[THE WOLF'S LONG HOWL]
George Henry Harrison, though without living near kinfolk, had never considered himself alone in the world. Up to the time when he became thirty years of age he had always thought himself, when he thought of the matter at all, as fortunate in the extent of his friendships. He was acquainted with a great many people; he had a recognized social standing, was somewhat cleverer than the average man, and his instincts, while refined by education and experience, were decidedly gregarious and toward hearty companionship. He should have been a happy man, and had been one, in fact, up to the time when this trustworthy account begins; but just now, despite his natural buoyancy of spirit, he did not count himself among the blessed.
George Henry wanted to be at peace with all the world, and now there were obstacles in the way. He did not delight in aggressiveness, yet certain people were aggressive. In his club—which he felt he must soon abandon—he received from all save a minority of the members a hearty reception, and in his club he rather enjoyed himself for the hour, forgetting that conditions were different outside. On the streets he met men who bowed to him somewhat stiffly, and met others who recognized him plainly enough, but who did not bow. The postman brought daily a bunch of letters, addressed in various forms of stern commercial handwriting to George Henry Harrison, but these often lay unopened and neglected on his desk.
To tell the plain and unpleasant truth, George Henry Harrison had just become a poor man, a desperately poor man, and already realized that it was worse for a young man than an old one to rank among those who have "seen better days." Even after his money had disappeared in what had promised to be a good investment, he had for a time maintained his place, because, unfortunately for all concerned, he had been enabled to get credit; but there is an end to that sort of thing, and now, with his credit gone after his money, he felt his particular world slipping from him. He felt a change in himself, a certain on-creeping paralysis of his social backbone. When practicable he avoided certain of his old friends, for he could see too plainly written on their faces the fear that he was about to request a trifling loan, though already his sense of honor, when he considered his prospects, had forced him to cease asking favors of the sort. There were faces which he had loved well which he could not bear to see with the look of mingled commiseration and annoyance he inspired.
And so it came that at this time George Henry Harrison was acquainted chiefly with grief—with the wolf at his door. His mail, once blossoming with messages of good-will and friendliness, became a desert of duns.
"Why is it," George Henry would occasionally ask himself—there was no one else for him to talk to—"why is it that when a man is sure of his meals every day he has endless invitations to dine out, but that when those events are matters of uncertainty he gets not a bidding to the feast?" This question, not a new one, baffling in its mystery and chilling to the marrow, George Henry classed with another he had heard somewhere: "Who is more happy: the hungry man who can get nothing to eat, or the rich man with an overladen table who can eat nothing?" The two problems ran together in his mind, like a couple of hounds in leash, during many a long night when he could not shut out from his ears the howling of the wolf. He often wondered, jeering the while at his own grotesque fancy, how his neighbors could sleep with those mournful yet sinister howlings burdening the air, but he became convinced at last that no one heard the melancholy solo but himself.
"'The wolf's long howl on Oonalaska's shore' is not in it with that of mine," said George Henry—for since his coat had become threadbare his language had deteriorated, and he too frequently used slang—"but I'm thankful that I alone hear my own. How different the case from what it is when one's dog barks o' nights! Then the owner is the only one who sleeps within a radius of blocks. The beasts are decidedly unlike."
Not suddenly had come all this tribulation to the man, though the final disappearance of all he was worth, save some valueless remnants, had been preceded by two or three heavy losses. Optimistic in his ventures, he was not naturally a fool. Ill fortune had come to him without apparent provocation, as it comes to many another man of intelligence, and had followed him persistently and ruthlessly when others less deserving were prospering all about him. It was not astonishing that he had become a trifle misanthropic. He found it difficult to recover from the daze of the moment when he first realized his situation.
The comprehension of where he stood first came to George Henry when he had a note to meet, a note for a sum that would not in the past have seemed large to him, but one at that time assuming dimensions of importance. He thought when he had given the note that he could meet it handily; he had twice succeeded in renewing it, and now had come to the time when he must raise a certain sum or be counted among the wreckage. He had been hopeful, but found himself on the day of payment without money and without resources. How many thousands of men who have engaged in our tigerish dollar struggle have felt the sinking at heart which came to him then! But he was a man, and he went to work. Talk about climbing the Alps or charging a battery! The man who has hurried about all day with reputation to be sustained, even at the sacrifice of pride, has suffered more, dared more and knows more of life's terrors than any reckless mountain-climber or any veteran soldier in existence. George Henry failed at last. He could not meet his bills.