CHAPTER XX

A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE

Philip Lambert was rather taken by surprise when Harrison Cressy appeared at the store one day late in August, announcing that he had come to talk business and practically commanding the young man to lunch with him that noon.  It was Saturday and Phil had little time for idle conjecture, but he did wonder every now and then that morning what business Carlotta’s father could possibly have with himself, and if by any chance Carlotta had sent him.

Later, seated in the dining-room of the Eagle Hotel, Dunbury’s one hostelry, it seemed to Phil that his host was distinctly nervous, with considerably less than his usual brusque, dogmatic poise of manner.

Having left soup the waiter shuffled away with the congenital air of discouragement which belongs to his class, and Harrison Cressy got down to business in regard both to the soup and his mission in Dunbury.  He was starting a branch brokerage concern in a small city just out of Boston.  He needed a smart young man to put at the head of it.  The smart young man would get a salary of five thousand a year, plus his commissions to start with.  If he made good the salary would go up in proportion.  In fact the sky would be the limit.  He offered the post to Philip Lambert.

Phil laid down his soup spoon and stared at his companion.  After a moment he remarked that it was rather unusual, to say the least, to offer a salary like that to an utter greenhorn in a business as technical as brokerage, and that he was afraid he was not in the least fitted for the position in question.

“That is my look out,” snapped Mr. Cressy.  “Do I look like a born fool, Philip Lambert?  You don’t suppose I am jumping in the dark do you?  I have gone to some pains to look up your record in college.  I found out you made good no matter what you attempted, on the gridiron, in the classroom, everywhere else.  I’ve been picking men for years and I’ve gone on the principle that a man who makes good in one place will make good in another if he has sufficient incentive.”

“I suppose the five thousand is to be considered in the light of an incentive,” said Phil.

“It is five times the incentive and more than I had when I started out,” grunted his host.  “What more do you want?”

“Nothing.  I don’t want so much.  I couldn’t earn it.  And in any case I cannot consider any change at present.  I have gone in with my father.”

“So I understood.  But that is not a hard and fast arrangement.  A young man like you has to look ahead.  Your father won’t stand in the way of your bettering yourself.”  Harrison Cressy spoke with conviction.  Well he might.  Though Philip had not known it his companion had spent an hour in earnest conversation with his father that morning.  Harrison Cressy knew his ground there.

“Go ahead, Mr. Cressy,” Stewart Lambert had said at the close of the interview.  “You have my full permission to offer the position to the boy and he has my full permission to accept it.  He is free to go tomorrow if he cares to.  If it is for his happiness it is what his mother and I want.”