, with the old intolerable taunt in his tone; “there are people who don’t like to trouble themselves about trifles.”
“Not business people,” said Mr. Vickery, “and Haggarty knows that well enough; if there is anything wrong, it had better be set right as soon as possible,” and he looked searchingly in Tom’s face.
Tom’s desperation gave him boldness for once, as he stepped in front of Hal.
“Tell me what you mean!” he exclaimed. “Wait a moment, Mr. Vickery, if you please, and hear what he means.”
“Oh, nothing of any consequence, only that I saw you make a sale the other day and put the money in your pocket, and I’ve seen no return of it in your accounts.”
Mr. Vickery’s look was piercing now; Tom stood bewildered for a moment, and then thrust his finger into his vest-pocket with a sharp exclamation such as no one in the store had ever heard him use before.
“I sold a drygoods-box the other day,” he said, “and upon my word and honor I have never thought of it from that moment to this! You know how we had been worked that day, Fenimore, and I had two hours to come after that though it was past time to close then. There is the money, and there it might have been till next year, if you had not reminded me of it, but I think it is the first time my memory has defrauded the house of even such a sum as fifty cents.”
“Possibly,” said Hal, with the sneer still on his face; “but it may be well to look out for it in the future;” and he turned to his books without another word.
“Let it pass, Haggarty,” said the other partner gravely; “it was a trifle to be sure, but the world is built on trifles, and that is one of the first things to be remembered in business.”
Tom turned away with tight-shut lips and a white face. How many had overheard the conversation? There were plenty within reach of it, at any rate, and he might be called a thief all through the store before night! And even if he escaped that, he did not believe Mr. Vickery would ever feel sure of him again. Hal knew better, but he had come very little in the second partner’s way.