The Master Rogue: The Confessions of a Croesus

by David Graham Phillips

I couldn’t exaggerate the value of my family, especially my wife, to me in those early days. True, I should have gone just as far without them, but they made my life cheerful and comfortable; and, now that sentiment of that narrow kind is all in the past, it’s most agreeable occasionally to look back on those days and sentimentalise a little.

That I worked intelligently, as well as hard, is shown by the fact that I was made junior partner at thirty-eight. My partner—there were only two of us—was then an elderly man and the head of the old and prominent New York family of Judson—that is not the real name, of course. Ours was the typical old-fashioned firm, doing business on principles of politeness rather than of strict business. One of its iron-clad customs was that the senior partner should retire at sixty. Mr. Judson’s intention was to retire in about five years, I to become the head of the firm, though with the smaller interest, and one of his grandsons to become the larger partner, though with the lesser control—at least, for a term of years.

It was called evidence of great friendship and confidence that Mr. Judson thus “favoured” me. Probably this notion would have been stronger had it been known on what moderate terms and at what an easy price he let me have the fourth interest. No doubt Mr. Judson himself thought he was most generous. But I knew better. There was no sentimentality about my ideas of business, and my experience has been that there isn’t about any one’s when you cut through surface courtesy and cant and get down to the real facts. I knew I had earned every step of my promotion from a clerk; and, while Mr. Judson might have selected some one else as a partner, he wouldn’t have done so, because he needed me. I had seen to that in my sixteen years of service there.

Judson wasn’t a self-made man, as I was. He had inherited his share in the business, and a considerable fortune, besides. The reason he was so anxious to have me as a partner was that for six years I had carried all his business cares, even his private affairs. Yes, he needed me—though, no doubt, in a sense, he was my friend. Who wouldn’t have been my friend under the circumstances? But, having looked out for his own interest and comfort in selecting me, why should he have expected that I wouldn’t look out for mine? The only kind of loyalty a man who wishes to do something in the world should give or expect is the mutual loyalty of common interest.

I confess I never liked Judson. To be quite frank, from the first day I came into that house, I envied him. I used to think it was contempt; but, since my own position has changed, I know it was envy. I remember that the first time I saw him I noted his handsome, carefully dressed figure, so out of place among the sweat and shirt sleeves and the litter of goods and packing cases, and I asked one of my fellow-clerks: “Who’s that fop?” When he told me it was the son of the proprietor, and my prospective chief boss, I said to myself: “It won’t be hard to get you out of the way;” for I had brought from the country the prejudice that fine clothes and fine manners proclaim the noddle-pate.

I envied my friend—for, in a master-and-servant way, that was highly, though, of course, secretly distasteful to me, we became friends. I envied him his education, his inherited wealth, his manners, his aristocratic appearance, and, finally, his social position. It seemed to me that none of these things that he had and I hadn’t belonged of right to him, because he hadn’t earned them. It seemed to me that his having them was an outrageous injustice to me.

I think I must have hated him. Yes, I did hate him. How is it possible for a man who feels that he is born to rule not to hate those whom blind fate has put as obstacles in his way? To get what you want in this world you must be a good hater. The best haters make the best grabbers, and this is a world of grab, not of “By your leave,” or “If you’ll permit me, sir.” You can’t get what you want away from the man who’s got it unless you hate him. Gentle feelings paralyse the conquering arm.

So, at thirty-eight, it seemed to be settled that I was to be a respectable Worth Street merchant, in active life until I should be sixty, always under the shadow of the great Judson family, and thereafter a respectable retired merchant and substantial citizen with five hundred thousand dollars or thereabouts. But it never entered my head to submit to that sort of decree of destiny, dooming me to respectable obscurity. Nature intended me for larger things.

The key to my true destiny, as I had seen for several years, was the possession of a large sum of money—a million dollars. Without it, I must work on at my past intolerably slow pace. With it, I could leap at once into my kingdom. But, how get it? In the regular course of any business conducted on proper lines, such a sum, even to-day, rewards the successful man starting from nothing only when the vigour of youth is gone and the habits of conservatism and routine are fixed. I knew I must get my million not in driblets, not after years of toil, but at once, in a lump sum. I must get it even at some temporary sacrifice of principle, if necessary.

If I had not seen the opportunity to get it through Judson and Company, I should have retired from that house years before I got the partnership. But I did see it there, saw it coming even before I was general manager, saw it the first time I got a peep into the private affairs of Mr. Judson.