Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/1048

974 we know it the better. Besides, we ought to have offered Coulson long ago."

"Very well, sir. I suppose our low figure for him is seventy-eight, isn't it?"

"I suppose so. We ought to get eighty this year, and we'd do it too if we had a decent salesman in the place. There isn't much stuff on the market."

The junior partner decided to say as little as possible to Creighton about his coming experience. There was no use in frightening the novice before he began. Therefore he merely advised him that Coulson was the most important out-of-town buyer of Kopec gums in the market—that the low price to him was seventy-eight, and that he was—well, he was a trifle close at times—close and—er—difficult. Mr. Beck further explained the general condition of the Kopec market, emphasizing all the bull points, until the new salesman began to wonder why his firm should want to sell at all with such a certainty of higher prices later in the year. The reasons for the expected rise, however, became somewhat jumbled in Creighton's mind, and before he arrived at his destination the only things he was sure of were that the low price was seventy-eight and that he was commissioned to sell merchandise—a somewhat prosaic employment, but still not without an element of sporting interest.

The exterior of the building occupied by Coulson and Son was unpretentious, and the interior was dingy and uninviting. A number of seedy-looking clerks were huddled together in a bare and dirty pen formed of cheap wood partitions painted a sickly kitchen yellow. Everything about the place disgusted the fastidious Creighton to the core, and he could scarcely believe that he was in the right office; but being reassured on this point by an anæmic office-boy sitting near the door, he inquired for Mr. Coulson and laid a visiting-card upon the youngster's desk. The boy looked at it indifferently for a moment, dropped it into the spittoon beside him, and jerked his thumb toward a door in the rear partition without lifting his eyes from the soiled novel he was perusing. Creighton felt a strong inclination to shake some manners into the absorbed reader, but restrained himself and knocked at the indicated door. Receiving no answer, he at last pushed it open and found himself in the private office of the firm.

At a hacked and ink-stained deal table sat a corpulent, coarse-featured individual of about sixty, with a close-cropped, grizzled beard and mustache, and a large wen on the side of his big nose. His costume consisted of baggy blue trousers, white socks, low shoes, and a linen shirt without collar or cuffs. He wore neither coat nor waistcoat, and his spotted and dirty starched shirt bulged up alarmingly from his ponderous waistband with its overhanging roll of fat. At a desk in the corner of the disordered room sat the younger Coulson, the prototype of the head of the house in feature and form, and obviously an imitator in the matter of undress.

The elder Coulson regarded the visitor with silent curiosity as he stated his errand, studying him from his patent-leather shoes to his carefully brushed hair, as though he were some freak of nature. Then he exchanged a wondering glance with his son, and resumed his inspection from the head downward, pausing fascinated by Creighton's spotless gloves. At last he wiped away a smile with a slow movement of a big, puffy hand, rose heavily from his chair, and without taking his eyes from the salesman climbed to a high stool and perched there like a bloated bullfrog squatting on a fence-post. The son shoved his chair back, and crossing his ponderous legs, also gazed silently at Creighton, who, having explained his business, was at a loss for further conversation. At last the elder man turned his back on the salesman, peered thoughtfully at the high rear windows, through which the shipping of the harbor was plainly visible, and broke the silence.

"I guess we ain't in the market for Kopec this year," he began, lugubriously. "I reckon there ain't no money in 'em any more. But sit down, young fellow"—he waved his hand toward a kitchen chair, which Creighton accepted.

"No, sir," he continued, sadly. "We had to pay sixty-nine or seventy for the last lot—didn't we, Tom?"

"Sixty-nine and a half," prompted the son from his corner.

"So we done some studyin'," continued Coulson senior, "to wrastle along without 'em, and we got things pretty nigh fixed."

"As good as fixed," chorused Tom.

"In that case," interposed Creighton, rising as he spoke, "there's no use in wasting your time."

He was beginning to resent the bearing of these vulgar creatures, and wanted to have done with them at the earliest possible moment.

Coulson and his son exchanged another meaning glance, but the old man's gaze again centred on the moving panorama of the harbor as he drawled:

"Don't be in a hurry—young feller. It ain't sociable. Kopec don't keep you so all-fired busy, I expect."

"It does this year," observed Creighton. truthfully.

"That so? What's new in it?"

Creighton was inclined to say that he was, but refrained.

"I expect your process for getting along without it is the newest thing, Mr. Coulson," he answered, quietly.

The old man half turned on his high perch to gaze at the speaker with new interest. There was just a possibility that this fashion-plate dude was not such a fool as he looked.

A long pause ensued, and Creighton sought relief from his hideous surroundings by gazing out of the long factorylike win-