The Fortune Hunter by Vance, Louis Joseph, 1879-1933

Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and confidence.

"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened his expression and made it quite engaging.

"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just get in, Duncan?"

"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."

There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got me--overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."

"You haven't wasted time."

"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."

Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"

"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired me to come home that you wanted my advice."

A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly surprised out of his pose. "_Your_ advice!..."

"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."

"Well...." Spaulding admitted.

"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been sending you."

"You've had bad luck...."

"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who could earn them."

His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection, distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding. His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something, given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.

"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"

"I thought you knew that; I thought that was why you called me in with my route half-covered."

"You mean--?"

"I mean I can't sell your line."

"Why?"

"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general incompetence, I presume."

"What makes you think that?"

Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.

"You've tried--what else?"

"A little of everything--all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk, time-keeper, cashier--all of 'em."

"And yet Kellogg believes in you."

Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at college. That's why he stands for me."

"He says you only need the right opening--."