“Nonsense. What’s your purpose?”
“Mr. Manson, I don’t exactly know. Reason tells me that I’m no worse off than I was the day my uncle died, when I had little thought of coming into any money I didn’t earn. Indeed, I am very much better off. My salary has been doubled. I have thirty thousand dollars in cash, and a bundle of Northern Pacific securities which has just been placed in the Broadway Safe Deposit. I don’t understand myself in the least. Reason tells me that I ought to get angry and slaughter somebody, yet I feel no resentment. I am hurt, rather, that I was sand-bagged in the house of my friends. Still, even that fact doesn’t appear to affect me much. Nevertheless, there’s a change. I suspect it’s the beginning of dry-rot. I fear that from being a useful man I have become a useless one. The utter folly of hard work, faithful service, reasonable honesty, and all that, has been brought home to me.”
“Nonsense, nonsense, John,” expostulated Manson.
“I am not theorising, Mr. Manson, but am merely trying to explain something to you which I do not myself understand. My uncle managed to get together a certain amount of money during thirty-five years. I lost that money in as many hours. If I worked honestly like a beaver for the next ten, fifteen or twenty years, it is unlikely I could save that much; yet my dear friend Blair, during, say, half an hour’s silent meditation, evolves a plan, perfectly legal, by which the money is transferred from my bank account to his—transferred beyond possibility of recall. You will say perhaps, as my broker said, that I am just as bad as he is. I expected to place some one else’s money in my bank account, beyond recall, and didn’t succeed. Therefore I make a row. But the truth is, I am not making a row. I admit all any critic may say of my folly, but I realise that being an honest, hard-working efficient man doesn’t pay in this country. At least, it pays only in allowing you to scrape together a modest competency, which may be quite lawfully filched from you in ten minutes. You will add I am a fool to throw over my shoulder a situation worth five thousand a year. You may even mention the hundred thousand young fellows of my age who would jump at my chance. I admit all that; I admit I’m a fool; I admit anything. I am the most open-minded person on earth at the present moment, and the least argumentative. I am like a boat that has been tied to a pier until somebody has cut the rope, sending it adrift. If you ask the boat where it’s going, it doesn’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I am only aware that I’ve got close on thirty thousand dollars in a letter of credit. I can have a high old time on that money for a year in Paris. I can have an hilarious time on it for two years in various capitals. I can study in Germany with the greatest luxury for five or ten years on that amount, or I can live thirty years in Europe in some quiet out-of-the-way place and be sure I shan’t die of starvation. I’m all at sea, like the boat I was speaking of. I thought I knew John Steele pretty well, but I find I don’t know him at all. All his ideas of morality, energy, industry, have turned somersaults. I am going over to Europe, where it’s quiet, to get acquainted with the new John Steele.”
Philip Manson had been regarding him with almost painful concentration while he spoke, and when the harangue was finished he said, soothingly, persuasively, looking at John: “Come with me up to the Adirondacks and enjoy a week’s fishing, or to Maine, and put in two weeks, or to Canada, and stay three weeks.”
Steele laughed heartily.
“Oh, yes, I know. Why don’t you advise me to go to some sanitarium and consult a physician on mental aberration? I want to fish, but it is to fish out the secrets of John Steele. By this time to-morrow I shall be kissing the tips of my fingers to the statue of Liberty.”
“John,” said Manson, solemnly, “you are taking a false step. If you go to Europe in this frame of mind you are making a grave mistake which may not be easily remedied. Opportunities come once, twice, thrice, but they don’t come always, and if they find a man persistently not at home, they pass on. In a year or two this little set-back you have experienced will have almost completely passed away from your mind. Look at me. I am a much older man than you. I have lost everything I succeeded in accumulating, yet I set my face toward re-earning it. You are on the threshold of a great success; you have in you the making of a first-class general manager. Now, I can well understand that you don’t care to be in an office that contains Mr. Blair. I cannot say I blame you for that, but Mr. Rockervelt will be back here the day after to-morrow. You wait till he comes; I’ll go in and see him, and I am sure you will be offered a position that will give you ample scope for the powers we both know you to possess.”
Steele shook his head slowly.
“I have told you, and evidently you don’t believe it, that I have no desire to develop any powers of usefulness I may possess. I suppose I am in the state of mind that makes a labouring man become a tramp. You are a stalwart oak of the forest, Mr. Manson, and the gale that has merely ruffled your branches has uprooted the sapling.”