While it was quite true that membership in the Hundred Club was not compulsory, it was also true that Mr. Paul S. Appleton, III, was a theologian who, like Calvin, knew how to combine free will and predestination. If one did not belong to the Hundred Club, the time was not far distant when one would not belong to Mr. Appleton. Not to belong to it was, for agent or salesman, the equivalent of living on the other side of the railroad tracks. If one failed of admission to the Company Heaven, or if one dropped out, his fellows would begin to ask guardedly: “Where’s Joe Klutz these days?” The answers would be vague, and in the course of time Joe Klutz would be spoken of no more. He would fade into oblivion. He was “no longer with the Company”.
Mr. Paul S. Appleton, III, never had but the one revelation — the one which Mr. Merrit so movingly described — but that was enough, and he never let its glories and allurements grow dim. Four times a year, at the beginning of each quarter, he would call his general manager before him and say: “What’s the matter, Elmer? You’re not getting the business! The market is there! You know what you can do about it — or else . . .!” Thereupon the general manager would summon the district managers one by one and repeat to them the words and manner of P. S. A., and the district managers would reenact the scene before each of the district supervisors, who would duplicate it to the agents, who would pass it on to the salesmen, who, since they had no one below them, would “get out and hustle — or else!” This was called “keeping up the morale of the organisation.”
As Mr. David Merrit sat on the front porch and told of his many experiences with the Company, his words conveyed to George Webber a great deal more than he actually said. For his talk went on and on in its vein of mellow reminiscence, and Mr. Merrit made his little jokes and puffed contentedly at one of his own cigars, and everything he said carried an overtone of “What a fine and wonderful thing it is to be connected with the Company!”
He told, for example, about the splendid occasion every year when all the members of the Hundred Club were brought together for what was known as “The Week of Play”. This was a magnificent annual outing conducted “at the Company’s expense”. The meeting place might be in Philadelphia or Washington, or in the tropic opulence of Los Angeles or Miami, or it might be on board a chartered ship — one of the small but luxurious twenty-thousand-tonners that ply the transatlantic routes — bound to Bermuda or Havana. Wherever it was, the Hundred Club was given a free sweep. If the journey was by sea, the ship was theirs — for a week. All the liquor in the world was theirs, if they could drink it — and Bermuda’s coral isles, or the unlicensed privilege of gay Havana. For that one week everything on earth that money could buy was at the command of the members of the Hundred Club, everything was done on the grand scale, and the Company — the immortal, paternal, and great-hearted Company —“paid for everything”.
But as Mr. Merrit painted his glowing picture of the fun they had on these occasions, George Webber saw quite another image. It was an image of twelve or fifteen hundred men — for on these pilgrimages, by general consent, women (or, at any rate, wives) were debarred — twelve or fifteen hundred men, Americans, most of them in their middle years, exhausted, overwrought, their nerves frayed down and stretched to the breaking point, met from all quarters of the continent “at the Company’s expense” for one brief, wild, gaudy week of riot. And George thought grimly what this tragic spectacle of business men at play meant in terms of the entire scheme of things and the plan of life that had produced it. He began to understand, too, the changes which time had brought about in Randy.
The last day of his week in Libya Hill, George had gone to the station to buy his return ticket and he stopped in at Randy’s office a little before one o’clock to go home to lunch with him. The outer salesroom, with its shining stock of scales and computing machines imposingly arrayed on walnut pedestals, was deserted, so he sat down to wait. On one wall hung a gigantic coloured poster. “August Was the Best Month in Federal History,” it read. “Make September a Better One! The Market’s There, Mr. Agent. The Rest Is Up to You!”
Behind the salesroom was a little partitioned Space which served Randy as an office. As George waited, gradually he became aware of mysterious sounds emanating from beyond the partition. First there was the rustle of heavy paper, as if the pages of a ledger were being turned, and occasionally there would be a quick murmur of hushed voices, confidential, ominous, interspersed with grunts and half-suppressed exclamations. Then all at once there were two loud bangs, as of a large ledger being slammed shut and thrown upon a desk or table, and after a moment’s silence the voices rose louder, distinct, plainly audible. Instantly he recognised Randy’s voice — low, grave, hesitant, and deeply troubled. The other voice he had never heard before.
But as he listened to that voice he began to tremble and grow white about the lips. For its very tone was a foul insult to human life, an ugly sneer whipped across the face of decent humanity, and as he realised that that voice, these words, were being used against his friend, he had a sudden blind feeling of murder in his heart. And what was so perplexing and so troubling was that this devil’s voice had in it as well a curiously familiar note, as of someone he had known.
Then it came to him in a flash — it was Merrit speaking! The owner of that voice, incredible as it seemed, was none other than that plump, well-kept, jolly-looking man who had always been so full of hearty cheerfulness and good spirits every time he had seen him.
Now, behind that little partition of glazed glass and varnished wood, this man’s voice had suddenly become fiendish. It was inconceivable, and as George listened he grew sick, as one does in some awful nightmare when he visions someone he knows doing some perverse and abominable act. But what was most dreadful of all was Randy’s voice, humble, low, submissive, modestly entreating. Merrit’s voice would cut across the air like a gob of rasping phlegm, and then Randy’s voice — gentle, hesitant, deeply troubled — would come in from time to time in answer.
“Well, what’s the matter? Don’t you want the job?”
“Why — why, yes, you know I do, Dave — haw-w”— and Randy’s voice lifted a little in a troubled and protesting laugh.
“What’s the matter that you’re not getting the business?” “Why — haw-w!”— again the little laugh, embarrassed and troubled —“I thought I was ——”
“Well, you’re not!” that rasping voice cut in like a knife. “This district ought to deliver thirty per cent more business than you’re getting from it, and the Company is going to have it, too — or else! You deliver or you go right out on your can! See? The Company doesn’t give a damn about you! It’s after the business! You’ve been around a long time, but you don’t mean a damn bit more to the Company than anybody else! And you know what’s happened to a lot of other guys who got to feeling they were too big for their job — don’t you?”
“Why — why, yes, Dave — but — haw-w!” the little laugh again”— but — honestly, I never thought ——”
“We don’t give a damn what you never thought!” the brutal voice ripped in. “I’ve given you fair warning now! You get the business or out you go!”
The glazed glass door burst open violently and Merrit came striding out of the little partitioned office. When he saw George, he looked startled. Then he was instantly transformed. His plump and ruddy face became wreathed in smiles, and he cried out in a hearty tone:
“Well, well, well Look who’s here! If it’s not the old boy himself!”
Randy had followed him out, and Merrit now turned and winked humorously at him, in the manner of a man who is carrying on a little bantering byplay:
“Randy,” he said, “I believe George gets better looking from day to day. Has he broken any hearts yet?”
Randy