After the failure of the cartage business, I found that I owed more money than I could pay, and in this condition I remained on and off for a number of years. Any fool can get into debt; it takes a wise man to get out of it.
Our second baby, who was born shortly before the death of Doctor Joseph, was a boy, and differed greatly from our First Beloved, who was dark, quiet, and sorrowful looking. The boy was fair, boisterous and gay.
Through the influence of the Doctor’s name I immediately secured another position. I became English clerk in the Criminal Investigation Office, and remained in this post for over a year, learning many things about human nature in general and the seamy side of life in particular. My salary was not princely, and as our Third Beloved arrived during this year, my expenses were out of proportion to my income. Nearly any one can marry, raise a family and provide for it in one way or another, if nothing matters but that its members be fed, clothed and sheltered in simple form. But when one must provide up to a certain standard, and do it in a certain way set by family and social conditions, it is not quite so easy. You cannot do this or that because it would humiliate the family. You cannot do another thing because it would horrify the neighbours. The children must have such and such things, and a certain scale of appearances must be kept up at any cost.
There is only one sensible, safe and sane point from which to start anything, and that is at the beginning. It is not to be wondered at that men rise to eminence from nothing. They rise because they start from the beginning, free and without handicap. They are so far below that particularly nice line called “respectability” that no one knows or cares what they do to gain their ends, and they are not noticed until they arrive. Whereas the man who starts from where his parents left off—from the middle, or a little above or below the middle—must find his way without the valuable experience he would gain by making his own start, and all his actions must be adjusted to the social position of his family. Every one, no matter what his calling, can be a gentleman in his heart; but every one cannot afford to be outwardly a gentleman and a man of the world, fully equipped.
Doctor Joseph’s affairs were found in very indifferent shape. His estate wound up to a sum very inadequate for continuing the style of living his family had been enjoying. His big house, horses, library and nearly everything had to be sold, and a modest form of living adopted by Mrs. Joseph. This was a great blow to her, but she bore it well, without complaint or any doubt as to the judgment of her dead husband. Two of her sons, still in their teens, went to work in positions found for them by good friends. As far as the sons were concerned, this turned out to be the best thing that could have happened; but Mrs. Joseph, of course, suffered in social prestige. The sons being too young to take charge of their mother’s affairs, these were put into the hands of one male relative, then of another. Thanks to their muddling and incompetence, in a few years she was reduced presently to little more than the salaries of her boys, who managed to support her and the younger children in a modest way.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A promissory note.
CHAPTER XII
In the midst of the disorganisation caused by the death of the Doctor, I took the Western fever, which was prevalent at the time. Every one saw the promised land in the West. I packed my furniture, gathered my wife and children under my wing, and rode away to Minnesota, where one of Muriel’s cousins, according to his own account, was doing great things. Minnesota was inflated at this time to bursting point, and produced more liars than any State in the Union. I did not find a gold mine in the West, or make a fortune out of the real estate boom then at its height. For fifteen months I held a position as general utility man in an architect’s office, made tracings of drawings, kept books, wrote letters and even took my employer’s wife out driving. I found that in the West an employee was expected to make himself useful in any capacity in which his employer saw fit to use him, and I adapted myself to the conditions, but I did not like Minnesota, and found it a hard place to live in, and by no means richer in opportunities than the East. Perhaps I did not know an opportunity when I saw one.
When the bottom fell out of the real estate boom, I felt it was time to return to my native city. Muriel would have had me return much sooner, but a move of a thousand miles was a thing too serious to do in a hurry. We had some pretty decent belongings in the matter of jewellery when we went West. We were willing and glad to part with these baubles to procure our return to Montreal. Home looked better than gold and precious stones. In fact we were both heartily home-sick.