MAGGIE brought the Herald to Tommy. He had remained in the library, trying to think. When he discovered that he couldn't he rose and walked about the gloomy little room, angry with himself because his emotions prevented the cogs of his mind-machine from falling into their appointed places. He decided that he must face his problem squarely, systematically, calmly, efficiently.
The first thing to do was not to walk about the library like a wild beast in a menagerie cage. He lit a cigarette and resolutely sat down.
He smoked away, and compelled himself to understand that his problem consisted in evolving a plan or a set of plans having for an object the accumulation of money. The amount was seventeen thousand dollars, since that was what he had cost his father. It was there in black and white, to the last penny, in the little book bound in mourning morocco.
He stretched his hand toward the little book on the table, but drew it back, empty. He would not read the items. It didn't matter how the money had been spent. It was enough to know that all of it must be paid back.
Seventeen thousand dollars! It did not mean any more to Tommy than five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars or any other number of dollars.
He lit another cigarette. Presently the fear came upon him that it might take a long time to earn the money, to earn any money. Discovery, the discovery he so dreaded, had fleet feet. He must do something—and do it at once.
He took up the Herald and read the “Help Wanted—Male” column. He began at the first line, and as he read on he was filled with surprise at the number of men wanted by employers. He marked two private secretaryships and a dozen selling agencies, which divulged no details, but promised great and quick wealth to the right man. He knew that he would work like a cyclone. He, therefore, must be the right man. In fact, he knew he was! And then he came upon this:
Wanted—A College Man. No high-brow, no football hero, no Happy Jack, no erudite scholar, but a Man recently graduated from College, whose feet are on terra firma and the head not more than six feet one inch above same. If he is a Man to-day we shall make him into The Man We Want to-morrow. Apply X-Y-Z, P. O. Box 777, Dayton, Ohio.
Thomas Leigh thrilled. It was a wonderful message. He clenched his own fist to prove to himself that he himself was a man. He was willing to do anything, therefore it did not matter what “X-Y-Z” wanted him to do. And also this was in Dayton, Ohio. Whatever he did must be done far away from New York. He hated New York because all the people he loved lived there.
He was about to light another cigarette when the thought came to him that smoking was one of the habits he must give up as entailing unnecessary expense. Unnecessary expenses meant delay in the full settlement of the debt he had taken upon himself to pay. He threw the unlighted cigarette on the table vindictively. He would work at anything, night and day, like a madman!