To most of the people who live in New York and elsewhere throughout the country--or the world, for that matter--an income of a thousand dollars a month seems extremely comfortable, to say the least of it. The average American family of five has to scrape along on about half that sum a year. But among the comfortable classes in New York--and perhaps in one or two other cities--a thousand dollars a month is literally genteel poverty. To people accustomed to what is called luxury nowadays--people with the habit of the private carriage, the private automobile, and several servants--to such people a thousand dollars a month is an absurd little sum. It would not pay for the food alone. It would not buy for a man and his wife, with no children, clothing enough to enable them to make a decent appearance.
Norman, living alone and living very quietly indeed, might have got along for a while on that sum, if he had taken much thought about expenditures, had persisted in such severe economies as using street cars instead of taxicabs and drinking whisky at dinner instead of his customary quart of six-dollar champagne. Norman, the married man, could not escape disaster for a single month on an income so pitiful.
Probably on the morning on which he set out for downtown in search of money enough to enable him to live decently, not less than ten thousand men on Manhattan Island left comfortable or luxurious homes faced with precisely the same problem. And each and every one of them knew that on that day or some day soon they must find the money demanded imperiously by their own and their families' tastes and necessities or be ruined --flung out, trampled upon, derided as failures, hated by the "loved ones" they had caused to be humiliated.
And every man of that legion had a fine, an unusually fine brain--resourceful, incessant, teeming with schemes for wresting from those who had dollars the dollars they dared not go home without. And those ten thousand quickest and most energetic brains, by their mode of thought and action, determined the thought and action of the entire country--gave the mercenary and unscrupulous cast to the whole social system. Themselves the victims of conditions, they were the bellwethers to millions of victims compelled to follow their leadership.
Norman, by the roundabout mode of communication he and Tetlow had established, summoned his friend and backer to his office. "Tetlow," he began straight off, "I've got to have more money."
"How much?" said Tetlow.
"More than you can afford to advance me."
"How much?" repeated Tetlow.
"Three thousand a month right away--at the least."
"That's a big sum," said Tetlow.
"Yes, for a man used to dealing in small figures.
But in reality it's a moderate income."
"Few large families spend more."
"Few large or small families in my part of New York pinch along on so little."
"What has happened to you?" said Tetlow, dropping into a chair and folding his fat hands on his stomach.
"Why?" asked Norman.
"It's in your voice--in your face--in your cool demand for a big income."
"Let's start right, old man," said Norman. "Don't CALL thirty-six thousand a year big or you'll THINK it big.
And if you think it big, you will stay little."
Tetlow nodded. "I'm ready to grow," said he.
"Now what's happened to you?"
"I've got married," replied Norman.
"I thought so. To Miss--Hallowell?"
"To Miss Hallowell. So my way's clear, and I'm going to resume the march."
"Yes?"
"I've two plans. Either will serve. The first is yours--the one you partly revealed to me the other day."
"Partly?" said Tetlow.
"Partly," repeated Norman, laughing. "I know you, Billy, and that means I know you're absolutely incapable of plotting as big a scheme as you suggested to me. It came either from Galloway or from some one of his clique."
"I said all I'm at liberty to say, Fred."
"I don't wish you to break your promise. All I want to know is, can I get the three thousand a month and assurance of its lasting and leading to something bigger?"
"What is your other scheme?" said Tetlow, and it was plain to the shrewder young lawyer that the less shrewd young lawyer wished to gain time.
"Simple and sure," replied Norman. "We will buy ten shares of Universal Fuel Company through a dummy and bring suit to dissolve it. I looked into the matter for Burroughs once when he was after the Fosdick-Langdon group. Universal Fuel wouldn't dare defend the action I could bring. We could get what we pleased for our ten shares to let up on the suit. The moment their lawyers saw the papers I'd draw, they'd advise it."
Tetlow shook his large, impressively molded head.
"Shady," said he. "Shady."
Norman smiled with good-natured patience. "You sound like Burroughs or Galloway when they are denouncing a man for trying to get rich by the same methods they pursued. My dear Bill, don't be one of those lawyers who will do the queer work for a client but not for themselves. There's no sense, no morality, no intelligent hypocrisy even, in that. We didn't create the commercial morality of the present day. For God's sake, let's not be of the poor fools who practice it but get none of its benefits."
Tetlow shifted uneasily. "I don't like to hear that sort of thing," said he, apologetic and nervous.
"Is it true?"
"Yes. But--damn it, I don't like to hear it."
"That is to say, you're willing to pay the price of remaining small and obscure just for the pleasure of indulging in a wretched hypocrisy of a self-deception.
Bill, come out of the small class. Whether you go in with me or not, come out of the class of understrappers.
What's the difference between the big men and their little followers? Why, the big men SEE. They don't deceive themselves with the cant they pour out for the benefit of the ignorant mob."
Tetlow was listening like a pupil to a teacher. That was always his attitude toward Norman.
"The big men," continued Norman, "know that canting is necessary--that one must always profess high and disinterested motives, and so on, and so on.
