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Updated: May 6, 2025
Ford did not stop there, he did not expect Starratt to take his word for anything. He reached for a pencil and pad and he went into a mathematic demonstration to show just how near the edge of financial disaster the firm of Ford, Wetherbee & Co. had been pushed. Starratt could not doubt the figures, and yet his eyes traveled instinctively to the bag of golf sticks in a convenient corner.
Wetherbee compared the signature on the check with genuine signatures in the bank, and returned it to Short without any intimation that he regarded it as irregular, but assigning as the reason the defect in the indorsement.
Then he would crawl slowly out from the warm bedclothes and stretch himself comfortably and give a sudden dash for the bathroom and his cold plunge. There would follow breakfast and the walk over the hill down to the office of Ford, Wetherbee & Co. in a mist-golden morning. And he would hear again the exchange of greetings, and find himself replying to the inevitable question: "Well, what's new?"
They had to put a good deposit down on the office furniture, and the rent was, of course, payable in advance. Then came the fee for joining the Broker's Exchange, and he had to borrow money for his personal expenses in the face of his diminished salary check from Ford, Wetherbee & Co. He realized, too, that the difficulties would scarcely decrease, even in the face of brisk business.
There were bound to be other demands before the first of the month, and the hard-fisted cashier of Ford, Wetherbee & Co. seemed to grow more and more crusty over drafts against the salary account. If one caught him in a good humor it was all right. Usually a risqué story was the safest road to geniality. Starratt raked his brains for a new one, to no purpose.
Jem Belter, who "hammered" a typewriter at Schwab's Brewery, Tom Wetherbee, who was "in a downtown office," Bert Johnson, who was "out for the Delkoff," and Nick Baumgarten, who having for some time "beaten" certain streets as assistant salesman for the same illustrious machine, had been recently elevated to a "territory" of his own, and was therefore in high spirits. "Say!" he said.
And it was Miss Vanderpoel who saw me first lying on the ground. And I was in Stornham Court where Lady Anstruthers lives and she used to be Miss Rosalie Vanderpoel." "Boys," said Bert Johnson, with friendly disgust, "he's been up to his neck in 'em." "Cheer up. The worst is yet to come," chaffed Tom Wetherbee.
Why didn't he go around to the office of Ford, Wetherbee & Co. and beat up his nasty little ex-partner? Why didn't he meet Kendrick's gumshoe activities with equal stealth? It should have been possible to snare Kendrick if one had the guts.
He saw himself as he might have been, going on to the end of time in the service of Ford, Wetherbee & Co., rising from map clerk to counter man, to special agent, perhaps even to a managership, writing sharp or conciliatory letters to agents according to their importance, trimming office expense and shaving salaries, heckling green office boys, and, his workday ended, going home to The Literary Digest and Helen, fresh from the triumphs of the golf links or the card table.
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.
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