<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></SPAN>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
<h3><i>Mr. Pagebrook Goes to Work.</i></h3>
<p>When Robert arrived in Philadelphia his first care was to make inquiries
with regard to the bank in which his money was deposited. He learned
that it had suspended payment about one week before, and that its
affairs were in the hands of an assignee. This was all he could find out
on the afternoon of his arrival, and with this he was forced to content
himself until the next day, when he succeeded with some little
difficulty in securing an interview with the assignee. To him he said:
"My only purpose is to ascertain the exact state of the bank's affairs,
in order that I may know what to do."</p>
<p>"That I cannot tell you, sir. The books are still in confusion, and
until they can be straightened out it is impossible to say what the
result will be."</p>
<p>"Tell me, then, are the assets anything like equal to the liabilities?"</p>
<p>"That is exactly what the books must show. I can't say till we get a
statement."</p>
<p>"You can at least tell me then," said Robert, provoked at the man's
reticence, "whether there are any assets at all, or not."</p>
<p>"No, I can make no statement until the books are examined. Then a
complete exhibit of affairs will be made."</p>
<p>"Pardon me," said Robert, "but this question is one of serious moment
to me. You have been examining this bank's affairs for a week, I
believe?"</p>
<p>"Yes, about a week."</p>
<p>"You must have some idea, then, whether or not there is likely to be
anything at all left for depositors, and you will oblige me very much
indeed by giving me your personal opinion on the subject. I understand
how impossible it is to give exact figures; but you cannot have failed
to discover by this time whether or not the assets amount to anything
worth considering, as compared with the amount of the bank's
liabilities. I would like the little information you can give me,
however inexact it may be."</p>
<p>"My dear sir," said the assignee, "I'm afraid you don't understand these
things. Our statement is not ready yet, and I can not possibly tell you
what its nature will be until it is."</p>
<p>"When will it be ready, sir?" asked Robert.</p>
<p>"That I can not say as yet, but it will be forthcoming in due time, sir;
in due time."</p>
<p>"Will it require a week, or a month, or two or three months? You can, at
least, make an approximate estimate of the time necessary for its
preparation."</p>
<p>"Well, no," said the man of business, "I should not like to make any
promises; I am hard at work, and the statement will be ready in due
time, sir; in due time."</p>
<p>Robert left the man's presence thoroughly disgusted. Thinking the matter
over he concluded that the affairs of the bank must be in a very bad
way. Otherwise, he argued, the man would not be so silent on the
subject.</p>
<p>Now the assignee was perfectly right in saying that Robert did not
understand these things. If he had understood them he would have known
that the reticence from which he thus argued the worst, meant just
nothing at all. Business men are not apt to commit themselves
unnecessarily in any case, and especially in such a case as the one
concerning which Robert had been inquiring. The bank might have been
utterly bankrupt or entirely solvent, and that assignee would in either
case have given precisely the same answers to our young friend's
questions. He knew nothing with absolute certainty as yet, and could
know nothing certainly until the last column of figures should be added
up and the final balances struck. Then he could make a statement, but
until then he would say nothing at all. He acted after his kind.
Business is business; and, as a rule, business men know only one way of
doing things.</p>
<p>Robert, however, was not a business man. He knew nothing about these
things, and accordingly, making no allowance for a business habit as one
of the factors in the problem, he proceeded to argue that if the affairs
of the bank were in the least degree hopeful the man would have said so.
As he had carefully and persistently avoided saying anything of the
kind, Robert could only conclude that there was no hope at all to be
entertained.</p>
<p>He quickly determined, therefore, to waste no more time. Abandoning his
sixteen hundred dollars as utterly lost, he packed his valise and went
at once to New York to find work of some kind. How he succeeded we shall
best see from his letter to Cousin Sudie, from which I am allowed to
quote a passage or two.</p>
<p>"I am very busy with some topical articles, as the newspaper folk call
them. That is to say, I am visiting factories of various kinds and
writing detailed accounts of their operations, coupling with the facts
gathered thus, a gossipy account of the origin, history, etc., of the
industry. I find the work very interesting, and it promises to be quite
remunerative too. I fell into it by accident. About a year ago I spent
an evening with a friend, Mr. Dudley, in New York, and while at his
house his seven year old boy showed me some of his toys—little German
contrivances; and I, knowing something about the toys and the people who
make them—you know I made a summer trip through Europe once—fell to
telling him about them. His father was as much interested as he, but the
matter soon passed from my mind. When I came over here a week ago to
look for something to do I visited the office of this paper, hoping that
I should be allowed to do a little reporting or drudgery of some sort
till something better should turn up. Who should I find in the editor's
chair but my friend Dudley. I told him my errand, and his reply was:</p>
<p>"'I haven't a moment now, Pagebrook, but you're the very man I want;
come up and see me this evening. We dine at half-past six, and over our
roast-beef I can explain fully what I mean.'</p>
<p>"I went, as a matter of course, and at dinner Dudley said:</p>
<p>"'Our paper, Pagebrook, is meant to be a kind of American Penny
Magazine. That is to say, we want to fill it full of <i>entertaining</i>
information, partly for the sake of the information but more for the
sake of the entertainment. Now I have tried at least fifty people, in
the hope of finding somebody who could tell, in writing, just such
things as you told our Ben when you were here a year ago. I never
dreamed of getting you to do it, but you're just the man, and about the
only one, too, I begin to think. Now, if you've a mind to do it, I can
keep you busy as long as you like. I don't mean to confine you to this
particular kind of work, but I'd rather have articles of that sort than
any others, and the publishers won't grumble if I pay you twenty dollars
apiece for them. They mustn't exceed two of our columns—say two
thousand words in all—but if you can't tell your story in any
particular instance within those limits, you can make two articles out
of it. I've already told your toy story, but you can easily hunt up
plenty of other things to tell about. Common things are best—things
people see every day but know nothing about.'</p>
<p>"I set to work the next day, and have been busy ever since. I like to
visit factories and learn all the petty details of their operations, and
I find that it is the petty details which go to make the description
interesting. I like the work so well that I almost wish I had no
professorship, so that I might follow as a business this kind of
writing, and some other sorts in which I seem to succeed—for I do not
confine myself to one class of articles, or to one paper either, for
that matter, but am trying my hand at a variety of things, and I find
the work very fascinating. But it is altogether better, I suppose, that
I should retain my position in the college, even if I could be sure of
always finding as good a market as I do just now for my wares, which is
doubtful. I have lost the whole of my little reserve fund—as the bank
seems hopelessly broken; and if I had nothing to depend upon except the
problematic sale of articles, I would do you a wrong to ask you to let
our wedding-day remain fixed. As it is, my salary from the college is
more than sufficient for our support, and as my expenses from now until
the time appointed will be very small indeed, I shall have several
hundred dollars accumulated by that time; wherefore if Uncle Carter does
not object, pray let our plans remain undisturbed, will you not, Sudie?"</p>
<p>The rest of this letter, which is a very long one, is not only personal
in its character, but is also of a strictly private nature; and while I
am free to copy here so much of this and other letters in my possession
as will aid me in the telling of my story, I do not feel myself at
liberty to let the reader into the sacred inner chambers of a
correspondence with which we have properly no concern, except as it
helps us to the understanding of this history.</p>
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