"We rather look to men like you, Starratt," Mr. Ford was saying, his voice suave to the point of insincerity, "to tide us over a crisis. Just now, when the laboring element is running amuck, it's good to feel that the country has a large percentage of people who can be reasonable and understand another viewpoint except their own … After everything is said and done, in business a man's first loyalty is to the firm he works for."
"Why?" Starratt threw out sharply.
Ford's pallid eyes widened briefly. "I think the answer is obvious,
Starratt. Don't you? The hand that feeds a man is … "
"Feeds? That may work both ways."
"I don't quite understand."
Starratt's glance traveled toward the golf sticks. "Well, it seems to me it's a case of one man cutting down on necessities to provide another with luxuries." He hated himself once he had said it. It outraged his own sense of breeding.
Mr. Ford shoved the pencil and pad to one side. "A parlor radical, eh? … Well, this from you is surprising! … If there was one man in my employ whom I counted on, it was you. You've been with me over fifteen years … began as office boy, as I remember. And in all that time you've never even asked for a privilege … I'm sorry to see such a fine record broken!"
Yesterday Starratt would have agreed with him, but now he felt moved to indignation and shame at Ford's summary of his negative virtues. He had been born with a voice and he had never lifted it to ask for his rights, much less a favor. No wonder Hilmer could sneer and Helen Starratt cut him with the fine knife of her scorn! The words began to tumble to his lips. They came in swirling flood. He lost count of what he was saying, but the angry white face of his employer foreshadowed the inevitable end of this interview. He gave his rancor its full scope … protests, defiance, insults, even, heaping up in a formidable pile.
"You ask me to be patient," he flared, "because you think I'm a reasonable, rational, considerate beast that can be broken to any harness!" He recognized Hilmer's words, but he swept on. "If you were in a real flesh-and-blood business you'd have felt the force of things … you'd have had men with guts to deal with … you'd have had a brick or two heaved into your plate-glass window. A friend of mine said last night that potting clerks was as sickening as a rabbit drive. He was right, it is sickening!"
Mr. Ford raised his hand. Starratt obeyed with silence.
"I'm sorry, Starratt, to see you bitten with this radical disease … Of course, you can't stay on here, after this. Your confidence in us seems to have been destroyed and it goes without saying that my confidence in you has been seriously undermined. We'll give you a good recommendation and a month's salary … But you had better leave at once. A man in your frame of mind isn't a good investment for Ford, Wetherbee & Co."
Starratt was still quivering with unleashed heroics. "The recommendation is coming to me," he returned, coldly. "The month's salary isn't. I'll take what I've earned and not a penny more."
"Very well; suit yourself there."
Mr. Ford reached for his pen and began where he had left off at Starratt's entrance … signing insurance policies … Starratt rose and left without a word. The interview was over.
Already, in that mysterious way with which secrets flash through an office with lightninglike rapidity, a hint of Starratt's brush with Ford was illuminating the dull routine.
"I think he's going into business for himself, or something," Starratt heard the chief stenographer say in a stage whisper to her assistant, as he passed.
And at his desk he found Brauer waiting to waylay him with a bid for lunch, his little ferret eyes attempting to confirm the general gossip flying about.
Starratt had an impulse to refuse, but instead he said, as evenly as he could:
"All right … sure! Let's go now!"
Brauer felt like eating oysters, so they decided to go up to one of the stalls in the California Market for lunch. He was in an expansive mood.
"Let's have beer, too," he insisted, as they seated themselves. "After the first of July they'll slap on war-time prohibition and it won't be so easy."
Starratt acquiesced. He usually didn't drink anything stronger than tea with the noonday meal, because anything even mildly alcoholic made him loggy and unfit for work, but the thought that to-day he was free intrigued him.
The waiter brought the usual plate of shrimps that it was customary to serve with an oyster order, and Starratt and Brauer fell to. A glass of beer foamed with enticing amber coolness before each plate. Brauer reached over and lifted his glass.
"Well, here's success to crime!" he said, with pointed facetiousness.
Starratt ignored the lead. He had never liked Brauer and he did not find this sharp-nosed inquisitiveness to his taste. He began to wonder why he had come with him. Lunching with Brauer had never been a habit. Occasionally, quite by accident, they managed to achieve the same restaurant and the same table, but it was not a matter of prearrangement. Indeed, Starratt had always prided himself at his ability to keep Brauer at arm's length. A subtle change had occurred. Was it possible that a borrowed five-dollar bill could so reshape a relationship? Well, he would pay him back once he received his monthly salary, and get over with the obligation. His monthly salary? … Suddenly it broke over him that he had received the last full month's salary that he would ever get from Ford, Wetherbee & Co. It was the 20th of February, which meant, roughly, that about two thirds of his one hundred and fifty dollars would be coming to him if he still held to his haughty resolve to take no more than he had earned. Two thirds of one hundred and fifty, less sixty-odd dollars overdrawn … He was recalled from his occupation by Brauer's voice rising above the clatter of carelessly flung crockery and tableware.
"Is it true you're leaving the first of the month?"
He liked Brauer better for this direct question, although the man's presumption still rankled.
"I'm leaving to-day," he announced, dryly, not without a feeling of pride.
"What are you going to do?"
"I haven't decided … Perhaps … I don't know … I may become an insurance broker."
Brauer picked through the mess in his plate for an unshelled shrimp.
"That takes money," he ventured, dubiously.
"Oh, not a great deal," Starratt returned, ruffling a trifle. "Office rent for two or three months before the premiums begin to come in … a little capital to furnish up a room. I might even get some one to give me a desk in his office until I got started. It's done, you know."
Brauer neatly extracted a succulent morsel from its scaly sheath. "Don't you think it's better to put up a front?" he inquired. "If you've got a decent office and your own phone and a good stenographer it makes an impression when you're going after business … Why don't you go in with somebody? … There ought to be plenty of fellows ready to put up their money against your time."
"Who,