AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY. Theodore Dreiser
excited, exclaimed, “Well, by jing, if it ain’t Tom. Whaddya know? You working here?”
Ratterer, who (like Clyde) had for the moment quite forgotten the troublesome secret which lay between them, added: “That’s right. Surest thing you know. Been here for nearly a year, now.” Then with a sudden pull at Clyde’s arm, as much as to say, “Silence!” he drew Clyde to one side, out of the hearing of the youth to whom he had been talking as Clyde came in, and added: “Ssh! I’m working here under my own name, but I’d rather not let ’em know I’m from K. C., see. I’m supposed to be from Cleveland.”
And with that he once more pressed Clyde’s arm genially and looked him over. And Clyde, equally moved, added: “Sure. That’s all right. I’m glad you were able to connect. My name’s Tenet, Harry Tenet. Don’t forget that.” And both were radiantly happy because of old times’ sake.
But Ratterer, noticing Clyde’s delivery uniform, observed: “Driving a delivery, eh? Gee, that’s funny. You driving a delivery. Imagine. That kills me. What do you want to do that for?” Then seeing from Clyde’s expression that his reference to his present position might not be the most pleasing thing in the world, since Clyde at once observed: “Well, I’ve been up against it, sorta,” he added: “But say, I want to see you. Where are you living?” (Clyde told him.) “That’s all right. I get off here at six. Why not drop around after you’re through work. Or, I’ll tell you — suppose we meet at — well, how about Henrici’s on Randolph Street? Is that all right? At seven, say. I get off at six and I can be over there by then if you can.”
Clyde, who was happy to the point of ecstasy in meeting Ratterer again, nodded a cheerful assent.
He boarded his wagon and continued his deliveries, yet for the rest of the afternoon his mind was on this approaching meeting with Ratterer. And at five-thirty he hurried to his barn and then to his boarding house on the west side, where he donned his street clothes, then hastened to Henrici’s. He had not been standing on the corner a minute before Ratterer appeared, very genial and friendly and dressed, if anything, more neatly than ever.
“Gee, it’s good to have a look at you, old socks!” he began. “Do you know you’re the only one of that bunch that I’ve seen since I left K. C.? That’s right. My sister wrote me after we left home that no one seemed to know what became of either Higby or Heggie, or you, either. They sent that fellow Sparser up for a year — did you hear that? Tough, eh? But not so much for killing the little girl, but for taking the car and running it without a license and not stopping when signaled. That’s what they got him for. But say,”— he lowered his voice most significantly at this point — “we’da got that if they’d got us. Oh, gee, I was scared. And run?” And once more he began to laugh, but rather hysterically at that. “What a wallop, eh? An’ us leavin’ him and that girl in the car. Oh, say. Tough, what? Just what else could a fellow do, though? No need of all of us going up, eh? What was her name? Laura Sipe. An’ you cut out before I saw you, even. And that little Briggs girl of yours did, too. Did you go home with her?”
Clyde shook his head negatively.
“I should say I didn’t,” he exclaimed.
“Well, where did you go then?” he asked.
Clyde told him. And after he had set forth a full picture of his own wayfarings, Ratterer returned with: “Gee, you didn’t know that that little Briggs girl left with a guy from out there for New York right after that, did you? Some fellow who worked in a cigar store, so Louise told me. She saw her afterwards just before she left with a new fur coat and all.” (Clyde winced sadly.) “Gee, but you were a sucker to fool around with her. She didn’t care for you or nobody. But you was pretty much gone on her, I guess, eh?” And he grinned at Clyde amusedly, and chucked him under the arm, in his old teasing way.
But in regard to himself, he proceeded to unfold a tale of only modest adventure, which was very different from the one Clyde had narrated, a tale which had less of nerves and worry and more of a sturdy courage and faith in his own luck and possibilities. And finally he had “caught on” to this, because, as he phrased it, “you can always get something in Chi.”
And here he had been ever since —“very quiet, of course,” but no one had ever said a word to him.
And forthwith, he began to explain that just at present there wasn’t anything in the Union League, but that he would talk to Mr. Haley who was superintendent of the club — and that if Clyde wanted to, and Mr. Haley knew of anything, he would try and find out if there was an opening anywhere, or likely to be, and if so, Clyde could slip into it.
“But can that worry stuff,” he said to Clyde toward the end of the evening. “It don’t get you nothing.”
And then only two days after this most encouraging conversation, and while Clyde was still debating whether he would resign his job, resume his true name and canvass the various hotels in search of work, a note came to his room, brought by one of the bell-boys of the Union League which read: “See Mr. Lightall at the Great Northern before noon to-morrow. There’s a vacancy over there. It ain’t the very best, but it’ll get you something better later.”
And accordingly Clyde, after telephoning his department manager that he was ill and would not be able to work that day, made his way to this hotel in his very best clothes. And on the strength of what references he could give, was allowed to go to work; and much to his relief under his own name. Also, to his gratification, his salary was fixed at twenty dollars a month, meals included. But the tips, as he now learned, aggregated not more than ten a week — yet that, counting meals was far more than he was now getting as he comforted himself; and so much easier work, even if it did take him back into the old line, where he still feared to be seen and arrested.
It was not so very long after this — not more than three months — before a vacancy occurred in the Union League staff. Ratterer, having some time before established himself as day assistant to the club staff captain, and being on good terms with him, was able to say to the latter that he knew exactly the man for the place — Clyde Griffiths — then employed at the Great Northern. And accordingly, Clyde was sent for, and being carefully coached beforehand by Ratterer as to how to approach his new superior, and what to say, he was given the place.
And here, very different from the Great Northern and superior from a social and material point of view, as Clyde saw it, to even the Green–Davidson, he was able once more to view at close range a type of life that most affected, unfortunately, his bump of position and distinction. For to this club from day to day came or went such a company of seemingly mentally and socially worldly elect as he had never seen anywhere before, the self-integrated and self-centered from not only all of the states of his native land but from all countries and continents. American politicians from the north, south, east, west — the principal politicians and bosses, or alleged statesmen of their particular regions — surgeons, scientists, arrived physicians, generals, literary and social figures, not only from America but from the world over.
Here also, a fact which impressed and even startled his sense of curiosity and awe, even — there was no faintest trace of that sex element which had characterized most of the phases of life to be seen in the Green–Davidson, and more recently the Great Northern. In fact, in so far as he could remember, had seemed to run through and motivate nearly, if not quite all of the phases of life that he had thus far contacted. But here was no sex — no trace of it. No women were admitted to this club. These various distinguished individuals came and went, singly as a rule, and with the noiseless vigor and reserve that characterizes the ultra successful. They often ate alone, conferred in pairs and groups, noiselessly — read their papers or books, or went here and there in swiftly driven automobiles — but for the most part seemed to be unaware of, or at least unaffected by, that element of passion, which, to his immature mind up to this time, had seemed to propel and disarrange so many things in those lesser worlds with which up to now he had been identified.
Probably one could not attain to or retain one’s place in so remarkable a world as this unless one were indifferent to sex, a disgraceful passion, of course. And hence in the presence or under the eyes of such people one had to act and seem as