The Girl and the Game and Other College Stories/The Man in the Window
THE MAN IN THE WINDOW
THE MAN IN THE WINDOW
"What good did my college athletics ever do me?" thought Will Young, bitterly, as he stepped out into busy Broadway again, after applying for the fifth time that afternoon for work—and in vain.
He had caught sight of Madison Square; it reminded him of the night after the great Thanksgiving-day football game nearly a year ago—the last of his college course—and of how he had been one of those that were cheered and pointed out and stared at. The fellows had exultingly made up songs about "Deacon Young" that night; reporters had interviewed him; men and women had turned to gaze at him as he passed by, and now, near the same spot, he was hungry, and wondering whether to get one square meal with his last fifty cents or divide it up for several small lunches.
"There's the Fifth Avenue Hotel," he said to himself. "That's where the four-in-hands used to start from for the game, with the horns blowing and colors flying." His heart gave a bound of homesickness for the old, bright days that seemed long ago.
"But what good did my athletics ever do me," he asked himself again, "except give me a large appetite, which I can't earn money enough to satisfy?"
In fact, athletics had developed his physical powers, taught him to control his temper, to obey, to command, to rely upon himself, to work in concert with others, besides bringing him a good deal of prominence and popularity, pleasant things to a young man. But none of this is worth thanking athletics for when you are hungry and have but half a dollar between you and destitution in a great, noisy city, where every one else seems to have something to do and somewhere to go, and to care absolutely nothing what becomes of the one they brush past and idly glance at.
"What a fool I was," he muttered, "to leave a sure, small thing in a small town for an uncertain, big thing in a big city! It serves me right. I suppose I thought I was too good for the country. I am a fool! Well, now try Harvey & Harris, wholesale and retail books."
Will Young was ambitious, but he was not exactly a fool. He had come on to New York "to accept," his mother and the county paper out in Illinois said "a responsible position in a manufacturing firm in New York, N. Y."
It was at the instigation of a college classmate, who had been enthusiastic over a new company for the manufacture of paper-covered lead-pencils, but had not discovered that the process was already covered by a patent. That is, not until after Young had come East. Then the company went up in smoke, and the classmate went abroad with his wealthy parents, and Will Young was left alone in New York, with the alternative of going home humiliated or of finding something else to do.
For a week he had been pacing the streets of the great, selfish city, looking first for a "profitable position," and finally for a "job" with which to support life. Yesterday he had broken his last dollar. Of this he had spent fifteen cents for a bed in a miserable place in the Bowery, and had been kept awake all night by a man in the next room with delirium tremens.
Now he walked in at Harvey & Harris's. He had a letter of introduction to the firm, but he hated to present it, for it seemed like a "pull," and he wanted to go through life on his own merits, he told himself, or else not go. That was the reason he had put this off as a last resort. He walked to the office in the rear of the great store.
"Whom do you wish to see?" asked a dapper little salesman, eying Young's big shape and dusty shoes superciliously.
Young was tired and cross. "Your employer," he answered curtly.
"You do, eh? What do you want to see him about?" The little man was annoyed.
"That concerns him and me."
The little man tried to smile sarcastically. "Well, he's engaged at present. You'd better call again."
"I will not call again. You will take this to a member of the firm, or to the manager." Young held out the letter of introduction.
The other hesitated a moment, and then took it into the private office. In a few minutes he returned, saying politely, "Step this way, sir."
Young looked Mr. Harris straight in the eyes, and told him he wanted to work in his house.
Now Mr. Harris was very kind, and even walked to the door with him to say good-by, and explained how sorry he was he had no vacancies at present. It all took about five minutes.
"Well," thought Young, "if I had told him my hard-luck story, he might have offered me a dollar calling it a loan for the sake of my feelings, but he would have been still less likely to offer me a job. Business men don't take on people because they are sorry for them, but because they want help. I don't propose to let anybody give me money. All I want is a chance to earn it. Now, which way shall I turn, up or down Broadway? It doesn't seem to make much difference." He walked up Broadway.
"This is making a tremendous appetite!" he thought, smiling grimly.
It was Saturday evening, and it was just six o'clock. All New York seemed to be merrily hurrying home. Young looked at the faces. He thought their owners did not seem to realize how contented they ought to be.
"Hello, there's Howard Lansing!" Young turned up his coat-collar and pulled down his hat; but Lansing did not even see him as it happened.
"I don't feel like meeting any more class-mates," Young explained to himself.
When he first arrived, it had given him a great deal of pleasure to see the fellows again. Counting those who were at the various law and medical schools, there were about fifty of the class in New York. But after the company went up, he began to avoid them. He hated defeat. He hated still more to be chaffed about defeat by fun-loving classmates.
Likewise he had avoided telling his story to older graduates. During his football days he had become well acquainted with some of the New York alumni, who coached the eleven. One of these he knew well; but Young did not feel like going to his nice, hard-wood office and bothering him.
"I'm not a football player now," he explained to himself. "I'm a poor young man from the country. Oh, it's all very fine being an athlete when you're in college, but it doesn't count you much when you get out and try to earn a living." He kept repeating this bitterly. He was getting desperate.
"I wish some of those horses would run away, or something happen so I could rush in and do something. What if I should get killed? I shouldn't be hungry then."
He was passing brightly lighted restaurants, and well-fed New Yorkers were already getting out of cabs and walking comfortably in and sitting comfortably down, and comfortably wondering whether to order thick soup or clear.
"Why should they have everything?" he thought. "I know how it feels to be an anarchist now. I don't blame them. Oh, you well-dressed people, if you knew what it means to be in want of food!'
Then he turned abruptly about, retraced his steps a few blocks until he came to Twenty-eighth Street, near where he had seen several illuminated signs, "Table d'hôte dinner, 6 courses, 50 cents." He chose the smallest of the places, arguing that as the proprietor paid less rent, he could afford to give more dinner.
Young dropped into a chair. "Serve me quickly," he said to the waiter. "I'm—rather hungry." Then he added to himself, "I'll have one square meal anyway." He took out his half-dollar and looked at it. "Then after that, well, there are the two rivers—" Then he stopped and thought for a moment of his mother out home on the farm; then he said, half aloud, "Rot! Nonsense! I have really no such thought. I'm just blue, and I need something to eat. That's all." Just then the waiter brought a dish of hot soup, and Young began.
"Why, I feel better already!" he said to himself in amazement. "I must brace up. I'm all right! I'll find something to do yet. I'm having an interesting experience in the great city. I'll find something to do yet. I haven't a cent to my name now, but I'll find something to do yet." So he kept telling himself all through the six courses.
"Now I'm going to see what all the crowd are looking at in that window." He had spent a long time over his dinner, and now he was on his way up Broadway again. He drew nearer the window. "Well," he said to himself, "that fellow is putting his athletic shape to some practical use!"
There was a large, overhanging window on the second story. It reached all the way to the floor, and just inside of it, with incandescent lights arranged so as to shine upon his bare arms, was a young man of about Will's own age going through a series of exercises with pulley weights. It was an advertisement of a new kind of exerciser.
Every one passing by looked up, and some stopped and made remarks. Young watched him for a moment, and then turned and looked at the people's faces as they passed by. He waited there for some time. Suddenly he went inside and ran upstairs.
"Well, sir, what can we do for you?" asked a glib man, coming forward.
"I was just going to ask you," said Young, "about that chest-weight business."
"Yes, sir. Well, we have them at all prices and sizes. Now, you would want"
"Excuse me," said Young, "but I don't believe I need them. My appetite is too good already, and I have more muscle than I know what to do with. What I wanted was to see if you didn't need another man to pull the weights in the window. That fellow must get tired sometimes, doesn't he?"
The other had brightened up at this suggestion, then looked doubtful. "I don't believe you have the requirements," he said. "You see we have to have men with a great deal of development, or the advertisement is—no advertisement."
"I guess we can arrange about that all right." answered Young, smiling. "Do you need an extra man—that is the question." Young had a pretty good opinion of his own muscles.
"Let's see your arm," asked the other.
Young's heart began to beat hard at the prospect of a job at last, and slipping off his coat, he rolled up his sleeve.
"Say, you have a biceps!" said the man, taking hold of it with both hands. "Hard, too. Now turn it back and let's see your triceps. Now your shoulder muscles. I see you have a chest. Oh, I believe you'll do! Wait a minute."
He walked back to a desk where an older man was writing and whispered, "Say, I've got just the man we're looking for. Come and look him over."
The older man came and looked at Young's muscles and said, "Humph!" which did not discourage Will, because he was somewhat of a business man himself.
"Well, what are those muscles worth to you?" said Young.
"Well," began the other, "we should only want you in the evening. This fellow works all the afternoon, with rests. How much would you expect?"
"To stand in that window and make a monkey of myself I should say was worth about a dollar an hour."
"Oh, say! we'll give you twenty-five cents an hour."
Young was eager to take it but this was business. "See here," he said, "that other man is all right, but my muscles are better, and my skin is healthier. Besides, my face is, with all due respect to him, more—well, educated-looking. You'll have to give me more than twenty-five cents an hour for a job like that." And they finally compromised on forty-five cents.
"When can you begin?"
"Now."
"All right, I'll get you a suit."
Then it occurred to Young, as if for the first time, what he was about to do.
"What if some one sees me?" he said to himself, with a shudder. "I wouldn't mind so much out home; they haven't the same way of looking at things; but here, these rich New Yorkers—but I've got to live."
In five minutes William Young was standing in the garish light of many incandescent lamps, pulling weights and trying not to see the faces in the passing crowd.
"I only hope," he thought, "that no one passes who knows me." He went on pulling, his muscles twinkling up and down his arms. He was not a bad sight up there in that window. The crowd was greater now. "Say, look at the shoulders on that chap in the window!" they said to one another.
"He's a good one," chuckled the manager to his assistant.
"This reminds me," Young was thinking, "of the old gymnasium in early spring term when they began to limber up the football squad. But this is for money," he smiled. "I suppose I'm a professional athlete now."
He was trying to keep up his courage with humor, but every time he looked down at the faces below he shuddered. "I suppose they are examining my points," he said to himself.
"Ugh! Watch 'em grinning at me as if I were an elephant in a cage—who's that?" He had seen one face that he thought he recognized. The owner of it, when he caught his eye, turned and hurried off. He felt himself blushing, even on his bare arms. It was because he was angry. Young told himself, not ashamed. "I wonder if that was Lansing again! But he need not have skipped out. I wasn't going to speak to him—the snob!" But after that he kept his face turned from the crowd as much as he could.
It was now well on in the evening. The theatres were all out. The sidewalks were crowded with the metropolitan midnight procession. It would soon be time to stop. Young thought he would enjoy his bed. "I hope I have afforded amusement for you New Yorkers." Just then he was startled by an old familiar sound. From the crowded pavement below came in loud, clear tones: "'Ray! 'ray! 'ray! tiger! siss! boom! ah—Deacon Young!"
In amazement he stopped pulling the weights, with his big arms outstretched. He looked at the crowd. He could not see who it was at first.
"Why do they want to ridicule me before all New York?" he thought, reddening, but boldly looking the faces over. "There! My own classmates, too, Lansing and Lee and"
"Helloo! Deacon! Stick your head out!" they cried in concert, as they used to do on the old campus. "Why wouldn't you look before? Wait a minute, we're coming up!" The faces disappeared.
By this time the crowd had increased. The sidewalk had become jammed. A college cheer always brings a crowd. A policeman hurried down the block. "What's this— what's this? Who's making this disturbance?"
But Lansing and the others had disappeared. Young was quickly pulling weights again. He was biting his lips also. Then into the room they burst.
"Why, hello, Deacon, what are you doing here?" they asked.
"Thought you had gone out West again," exclaimed little Lucky Lee.
"Doing this on a bet?" asked Lansing. They were approaching the platform.
Young kept on pulling. "No, for a living," he answered. "Get down, the crowd can see you. No, I can't shake hands just now."
"Why, you old chump," said Lee, "what makes you so glum about it? What's the matter; hard up? Why didn't you let us know? But come on out of here! We want you. Say, Mr. What's-your-name, hasn't he worked nearly long enough? You'll tire him out."
"Half an hour more," said the manager, who was somewhat amazed at all this.
"I'm not tired," said Young, who was now keeping his face turned toward the crowd.
"But we can't wait half an hour. We're having a reunion of the class, have one every 
With his big arms outstretched.
Meanwhile some of the others had been talking in low tones to the manager with their backs toward Young. Now they turned. "Come on, Deacon, it's all right. Mr. Boss says he doesn't want you any longer."
Still Young kept on pulling the weights with his head turned. Some of the fellows looked a little puzzled, but Lucky Lee, who knew Young better than any of them, said, "Come on, fellows, we'll have to drag him off. He's got one of his stubborn streaks."
So they jumped up on the platform and grabbed him by the bare arms, while the crowd in the street below increased and the manager said to his assistant, "Good! this will be an out-of-sight ad. if the police don't stop it."
But Young consented to go with them at last, and now he went behind the screen to change his clothes, and the others gathered around him, talking to him all at once. "This reminds me," said Lansing "of the time I got caught out in Omaha without a red cent, and I took my banjo out of the case and played, and passed the hat until I had money enough to telegraph home for more; but you had a whole cityful of friends. Why didn't you look us up?"
"Here, Mr. Young," said the manager, who had been informed that Will was Young the ex-football player, and was somewhat impressed by it; "this squares us. I'm sorry you aren't coming any more. I'd pay you seventy-five cents an hour if you'd let me put up a notice in the window saying, 'This is William Young, the famous football player.'"
"Yea-a!" cheered the other fellows, laughing; but Young, although he couldn't help feeling pleased, only frowned and said, "I didn't say I wasn't coming Monday."
"Well, one of the other gentlemen did."
"That's all right, deacon," interrupted Lucky Lee, reaching an arm up around one of Young's good shoulders, "come on—your supper'll get cold. We'll talk about that later on. Good-night, Mr. Chest-weights."
"Good-night, Mr. Man," the others shouted, and all together they went whistling and hurrying down the stairs.
As they turned off Broadway into the quiet little side street where the reunion was going on, some of the others began to sing softly together,
"Here's to ninety-blank, drink her down,"
and the rest of the old song.
Young and Lee were still walking together. "But say, Lucky," Young was saying, "I can't waste any more time looking for something to do. How am I going to earn a living in the meanwhile?"
"Don't! Stay with me instead. I've got a double bed. You've slept with me often enough before. Remember that first time. Deacon, in our Freshman year when we got up early to pull down the Sophomores' proclamations, and you took a fall out of Ballard and"
"But say, Lucky."
"But say—nonsense. What are friends for anyway? You made a great mistake to go off and bury yourself. Here we are."
The next minute they entered a long, low room, and just then forty pairs of strong lungs sent out a hearty cheer for "the Deacon."
One day the following week William Young boarded a train for Colorado, where he was to take a position in a mining company—not a high position; one quite near the bottom, but one that would present opportunities later. As it was early in the day only four of his classmates were there to see him off; but as the train started out Young stood on the platform and waved his hat to them.
"It's a pretty good thing to go to college," he was thinking to himself, "for the friends one makes, if nothing else."
One of the four, as they turned away, remarked, "It's easy enough to find something to do when you're a well-known athlete."
Another remarked, "Deacon would not have got that job on his football record if he hadn't had a high stand in class."
Lucky Lee said, "Neither one would have counted him anything in this case. It was pulling those weights in the window that did it. Old Mr. Henderson said that the young man who had the gumption to push ahead and try everything until he got something, no matter what, was the kind of a man he was looking for; and I tell you that's the kind that succeeds in business."