Part 21 (1/2)

”I noticed Benson's as I came by, and I see now the force of what you say about window display. I'm not sure I can tell what was in their windows.”

”Nor anybody else,” declared the druggist, chuckling, ”unless he went with a notebook and made an inventory. Since the old man died last year the windows have been a hodgepodge of stuff that attracts n.o.body. It's merely an index to the way the place is running behind. Young Benson doesn't know how to buy nor how to sell; he'll never succeed. The store began to go down when the old man got too feeble to take the whole responsibility. Hugh began to overstock some departments and understock others. It's not so much lack of capital that'll be responsible for Hugh's failure when it comes--and I guess it's not far off--as it is lack of business experience. Why, he's got so little trade he's turned off half his salespeople; and you know that talks!”

It did indeed. It talked louder now in the light of the druggist's shrewd commentaries than it had when Benson had spoken of his ”short force.” Richard wondered just how short it was, that the proprietor could not venture to leave for even a few hours.

He drove on thoughtfully. He wanted to go back and look those windows over again, wanted to go through the whole store, but recognized that though he could have done this when he first arrived, he could not go back and do it now without exciting his friend's suspicion that sympathy was his motive.

He turned about at a point far short of the one he had intended to reach, and made record time back to the city, impelled by an odd wish he could hardly explain, to go by the windows of the great department stores of Kendrick & Company and examine their window displays. Since he was ordinarily accustomed to select any other streets than those upon which these magnificent places of custom were situated, merely because he not only had no interest in them but a positive distaste for seeing his own name emblazoned--though ever so chastely--above their princely portals, it may be understood that an entirely new idea was working in his brain.

Speed as he would, however, running the risk as he approached the city streets of being stopped by some watchful authority for exceeding the limits, he could not get back to the broad avenue upon which the stores stood before six o'clock. There was all the better chance on that account, nevertheless, for examining the windows before which belated shoppers were still stopping to wonder and admire.

Well, looking at them with Benson's forlorn windows in his mind as a foil, he saw them as he never had before. What beauty, what originality, what art they showed! And at a time of year when, the holiday season past, it might seem as if there could be no real summons for anybody to go shopping. They were fairly dazzling, some of them, although many of them showed only white goods. His car came to a standstill before one great plate-gla.s.s frame behind which was a representation of a sewing-room with several people busily at work. So perfect were the figures that it hardly seemed as if they could be of wax. One pretty girl was sewing at a machine; another, on her knees, was fitting a frock to a little girl who laughed over her shoulder at a second child who was looking on. The mother of the family sewed by a drop-light on a work-table. The whole scene was really charming, combining precisely the element of domesticity with that of accomplishment which strikes the eye of the average pa.s.ser as ”looking like home,” no matter of what sort the home might be.

”By heavens! if poor Ben had something like that people wouldn't pa.s.s him by for the blanket store,” he said to himself; and drove on, still thinking.

The next day, at an hour before the morning tide of shopping at Kendrick & Company's had reached the flood, two pretty glove clerks were suddenly tempted into a furtive exchange of conversation at an unoccupied end of their counter.

”Look quick! See the young man coming this way? It's Rich Kendrick.”

”It is? They told me he never came here. Say, but he's the real thing!”

”I should say. Never saw him so close myself. Wish he'd stop here.”

”Bet you couldn't keep your head if he spoke to you!”

”Bet I could! Don't you worry; he don't buy his gloves in his own department store. He--”

”s.h.!.+ Granger's looking!”

There was really nothing about Richard Kendrick to attract attention except his wholesome good looks, for he dressed with exceptional quietness, and his manner matched his clothes. A floorwalker recognized him and bowed, but the elevator man did not know him, and on his way to the offices he pa.s.sed only one clerk who could lay claim to a speaking acquaintance with the grandson of the owner.

But at the office of the general manager he was met by an office boy who knew and wors.h.i.+pped him from afar, and in five minutes he was closeted with that official, who gave him his whole attention.

”Mr. Henderson, I wish you could give me”--was the substance of Richard's remarks--”somebody who would go up to Eastman with me and tell me what's the matter with a dry-goods store there that's on the verge of failure.”

The general manager was, to put it mildly, astonished. He was a mighty man of valour himself, so mighty that his yearly salary would have been to the average American citizen a small fortune. The office was one to fill which similar houses had often scoured the country without avail.

Other business owners had been forced to remain at the helm long after health and happiness demanded retirement. Among these, Henderson was held to be so competent a man that Matthew Kendrick was considered incredibly lucky to keep his hold upon him.

To Matthew Kendrick's grandson Henderson put a number of pertinent inquiries concerning the store in question which Richard found he could not intelligently answer. He flushed a little under the fire.

”I suppose you think I might have investigated a bit for myself,” said he. ”But that's just what I don't want to do. I want to send a man up there whom the owner doesn't know; then we can get at things without giving ourselves away.”

The general manager inferred from this that philanthropy, not business interest, was at the bottom of young Kendrick's quest and his surprise vanished. The young man was known as kind-hearted and generous; he was undoubtedly merely carrying out a careless impulse, though he certainly seemed much in earnest in the doing of it.

”You might take Carson, a.s.sistant buyer for the dress-goods department, with you,” suggested Henderson after a little consideration. ”He could probably give you a day just now. Alger, his head, is back from London this week. Carson's a bright man--in line for promotion. He'll put his finger on the trouble without hesitation--if it lies in the lack of business experience, buying and selling, as you say. I'll send for him.”

In two minutes Richard Kendrick and Alfred Carson were face to face, and an appointment had been made for the following day. Richard took a liking to the a.s.sistant buyer on the spot. He felt as if he were selecting a competent physician for his friend, and was glad to send him a man whose personality was both prepossessing and inspiring of confidence.

As for Carson, it was an interesting experience for him, too. He thoroughly enjoyed the seventy-mile drive at the side of the young millionaire, who sent his powerful car flying over the frozen roads at a pace which made his pa.s.senger's face sting. Carson was more accustomed to travel in subways and sleeping-cars than by long motor drives, and by the time Eastman was reached he was glad that the return drive would be preceded by a hot luncheon.

”We won't go past the store,” Richard explained, making a detour from the main street of the town, regardless of the fact that he forsook a good road for a poor one. ”I don't want him to see me to-day.”