The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York. Eggleston Edward

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      As seen in the narrow apartment of his Aunt Hannah Martin, life in the metropolis appeared vastly more pinched and sordid than it did in the cottages at Cappadocia. How the family contrived to endure living in relations so constant and intimate with the cooking stove and the feather beds Charley could not understand. But the spectacle of the streets brought to him notions of a life greatly broader and more cultivated and inconceivably more luxurious than the best in Cappadocia.

      The third day after his arrival he called at the Bank of Manhadoes, in which the greater part of his uncle's savings had been invested, to make the acquaintance of the officers in control, and to have transferred to his own name the shares which his brother had hypothecated. He was very cordially received by Farnsworth, the cashier, who took him into the inner office and introduced him to the president of the bank, Mr. Masters. The president showed Charley marked attention; he was very sensible of the voting importance of so considerable a block of stock as Charley held, now that he had acquired all that was his uncle's. Masters was sorry that his family was out of town, he would have been pleased to have Mr. Millard dine with him. Would Mr. Millard be in town long? Dining with a New York bank president would have been a novel experience for young Millard, but he felt obliged to go home the last of the week. Not that there was anything of pleasure or duty to render his return to Cappadocia imperative or desirable, but the pressure he was daily putting on his aunt's hospitality was too great to be prolonged, and the discomfort of his situation in Avenue C was too much for a fastidious man to endure.

      Though his return to Cappadocia made a ripple of talk among the young women of the village, to whom he was at least a most interesting theme for gossip, he found the place duller than ever. His mind reverted to the great, dazzling spectacle of the thronged streets of the metropolis, with their unceasing processions of eager people. Since he had all the world to choose from, why not live in New York? But he did not care to go to the city to be idle. He liked employment, and he preferred to earn something, though he had no relish for speculation, nor even any desire to run the risks of trade. But he thought that if he could contrive to make enough to pay a portion of his own expenses, so as to add the greater part of each year's dividends to his principal, such cautious proceeding would entirely suit his prudent temperament and content his moderate ambition. After taking time to revolve the matter carefully, he wrote to the obliging Mr. Masters, suggesting that he would like to secure some position in the bank. The letter came at an opportune moment. A considerable number of the stockholders were opposed to the president in regard to the general policy to be pursued. The opposition was strong enough to give Masters some anxiety. What was known as "the Millard stock" had been held neutral in consequence of Charley's minority. If now Masters could attach this young shareholder to himself, it would be a positive gain to the administration party in the stockholders' meetings, and indeed it would put the opposition beyond any chance of doing much mischief.

      When Masters got the letter Farnsworth, the cashier, was called into his room. But Farnsworth could not give him any information about Millard's character or capacities. That he would not do without special training for a teller or bookkeeper was too evident to require discussion. All that could be said of him at first glance was that he wrote a good hand and composed a letter with intelligence. He might be made of assistance to the cashier if he should prove to be a man of regular habits and application. What Masters wrote in reply was: "We should be most happy to have the nephew and heir of one of our founders in the bank. At present we have no vacancy suitable to you; for, of course, a man of your position ought not to be assigned to one of the lowest clerkships. But if an opportunity to meet your wishes should arise in the future we will let you know."

      It was only after some years' experience in the bank that Millard, in looking over this letter, was able to conjecture its real significance. Then he knew that when that letter went out of the bank addressed to him at Cappadocia another must have gone with it to a certain commercial agency, requesting that Charles Millard, of Cappadocia, New York, be carefully looked up. Two weeks later Masters wrote that it had been found necessary to employ a correspondent to aid the cashier of the bank. The salary would be two thousand dollars if Mr. Millard would accept it. The offer, he added, was rather larger than would be made to any one else, as the officers of the bank preferred to have a stockholder in a semi-confidential position such as this would be. In village scales two thousand dollars a year was much, but when Charley came to foot up the expenses of his first year in New York, this salary seemed somewhat less munificent.

      Millard's relations were directly with the cashier, Farnsworth, an eager, pushing, asthmatic little man, wholly given to business. Farnsworth's mind rarely took time to peep over the fence that divided the universe into two parts – the Bank of Manhadoes and its interests lying on the one side, and all the rest of creation on the other. Not that he ignored society; he gave dinner parties in his elegant housekeeping apartment in the Sebastopol Flats. But the dinner parties all had reference to the Bank of Manhadoes; the invitations were all calculated with reference to business relations, and the dinners were neatly planned to bring new business or to hold the old. But there were dinners and dinners, in the estimation of Farnsworth. Some were aimed high, and when these master-strokes of policy were successful they tended to promote the main purposes of the bank. The second-rate dinners were meant merely to smooth the way in minor business relations.

      It was to one of these less significant entertainments, a dinner of not more than three horse-power, that he invited his correspondent-clerk, Mr. Millard. It would make the relations between him and Millard smoother, and serve to attach Millard to his leadership in the bank management. Millard, he reasoned, being from the country, would be just as well pleased with a company made up of nobodies in particular and his wife's relatives as he could be if he were invited to meet a railway president and a leather merchant from the swamp turned art connoisseur in his old age.

      Charley found his boarding-house a little "poky," to borrow his own phrase, and he was pleased with Farnsworth's invitation. He honored the occasion by the purchase of a new black satin cravat. This he tied with extreme care, according to the approved formula of "twice around and up and down." Few men could tie a cravat in better style. He also got out the new frock-coat, made by the best tailor in Cappadocia, carefully cherished, and only worn on special occasions – the last being the evening on which he had taken supper at the house of the Baptist minister. If there was something slightly rustic about the cut or set of the coat, Millard did not suspect it. The only indispensable thing about clothes is that the wearer shall be at peace with them. Poor Richard ventured the proposition that "our neighbors' eyes" are the costliest things in life, but Bonhomme Richard may have been a little off the mark just there. Other people's opinions about my garments are of small consequence except in so far as they affect my own conceit of them. Charley Millard issued from his room at half-past six content with himself, and, what was of much more importance to the peace of his soul, content with his clothes.

      At eleven o'clock Millard is in his room again. The broadcloth Prince Albert lies in an ignominious heap in the corner of the sofa. The satin cravat is against the looking-glass on the dressing-case, just as Charley has thrown it down. Nothing has happened to the coat or the cravat; both are as immaculate as at their sallying forth. But Millard does not regard either of them; he sits moodily in his chair by the grate and postpones to the latest moment the disagreeable task of putting them away.

      No matter what the subject under consideration, we later nineteenth-century people are pretty sure to be brought face to face with the intellect that has dominated our age, modified our modes of thinking, and become the main source of all our metaphysical discomforts. It is this same inevitable Charles Darwin who says that a man may be made more unhappy by committing a breach of etiquette than by falling into sin. If Millard had embezzled a thousand dollars of the bank's funds, could he have been more remorseful than he is now? And all for nothing but that he found himself at dinner with more cloth in the tail of his coat than there was in the coattails of his neighbors, and that he wore an expensive black cravat while all the rest of the world had on ghostly white linen ties that cost but a dime or two apiece.

      Of course Millard exaggerated the importance СКАЧАТЬ