He was thinking about Stringer now, as he sat watching the guests of the Savoy, Americans and English, well to do people with no money worries, so he fancied. He was thinking about Stringer and his own position, with less than ten pounds in his pocket, an hotel bill unreceipted, and three thousand miles of deep water between himself and Philadelphia.
Jones was twenty-four years of age. He looked thirty. A serious faced, cadaverous individual, whom, given three guesses you would have judged to be a Scotch free kirk minister in mufti; an actor in the melodramatic line; a food crank. These being the three most serious occupations in the world.
In reality, he had started life, as before said, in a bank, educated himself in mathematics and higher commercial methods, by correspondence, and, aiming to be a millionaire, had left the bank and struck out for himself in the great tumbling ocean of business.
He had glimpsed the truth. Seen the fact that the art of life is not so much to work oneself as to make other people work for one, to convert by one’s own mental energy, the bodily energy of others into products or actions. Had this Government contract come off, he would have, and to his own profit, set a thousand hammers swinging, a dozen steel mills rolling, twenty ships lading, hammers, mills and ships he had never seen, never would see.
That is the magic of business, and when you behold roaring towns and humming wharves, when you read of raging battles, you see and read of the work of a comparatively small number of men, gentlemen who wear frock coats, who have never handled a bale, or carried a gun, or steered a ship with their own hands. Magicians!
He ordered a whisky and soda from a passing attendant, to help him think some more about Stringer and his own awful position, and was taking the glass from the salver when a very well dressed man of his own age and build who had entered by the passage leading up from the American bar drew his attention.
This man’s face seemed quite familiar to him, so much so that he started in his chair as though about to rise and greet him. The stranger, also, seemed for a second under the same obsession, but only for a second; he made a half pause and then passed on, becoming lost to sight beyond the palm trees at the entrance. Jones leaned back in his chair.
“Now, where did I see that guy before?” asked he of himself. “Where on earth have I met him? and he recognised me—where in the—where in the—where in the—?”
His memory vaguely and vainly searching for the name to go with that face was at fault. He finished his whisky and soda and rose, and then strolled off not heeding much in what direction, till he reached the book and newspaper stand where he paused to inspect the wares, turning over the pages of the latest best seller without imbibing a word of the text.
Then he found himself downstairs in the American bar, with a champagne cocktail before him.