The only voices that were ever raised in the establishment were those of the travelling salesmen. The chief of this department, Mr. Rawter, was loud-voiced in his joviality. That was his word—“Mr. Rawter is so jovial.”
When the roaring joviality of Mr. Rawter boomed through the lower floor, old Mr. Wetherbee, the vice-president, would look up from his desk, and remark quietly to any one who happened near, “Mr. Rawter is forced to meet the trade, you know.” It was doubtless his gentle Quaker conception that wine-lists, back-slapping and whole-souled abandonment of to-morrow, were essentials of the road and trade affiliation. From the rear of the main floor, back among the piles of stock, reverberating among great square monuments of ledgers and pamphlets were the jovial voices of the other salesmen, Mr. Rawter’s seconds, the Middle-west man, and the Coast-and-South man—voices slightly muffled, as became their station, but regular in joviality, and doubtless as boom-compelling afield as their chief’s, considering their years.
Otherwise the elder Mr. Wetherbee—Mr. Seth—presided over a distinguished silence for the main. His desk was open to the floor at large. He was seventy, and one of the first to arrive in the morning—a vice-president who opened the mail, and had in expert scrutiny such matters as employment, salaries, orders and expenses of the travelling men on the road. Mr. Seth was not a dreamer; at least not on week-days—a millionaire, who gave you the impression that he was constantly on his guard lest his heart-quality should suddenly ruin all. The love, the very ardour of his soul was to give away—to dissipate the fortunes of his own and the firm-members, but so successfully had he fought all his life on the basis of considering the justice to his family and his firm, that Lot & Company now relied upon him, undoubting. Thus often a man born with weakness develops it into his particular strength....
The son, Eben Wetherbee, was harder for Bellair to designate. He seemed a different force, and called forth secret regard. A religious young man, who always occurred to Bellair’s mind as he had once seen him, crossing the Square a summer evening, a book under his arm, his short steps lifted and queerly rounded, as if treading a low-geared sprocket; toes straight out—the whole gait mincing a little. Eben was smileless and a great worker. He had no more to do or say with his father during working hours than any of the others.
Such was the firm: Mr. Nathan Lot and his son Jabez; Mr. Seth Wetherbee and his son Eben, and Mr. Rawter who had been given a nominal quantity of stock after thirty-five years’ service. In due course Mr. Sproxley would qualify for this illumination.... And yet not all. Staring down from the arch over the president’s door was a dour, white, big-chinned face, done in oils long ago—almost yellow-white, the black shoulder deadening away into the background; small eyes, wide mouth, but firmly hung—grandfather to Mr. Nathan, but no dreamer; great grand-sire to Mr. Jabez, but nothing loose-mouthed about the face of this, the original Jabez Lot,—organising genius of the House, and its first president, spoken of with awe and reverence; the first millionaire of the family and builder of its Gramercy mansion.... Suddenly, it had come to Bellair that this was the spirit of the Store, this picture was its symbol, that the slow strangulation of the souls of all concerned had begun in that white head, the planting of this bed of crooked canes.
2
One morning when Bellair was well into his third year with the printing-firm, the silence was broken on the lower floor. He was shaken that day into the real secret of the house. A certain Mr. Prentidd had been in conversation with Mr. Rawter some moments. The jovial voice of [Pg 33]the head-salesman was without significance to those near his partition—a part of the routine. Mr. Prentidd had invented a combination ledger and voucher-file that was having some sale in America, being manufactured and distributed by Lot & Company. Mr. Rawter on a recent trip abroad had been empowered to dispose of the English rights. The result, it now appeared, did not prove satisfactory to the inventor. The voice of the latter was raised. One felt the entire building subside into a quivering hush.
“I tell you, sir, I don’t trust you. I have heard in fact that the only way you could hurt your reputation here in New York or on the road would be to tell the truth.”
To Bellair there was something deeply satisfying in that remark of the inventor’s—something long awaited and very good. He saw Mr. Seth arise, his chin moving in a sickly fashion, a very old pathetic Mr. Seth. He realised that Mr. Rawter had laughed—that something had been burned from that laugh. Mr. Prentidd was hurried forth, and the nullifying system began. Mr. Jabez emerged from his father’s office and turning to Broadwell at the advertising-desk, said in a tone universally penetrative:
“What a pity that Mr. Prentidd drinks. There are few men finer to deal with when he is himself.”