What it did not do was furnish any knowledge of stock-brokery, and all my efforts came to nothing.
Nothing, that is, until the great English firm of Mawson and Williams’s entered into a rather heated, rather public feud with Coxon & Woodhouse’s. The day after that happy, happy day I received a letter from Mawson and Williams’s managing director. Now I’d never met the man, but I had written to inquire after employment. He said he regretted how hard he’d laughed at my letter when he first received it. (Apparently, it was clear I was not qualified for the position in question.) But present relations being what they were between the two companies, perhaps I might be a fine fit in the capacity of an entry-level stockbroker’s clerk—so long as I thought I might have one or two scandalous secrets regarding Coxon & Woodhouse’s dealings and a steadfast realization that I certainly did not owe them any favors. He offered me four pounds a week! Now, I’d no idea how much money that was, but he seemed very impressed by his own offer, so I decided to be impressed, too.
Oh, dear journal, let me tell you: I was over the moon! I rushed to Mary to share the good news. Then I told everybody at the employment agency and everyone at the local pub and everyone I passed on the street of my great fortune! I rather hoped this might help my household staff feel more comfortable in my presence. They had been treating me rather oddly of late—avoiding me as if there were something wrong with me, or I was a sick man. But what of that? It is perhaps natural for them to quail from their master’s fury, as hyenas who skulk into the shadowed bushes when the lion roars!
I thought I could not be happier. And yet—wonder stacked upon wonder!—it was only a few hours later that my fortunes redoubled! You see, that night I had a caller. I had many callers in those days. Strangers, usually, who insisted that they were patients of mine, somehow, and that I was supposed to be giving them medical treatments of some kind. Well, I always shouted that I did not care for this strange prank the whole neighborhood seemed to have agreed upon, and that they must go away. I was prepared to do the same to this latest visitor, but he insisted he was here on a different business entirely.
His name was Arthur Pinner, financial agent—a middle- sized, dark-haired, dark-eyed, black-bearded man. His second tooth on the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with gold. He had a brisk kind of way with him and spoke sharply, like a man who knew the value of time. I was just about to explain to him that I was not a doctor, nor was my name John Watson, even though all the cards in my wallet and the plaque on my door said so—due to some strange misprint, the nature of which eluded me entirely.
But he said, “No, no! I am here for Mr. Hall Pycroft. Are you not he?”
And I heaved a huge sigh of relief and said I was.
And he said, “The truth is I have heard of you. Do you remember Parker, who used to be Coxon’s manager?”
And I said, “Yes. I believe he’s the fellow who pushed me out the window when I tried to reclaim my desk from the stranger I found there.”
And he said, “Well that’s funny, because he speaks very highly of you.”
Ah, how happy I was that he had repented of all those rather ungenerous things he shouted at me as I lay in the dirt outside that window. One can never have too much faith in humanity! We are wonderous in our capacity to grow and forgive—second only to the divine.
Apparently, Mr. Pinner had heard of me and had come to the opinion that he might have an even better job for me than Mawson and Williams’s! He asked if I’d been keeping up with the market while out of work and I began to sweat a little and said of course! Of course, of course, of course, of course, of course! Why wouldn’t I? Ha, ha! I knew what was coming next: he was going to ask me the horrible kind of questions that had doomed all my previous interviews. And sure enough, he asked me, “How are Ayrshires?”
Now that doesn’t seem like any kind of proper sentence, does it? I didn’t know the answer. But I did know what the answer should sound like, so I told him, “Oh, twenty-five or six to four.”
And he asked me, “And New Zealand consolidated?”
And I said, “867–5,309.”
And he smiled at me and said I was perfect. “You see, Mr. Pycroft, I represent Franco-Midland Hardware Company Limited, with 134 branches in the towns and villages of France, not counting one in Brussels and one in San Remo. We are preparing to expand our trade, but we require a new business manager. From what I can tell, you are the perfect candidate.”
I thanked him, but told him I could not possibly accept. After all, I had just received a generous offer from Mawson and Williams’s and did not wish to appear the sort of fellow who has no gratitude. But Mr. Pinner waved that concern off and asked if they could match a salary of 500 pounds a year, with commissions on
