At that I takes a closer look at him, and before I’ve got half through the inspection I’ve waved a sad farewell to that one twenty-five. From the frayed necktie down to the runover shoes, Tutwater is a walkin’ example of the poor debtor’s oath. The shiny seams of the black frock coat shouts of home pressin’, and the limp way his white vest fits him suggests that he does his own laundry work in the washbowl. But he’s clean shaved and clean brushed, and you can guess he’s seen the time when he had such things done for him in style.
Yet there ain’t anything about the way Tutwater carries himself that signifies he’s down and out. Not much! He’s got the easy, confident swing to his shoulders that you might expect from a sport who’d just picked three winners runnin’.
Rather a tall, fairly well built gent he is, with a good chest on him, and he has one of these eager, earnest faces that shows he’s alive all the time. You wouldn’t call him a handsome man, though, on account of the deep furrows down each side of his cheeks and the prominent jut to his eyebrows; but, somehow, when he gets to talkin’, them eyes of his lights up so you forget the rest of his features.
You’ve seen chaps like that. Gen’rally they’re cranks of some kind or other, and when they ain’t they’re topliners. So I puts Tutwater down as belongin’ to the crank class, and it wa’n’t long before he begun livin’ up to the description.
“Director of enterprises, eh?” says I. “That’s a new one on me.”
“Naturally,” says he, wavin’ his hand, “considering that I am first in the field. It is a profession I am creating.”
“So?” says I. “Well, how are you comin’ on?”
“Excellently, sir, excellently,” says he. “I have found, for the first time in my somewhat varied career, full scope for what I am pleased to call my talents. Of course, the work of preparing the ground is a slow process, and the—er—ahem—the results have not as yet begun to materialize; but when Opportunity comes my way, sir——Aha! Ha, ha! Ho, ho! Well, then we shall see if Tutwater is not ready for her!”
“I see,” says I. “You with your hand on the knob, eh? It’s an easy way of passin’ the time too; that is, providin’ such things as visits from the landlord and the towel collector don’t worry you.”
“Not at all,” says he. “Merely petty annoyances, thorns and pebbles in the pathways that lead to each high emprise.”