This conversation took place one Monday evening in the store in which Guy was employed, and about two months subsequent to the events recorded in the last chapter. In accordance with his promise Mr. Harris consulted with his new partner, Mr. Walker, and the result of the conference was that Guy was employed to do the outdoor business of the firm—to act as city collector and shipping clerk, at a salary of four hundred dollars a year. His working hours were from eight o’clock in the morning until six at night, with an hour’s intermission at noon for dinner. His evenings were at his own disposal.
This last was an arrangement with which Mr. Harris was not altogether pleased. He knew by experience the manifold temptations which beset those who live in large cities, and believed there was something in the night air morally injurious to young people; but he thought that perhaps Guy had learned the value of time and money during his wanderings, and hoped that his evenings would be devoted, as he said he intended to devote them, to the acquirement of the rudiments of a business education. To further this end Mr. Harris purchased for Guy a scholarship at the Commercial College, and he also found lodgings for him at a small boarding-house kept by a widow lady in a retired part of the city.
For a month no fault could be found with Guy. He was as steady as an old coach-horse. He had learned to appreciate the privileges and comforts of civilized life, and knew how to enjoy them. Having been made aware of his deficiencies, he applied himself manfully to the task of overcoming them. He was always on hand during business hours, and performed his duty faithfully. Mr. Walker began to take a deep interest in him, and sent encouraging reports to Norwall concerning him.
“Guy is a splendid fellow!” so Mr. Walker, who was the only one in the city acquainted with his clerk’s past history, wrote to his partner. “He is very industrious and painstaking, and a word of encouragement or approval stimulates him to extra exertions. You know I always thought he was a good boy.”
Guy’s landlady, Mrs. Willis, also took a wonderful interest in him; he looked and acted, she said, so much like her own son, who had gone to California to better his fortune. Guy appreciated every little kindness she showed him, and learned to love her as devotedly as he had once loved his father’s wife.
But Guy’s goodness was rather of the negative sort. He did nothing very wrong, simply because he was never tempted. Everything was going smoothly with him. He was aiming high now, had formed resolutions which he had not yet had time to forget; his whole mind was occupied with the duties of his new vocation, and it is easy to work and be good under such circumstances. But time makes changes, and soon Guy begun to learn that even a shipping clerk has troubles and perplexities, which, in their way, are just as vexatious and hard to bear as those that fall to the lot of other people. The routine of the store, the performing of the same duties over and over again, became tiresome to him; it was too much like a tread-mill. When night came, his mind as well as his body was weary, and he was in no condition to dip into the mysteries of double-entry book-keeping, or wrestle with the hard problems in Bryant & Stratton’s Mercantile Arithmetic. This led him to become irregular in his attendance at the college, and he begun to spend his leisure hours at home. Reading and conversation with Mrs. Willis interested him for a few evenings, but became a bore at last, and Guy fell into the habit of strolling out after supper for a breath of fresh air; and to enable him to enjoy it fully, he almost always smoked a cigar.
The place at which he purchased his cigars was a beer saloon, and after a few visits Guy found that it was the headquarters of half a dozen dashing young fellows, clerks like himself, who spent all their evenings there. They would come in after supper, singly and in couples, take a glass of beer or cigar at the bar, and then pass out of sight through a door that led into a back room.
Acquaintances are easily made in places like this—more is the pity—and Guy very soon got into the habit of nodding to these young fellows every time he met them; then one of them treated him to a cigar, and asked him if he wouldn’t “step back and take a hand.” Guy, who had often wondered what there was in the back room that brought those clerks there so regularly, replied in the affirmative, and following them through the door just spoken of, found that it led into an apartment devoted to pigeon-hole, dominoes and cards.
The acquaintances Guy formed that night ripened rapidly into a sort of friendship. He became a regular visitor at the saloon, and although he was a remarkably lucky card player, and was seldom “put in” for a game, the money he had carefully saved during the time he had been employed in the store—and it amounted to a respectable sum—slipped through his fingers almost before he knew it, and at last he had not a single dollar remaining. One night he surprised his new friends by seating himself near the card-table, but declined to take part in the game.
“What’s the matter?” they all asked at once.