"What people want hereabouts is a practical, smart man. They don't take much stock in schools or training; it's the man they want."
Leaving the clear impression that the young doctor was not the man for their money, he grasped his black bag and lounged out of the door, puffing at his cigar and spitting as he went. The Keystone, also, did not find Sommers the man they could rely upon. When the overfed daughter of the family at his table was taken ill with a gastric fever, the anxious mamma sent for Jelly. Webber took this occasion to give him advice. Apparently his case was exciting sympathy in the hotel,—at least Miss M'Gann and the clerk had consulted about it.
"You don't get acquainted with the folks," Webber explained. "You go and shut yourself up in your room after every meal, instead of talking to people and being sociable like the rest of us. And you haven't formed any church connection. That helps a man, especially in your profession. You ought to get connected with a good church, and go to the meetings and church sociables. Join the young people's clubs and make yourself agreeable. It don't make any difference how much you know in this world. What people want is a good, open-hearted fellow, who meets 'em easily and keeps in sight."
'In different circles, different customs,' thought Sommers. 'Lindsay frequents dinners, and I must attend church sociables!'
"You and Mrs. Sommers hold yourselves apart," Webber went on with friendly warmth, "as if you were too good for ordinary company. Now I know you don't really think so at all. As soon as you break the ice, you will be all right. There was Lemenueville. He started in here the right way, took to the Presbyterian church, the fashionable one on Parkside Avenue, and made himself agreeable. He's built up a splendid practice, right there in that congregation!"
"Are there any good churches left?" Sommers inquired.
"Well, I shouldn't be bashful about cutting into the Presbyterian. You're as good as Lemenueville."
Decidedly, Sommers thought, this simple society had its own social habits. If he did not take this well-meant advice, he must justify himself by his own method. He made up his mind to go to the next meeting of the medical society. His clothes were a trifle shabby, but as the meeting was in the evening, he could go in his evening dress—drop in casually, as it were, from an evening entertainment. That silly bit of pride, however, angered him with himself. He went in his shabby everyday suit. The experience was the most uncomfortable one he had had. The little groups of young doctors did not open to him. They had almost forgotten him. Even his old colleagues at the hospital scarcely recognized him, and when they did stop to chat after the meeting, they examined him indifferently, as if they were making notes. Lindsay had probably spread his story, with some imaginative details. According to the popular tale Sommers had been "thrown down" by Miss Hitchcock because he had mixed himself up with a married woman. Then he had been discharged by Lindsay for the same reason, and had sunk, had run away with the woman, and had come back to Chicago penniless. The woman was supporting him, some one said. Enough of this pretty tale could be read in the bearing of the men to make Sommers sorry that he had come, and sorrier that he had come in the hope of bettering his condition. He slipped out unobserved and walked the six miles back to the Keystone.
The fight was on; he was placed, as he had wished, without handicap; he closed his jaws and summoned all his will to take the consequences. The pity was that he had brought himself to make any concessions to the obsequiousness of the world. As he passed down Michigan Avenue he overtook a shabby laboring man, who begged of him. Sommers found out that he was a striker, a fireman on the Illinois Central, who had lost his job by being blacklisted after the strike. He had walked the streets since the middle of July.
"You were a fool," Sommers remarked calmly, "to think that you and yours could make any impression on the General Managers' Association. You have had your lesson, and the next time you find yourself hanging on to the world, no matter how, don't kick over the traces. There's a quarter. It's more than I can afford to give, and I think you're a fool."