Well, you see, I've been led to abandon the idea of building up my health—but I don't care, one may as well die happy.
I have a great time at that show. (My cold is immensely better.) I fix on one eye-glass so as to see something desirable. And I cut up a lot.
But—when we turn to leave I discover the president of my company going out just ahead of me. Well, I suppose I'll have to take what is coming to me tomorrow.
That one good meal, anyhow (after the pool), has strengthened my spirit immensely. I plan to have a regular, genuine breakfast in the morning. The kind I used to enjoy before I started in to get myself in fine shape. A breakfast of sliced pineapple, eggs, steak, fried potatoes, cottage-cheese, hot rolls, and two pots of good strong coffee. A pipe afterward.
When I get out to the house I find that my uncle (from whom I had been estranged for years) has died, and left me his fine, ninety carat, forty jewel, repeater watch.
I wake up bursting with joyous life. The girl tells me that those especially handsome glasses I lost last New Year's Eve have been found. Down at the station the station-master comes out to greet me. He says so many people have slipped on our hill that next week the railroad is going to install a free coach service. I see by the morning paper that the horse I took a twelve to one shot on in the Buenos Aires derby came out the length of the stretch to the good. On the train into town I smoke a couple of packages of cigarettes—as I become a bit bothered about the situation at the office.
A girder, or something, had fallen across the track. The train is held up. For a couple of hours it stands there. I become more than decidedly nervous. Now this is awful bad doings. Everything had been coming so right again. It seems as if there is no reward in this world for anything. Here for a whole month or so I had been subjecting myself to the most rigorous and unpleasant kind of discipline solely in order to make myself more efficient in my work, and so more valuable to the house. Nothing else. Then by an accident I am kept away from the office one afternoon, and this has to go and happen just to keep me away probably the whole of the forenoon. Everything will, of course, be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Instead of getting just credit for what I've done, I'll probably get bounced. If anyone wants to have the moral of this story pointed out to him: it is that there is not much use in trying, you can see that.
When I do get to the office my secretary is in quite a flurry. She tells me that Mr. Equity, the president, has been inquiring for me. In fact—she hesitates—wants me to step in to see him as soon as I arrive.
So, there you are!
Mr. Equity (a most unusual thing in any circumstances) shakes my hand with great cordiality. He smiles, not benignantly but rather deferentially. Says that he has recognized for some little time that I have not had a salary commensurate with my services. Times, however, are not of the best. Would I be willing to continue with the firm at—a pause—well, double my present salary? Everything, he adds, would be made as pleasant for me as possible.