his temples and forehead, and his eyes, which Clyde, from the moment he had opened the door had felt drilling him, were of a clear, liquid, grayish-green blue. He had on a pair of large horn-rimmed glasses which he wore at his desk only, and the eyes that peered through them went over Clyde swiftly and notatively, from his shoes to the round brown felt hat which he carried in his hand.
“You’re my cousin, I believe,” he commented, rather icily, as Clyde came forward and stopped – a thin and certainly not very favorable smile playing about his lips.
“Yes, I am,” replied Clyde, reduced and confused by this calm and rather freezing reception. On the instant, as he now saw, he could not possibly have the same regard and esteem for this cousin, as he could and did have for his uncle, whose very great ability had erected this important industry. Rather, deep down in himself he felt that this young man, an heir and nothing more to this great industry, was taking to himself airs and superiorities which, but for his father’s skill before him, would not have been possible.
At the same time so groundless and insignificant were his claims to any consideration here, and so grateful was he for anything that might be done for him, that he felt heavily obligated already and tried to smile his best and most ingratiating smile. Yet Gilbert Griffiths at once appeared to take this as a bit of presumption which ought not to be tolerated in a mere cousin, and particularly one who was seeking a favor of him and his father.
However, since his father had troubled to interest himself in him and had given him no alternative, he continued his wry smile and mental examination, the while he said: “We thought you would be showing up to-day or to-morrow. Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“Oh, yes, very,” replied Clyde, a little confused by this inquiry.
“So you think you’d like to learn something about the manufacture of collars, do you?” Tone and manner were infiltrated by the utmost condescension.
“I would certainly like to learn something that would give me a chance to work up, have some future in it,” replied Clyde, genially and with a desire to placate his young cousin as much as possible.
“Well, my father was telling me of his talk with you in Chicago. From what he told me I gather that you haven’t had much practical experience of any kind. You don’t know how to keep books, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” replied Clyde a little regretfully.
“And you’re not a stenographer or anything like that?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
Most sharply, as Clyde said this, he felt that he was dreadfully lacking in every training. And now Gilbert Griffiths looked at him as though he were rather a hopeless proposition indeed from the viewpoint of this concern.
“Well, the best thing to do with you, I think,” he went on, as though before this his father had not indicated to him exactly what was to be done in this case, “is to start you in the shrinking room. That’s where the manufacturing end of this business begins, and you might as well be learning that from the ground up. Afterwards, when we see how you do down there, we can tell a little better what to do with you. If you had any office training it might be possible to use you up here.” (Clyde’s face fell at this and Gilbert noticed it. It pleased him.) “But it’s just as well to learn the practical side of the business, whatever you do,” he added rather coldly, not that he desired to comfort Clyde any but merely to be saying it as a fact. And seeing that Clyde said nothing, he continued: “The best thing, I presume, before you try to do anything around here is for you to get settled somewhere. You haven’t taken a room anywhere yet, have you?”
“No, I just came in on the noon train,” replied Clyde. “I was a little dirty and so I just went up to the hotel to brush up a little. I thought I’d look for a place afterwards.”
“Well, that’s right. Only don’t look for any place. I’ll have our superintendent see that you’re directed to a good boarding house. He knows more about the town than you do.” His thought here was that after all Clyde was a full cousin and that it wouldn’t do to have him live just anywhere. At the same time, he was greatly concerned lest Clyde get the notion that the family was very much concerned as to where he did live, which most certainly it was NOT, as he saw it. His final feeling was that he could easily place and control Clyde in such a way as to make him not very important to any one in any way – his father, the family, all the people who worked here.
He reached for a button on his desk and pressed it. A trim girl, very severe and reserved in a green gingham dress, appeared.
“Ask Mr. Whiggam to come here.”
She disappeared and presently there entered a medium-sized and nervous, yet moderately stout, man who looked as though he were under a great strain. He was about forty years of age – repressed and noncommittal – and looked curiously and suspiciously about as though wondering what new trouble impended. His head, as Clyde at once noticed, appeared chronically to incline forward, while at the same time he lifted his eyes as though actually he would prefer not to look up.
“Whiggam,” began young Griffiths authoritatively, “this is Clyde Griffiths, a cousin of ours. You remember I spoke to you about him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, he’s to be put in the shrinking department for the present. You can show him what he’s to do. Afterwards you had better have Mrs. Braley show him where he can get a room.” (All this had been talked over and fixed upon the week before by Gilbert and Whiggam, but now he gave it the ring of an original suggestion.) “And you’d better give his name in to the timekeeper as beginning to-morrow morning, see?”
“Yes, sir,” bowed Whiggam deferentially. “Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all,” concluded Gilbert smartly. “You go with Whiggam, Mr. Griffiths. He’ll tell you what to do.”
Whiggam turned. “If you’ll just come with me, Mr. Griffiths,” he observed deferentially, as Clyde could see – and that for all of his cousin’s apparently condescending attitude – and marched out with Clyde at his heels. And young Gilbert as briskly turned to his own desk, but at the same time shaking his head. His feeling at the moment was that mentally Clyde was not above a good bell-boy in a city hotel probably. Else why should he come on here in this way. “I wonder what he thinks he’s going to do here,” he continued to think, “where he thinks he’s going to get?”
And Clyde, as he followed Mr. Whiggam, was thinking what a wonderful place Mr. Gilbert Griffiths enjoyed. No doubt he came and went as he chose – arrived at the office late, departed early, and somewhere in this very interesting city dwelt with his parents and sisters in a very fine house – of course. And yet here he was – Gilbert’s own cousin, and the nephew of his wealthy uncle, being escorted to work in a very minor department of this great concern.
Nevertheless, once they were out of the sight and hearing of Mr. Gilbert Griffiths, he was somewhat diverted from this mood by the sights and sounds of the great manufactory itself. For here on this very same floor, but beyond the immense office room through which he had passed, was another much larger room filled with rows of bins, facing aisles not more than five feet wide, and containing, as Clyde could see, enormous quantities of collars boxed in small paper boxes, according to sizes. These bins were either being refilled by stock boys who brought more boxed collars from the boxing room in large wooden trucks, or were being as rapidly emptied by order clerks who, trundling small box trucks in front of them, were filling orders from duplicate check lists which they carried in their hands.
“Never worked in a collar factory before, Mr. Griffiths, I presume?”
