Corporal Cameron

R >> Ralph Connor >> Corporal Cameron


"That is to say," continued Miss Brodie hastily, answering the look, and
recognising that her high place in Rob's regard was in peril, "the whole
thing was a mystery--was impossible to solve--I mean," she continued,
stumbling along, "his own attitude was so very uncertain and so
unsatisfactory--if he had only been able to say clearly 'I am not
guilty' it would have been different--I mean--of course, I don't believe
him guilty. Don't look at me like that, Rob! I won't have it! But was it
not clever of that dear Mr. Rae to extract that letter from the wretched
Potts?"

"There's the train!" cried Dunn. "Here, Rob, you stay here with me!
Where has the young rascal gone!"

"Look! Oh, look!" cried Miss Brodie, clutching at Dunn's arm, her eyes
wide with terror. There before their horrified eyes was young Rob,
hanging on to the window, out of which his friend Cameron was leaning,
and racing madly with the swiftly moving train, in momentary danger of
being dragged under its wheels. With a cry, Dunn rushed forward.

"Merciful heavens!" cried Miss Brodie. "Oh! he is gone!"

A porter, standing with his back towards the racing boy, had knocked
his feet from under him. But as he fell, a strong hand grabbed him, and
dragged him to safety through the window.

Pale and shaking, the three friends waited for the car door to be
opened, and as Rob issued in triumphant possession of his friend, Miss
Brodie rushed at him and, seizing him in her strong grasp, cried:

"You heartless young rascal! You nearly killed me--not to speak of
yourself! Here," she continued, throwing her arms about him, and giving
him a loud smack, "take that for your punishment! Do you hear, you
nearly killed me! I had a vision of your mangled form ground up between
the wheels and the platform. Hold on, you can't get away from me! I have
a mind to give you another!"

"Oh, Miss Brodie, please," pleaded Cameron, coming forward to Rob's
rescue, "I assure you I was partly to blame; it is only fair I should
share his punishment."

"Indeed," cried Miss Brodie, the blood coming back into her cheeks that
had been white enough a moment before, "if it were not for your size,
and your--looks, I should treat you exactly the same, though not
with the same intent, as our friend Mr. Rae would say. You did that
splendidly!"

"Alas! for my size," groaned Cameron--he was in great spirits--"and
alas! for my ugly phiz!"

"Who said 'ugly'?" replied Miss Brodie. "But I won't rise to your bait.
May I introduce you to my uncle, Sir Archibald Brodie, who has a little
business with you?"

"Ah! Mr. Cameron," said that gentleman, "that was extremely well
done. Indeed, I can hardly get back my nerve--might have been an ugly
accident. By the way, Sir," taking Cameron aside, "just a moment. You
are on your way to Canada? I have a letter which I thought might be
of service to you. It is to a business friend of mine, a banker, in
Montreal, Mr. James Ritchie. You will find him a good man to know, and I
fancy glad to serve any--ah--friend of mine."

On hearing Sir Archibald's name, Cameron's manner became distinctly
haughty, and he was on the point of declining the letter, when Sir
Archibald, who was quick to observe his manner, took him by the arm and
led him somewhat further away.

"Now, Sir, there is a little matter I wish to speak of, if you will
permit. Indeed, I came specially to say how delighted I am that
the--ah--recent little unpleasantness has been removed. Of course you
understand my responsibility to the Bank rendered a certain course
of action imperative, however repugnant. But, believe me, I am truly
delighted to find that my decision to withdraw the--ah--action has been
entirely justified by events. Delighted, Sir! Delighted! And much more
since I have seen you."

Before the overflowing kindliness of Sir Archibald's voice and manner,
Cameron's hauteur vanished like morning mist before the rising sun.

"I thank you, Sir Archibald," he said, with dignity, "not only for this
letter, but especially for your good opinion."

"Very good! Very good! The letter will, I hope, be useful," replied Sir
Archibald, "and as for my opinion, I am glad to find not only that it is
well founded, but that it appears to be shared by most of this company
here. Now we must get back to your party. But let me say again, I am
truly glad to have come to know you."




BOOK TWO



CHAPTER I

HO FOR THE OPEN!


Mr. James Ritchie, manager of the Bank of Montreal, glanced from the
letter in his hand to the young man who had just given it to him. "Ah!
you have just arrived from the old land," he said, a smile of genial
welcome illuminating his handsome face. "I am pleased to hear from my
old friend, Sir Archibald Brodie, and pleased to welcome any friend of
his to Canada."

So saying, with fine old-time courtesy, the banker rose to his splendid
height of six feet two, and shook his visitor warmly by the hand.

"Your name is--?"

"Cameron, Sir," said the young man.

"Yes, I see! Mr. Allan Cameron--um, um," with his eyes on the letter.
"Old and distinguished family--exactly so! Now, then, Mr. Cameron, I
hope we shall be able to do something for you, both for the sake of my
old friend, Sir Archibald, and, indeed, for your own sake," said the
banker, with a glance of approval at Cameron's upright form.

"Sit down, Sir! Sit down! Now, business first is my motto. What can I do
for you?"

"Well, first of all," said Cameron with a laugh, "I wish to make a
deposit. I have a draft of one hundred pounds here which I should like
to place in your care."

"Very well, Sir," said the banker, touching a button, "my young man will
attend to that."

"Now, then," when the business had been transacted, "what are your
plans, Mr. Cameron? Thirty-five years ago I came to Montreal a young
man, from Scotland, like yourself, and it was a lonely day for me when
I reached this city, the loneliest in my life, and so my heart warms
to the stranger from the old land. Yes," continued Mr. Ritchie, in a
reminiscent tone, "I remember well! I hired as errand boy and general
factotum to a small grocer down near the market. Montreal was a small
city then, with wretched streets--they're bad enough yet--and poor
buildings; everything was slow and backward; there have been mighty
changes since. But here we are! Now, what are your plans?"

"I am afraid they are of the vaguest kind," said Cameron. "I want
something to do."

"What sort of thing? I mean, what has been the line of your training?"

"I am afraid my training has been defective. I have passed through
Edinburgh Academy, also the University, with the exception of my last
year. But I am willing to take anything."

"Ah!" said the banker thoughtfully. "No office training, eh?"

"No, Sir. That is, if you except a brief period of three or four months
in the law office of our family solicitor."

"Law, eh?--I have it! Denman's your man! I shall give you a letter to
Mr. Denman--a lawyer friend of mine. I shall see him personally to-day,
and if you call to-morrow at ten I hope to have news for you. Meantime,
I shall be pleased to have you lunch with me to-day at the club. One
o'clock is the hour. If you would kindly call at the bank, we shall go
down together."

Cameron expressed his gratitude.

"By the way!" said Mr. Ritchie, "where have you put up?"

"At the Royal," said Cameron.

"Ah! That will do for the present," said Mr. Ritchie. "I am sorry our
circumstances do not permit of my inviting you to our home. The truth
is, Mrs. Ritchie is at present out of the city. But we shall find some
suitable lodging for you. The Royal is far too expensive a place for a
young man with his fortune to make."

Cameron spent the day making the acquaintance of the beautiful, quaint,
if somewhat squalid, old city of Montreal; and next morning, with
a letter of introduction from Mr. Ritchie, presented himself at Mr.
Denman's office. Mr. Denman was a man in young middle life, athletic
of frame, keen of eye, and energetic of manner; his voice was loud
and sharp. He welcomed Cameron with brisk heartiness, and immediately
proceeded to business.

"Let me see," he began, "what is your idea? What kind of a job are you
after?"

"Indeed," replied Cameron, "that is just what I hardly know."

"Well, what has been your experience? You are a University man, I
believe? But have you had any practical training? Do you know office
work?"

"No, I've had little training for an office. I was in a law office for
part of a year."

"Ah! Familiar with bookkeeping, or accounting? I suppose you can't run
one of these typewriting machines?"

In regard to each of these lines of effort Cameron was forced to confess
ignorance.

"I say!" cried Mr. Denman, "those old country people seriously annoy me
with their inadequate system of education!"

"I am afraid," replied Cameron, "the fault is more mine than the
system's."

"Don't know about that! Don't know about that!" replied Mr. Denman
quickly; "I have had scores of young men, fine young men, too, come to
me; public school men, university men, but quite unfit for any practical
line of work."

Mr. Denman considered for some moments. "Let us see. You have done some
work in a law office. Now," Mr. Denman spoke with some hesitation; "I
have a place in my own office here--not much in it for the present,
but--"

"To tell the truth," interrupted Cameron, "I did not make much of the
law; in fact, I do not think I am suited for office work. I would prefer
something in the open. I had thought of the land."

"Farming," exclaimed Mr. Denman. "Ah!--you would, I suppose, be able to
invest something?"

"No," said Cameron, "nothing."

Denman shook his head. "Nothing in it! You would not earn enough to buy
a farm about here in fifteen years."

"But I understood," replied Cameron, "that further west was cheaper
land."

"Oh! In the far west, yes! But it is a God-forsaken country! I don't
know much about it, I confess. I know they are booming town lots all
over the land. I believe they have gone quite mad in the business, but
from what I hear, the main work in the west just now is jaw work; the
only thing they raise is corner lots."

On Cameron's face there fell the gloom of discouragement. One of his
fondest dreams was being dispelled--his vision of himself as a wealthy
rancher, ranging over square miles of his estate upon a "bucking
broncho," garbed in the picturesque cowboy dress, began to fade.

"But there is ranching, I believe?" he ventured.

"Ranching? Oh yes! There is, up near the Rockies, but that is out of
civilization; out of reach of everything and everybody."

"That is what I want, Sir!" exclaimed Cameron, his face once more aglow
with eager hope. "I want to get away into the open."

Mr. Denman did not, or could not, recognise this as the instinctive cry
of the primitive man for a closer fellowship with Mother Nature. He was
keenly practical, and impatient with everything that appeared to him to
be purely visionary and unbusiness-like.

"But, my dear fellow," he said, "a ranch means cattle and horses; and
cattle and horses means money, unless of course, you mean to be simply a
cowboy--cowpuncher, I believe, is the correct term--but there is nothing
in that; no future, I mean. It is all very well for a little fun, if
you have a bank account to stand it, although some fellows stand it on
someone's else bank account--not much to their credit, however. There is
a young friend of mine out there at present, but from what I can gather
his home correspondence is mainly confined to appeals for remittances
from his governor, and his chief occupation spending these remittances
as speedily as possible. All very well, as I have said, for fun, if
you can pay the shot. But to play the role of gentleman cowboy, while
somebody else pays for it, is the sort of thing I despise."

"And so do I, Sir!" said Cameron. "There will be no remittance in my
case."

Denman glanced at the firm, closed lips and the stiffening figure.

"That is the talk!" he exclaimed. "No, there is no chance in ranching
unless you have capital."

"As far as I can see," replied Cameron gloomily, "everything seems
closed up except to the capitalist, and yet from what I heard at home
situations were open on every hand in this country."

"Come here!" cried Denman, drawing Cameron to the office window. "See
those doors!" pointing to a long line of shops. "Every last one is
opened to a man who knows his business. See those smokestacks! Every
last wheel in those factories is howling for a man who is on to his job.
But don't look blue, there is a place for you, too; the thing is to find
it."

"What are those long buildings?" inquired Cameron, pointing towards the
water front.

"Those are railroad sheds; or, rather, Transportation Company's sheds;
they are practically the same thing. I say! What is the matter with
trying the Transportation Company? I know the manager well. The very
thing! Try the Transportation Company!"

"How should I go about it?" said Cameron. "I mean to say just what
position should I apply for?"

"Position!" shouted Denman. "Why, general manager would be good!"

Then, noting the flush in Cameron's face, he added quickly, "Pardon me!
The thing is to get your foot in somehow, and then wire in till you are
general manager, by Jove! It can be done! Fleming has done it! Went in
as messenger boy, but--" Denman paused. There flashed through his mind
the story of Fleming's career; a vision of the half-starved ragged waif
who started as messenger boy in the company's offices, and who, by dint
of invincible determination and resolute self-denial, fought his way
step by step to his present position of control. In contrast, he looked
at the young man, born and bred in circles where work is regarded as
a calamity, and service wears the badge of social disfranchisement.
Fleming had done it under compulsion of the inexorable mistress
"Necessity." But what of this young man?

"Will we try?" he said at length. "I shall give you a letter to Mr.
Fleming."

He sat down to his desk and wrote vigourously.

"Take this, and see what happens."

Cameron took the letter, and, glancing at the address, read, Wm.
Fleming, Esquire, General Manager, Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage
Company.

"Is this a railroad?" asked Cameron.

"No, but next thing to it. The companies are practically one. The
transition from one to the other is easy enough. Let me know how you get
on. Good-by! And--I say!" cried Mr. Denman, calling Cameron back again
from the door, "see Mr. Fleming himself. Remember that! And remember,"
he added, with a smile, "the position of manager is not vacant just yet,
but it will be. I give you my word for it when you are ready to take it.
Good-by! Buck up! Take what he offers you! Get your teeth in, and never
let go!"

"By George!" said Denman to himself as the door closed on Cameron,
"these chaps are the limit. He's got lots of stuff in him, but he has
been rendered helpless by their fool system--God save us from it! That
chap has had things done for him ever since he was first bathed;
they have washed 'em, dressed 'em, fed 'em, schooled 'em, found 'em
positions, stuck 'em in, and watched that they didn't fall out. And
yet, by George!" he added, after a pause, "they are running the
world to-day--that is, some of them." Facing which somewhat puzzling
phenomenon, Denman plunged into his work again.

Meantime Cameron was making his way towards the offices of the
Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company, oppressed with an
unacknowledged but none the less real sense of unfitness, and haunted
by a depressing sense of the deficiency of his own training, and of
the training afforded the young men of his class at home. As he started
along he battled with his depression. True enough, he had no skill
in the various accomplishments that Mr. Denman seemed to consider
essential; he had no experience in business, he was not fit for office
work--office work he loathed; but surely there was some position where
his talents would bring him recognition and fortune at last. After all,
Mr. Denman was only a Colonial, and with a Colonial's somewhat narrow
view of life. Who was he to criticise the system of training that for
generations had been in vogue at home? Had not Wellington said "that
England's battles were first won on the football fields of Eton and
Rugby," or something like that? Of course, the training that might fit
for a distinguished career in the British army might not necessarily
insure success on the battle fields of industry and commerce. Yet
surely, an International player should be able to get somewhere!

At this point in his cogitations Cameron was arrested by a memory
that stabbed him like a knife-thrust; the awful moment when upon the
Inverleith grounds, in the face of the Welsh forward-line, he had
faltered and lost the International. Should he ever be able to forget
the agony of that moment and of the day that followed? And yet, he need
not have failed. He knew he could play his position with any man in
Scotland; he had failed because he was not fit. He set his teeth hard.
He would show these bally Colonials! He would make good! And with his
head high, he walked into the somewhat dingy offices of the Metropolitan
Transportation & Cartage Company, of which William Fleming, Esquire, was
manager.

Opening the door, Cameron found himself confronted by a short counter
that blocked the way for the general public into the long room, filled
with desks and chairs and clicking typewriting machines. Cameron had
never seen so many of these machines during the whole period of his
life. The typewriter began to assume an altogether new importance in
his mind. Hitherto it had appeared to him more or less of a Yankee fad,
unworthy of the attention of an able-bodied man of average intelligence.
In Edinburgh a "writing machine" was still something of a new-fangled
luxury, to be apologised for. Mr. Rae would allow no such finicky
instrument in his office. Here, however, there were a dozen, more or
less, manipulated for the most part by young ladies, and some of them
actually by men; on every side they clicked and banged. It may have
been the clicking and banging of these machines that gave to Cameron the
sense of rush and hurry so different from the calm quiet and dignified
repose of the only office he had ever known. For some moments he stood
at the counter, waiting attention from one of the many clerks sitting
before him, but though one and another occasionally glanced in his
direction, his presence seemed to awaken not even a passing curiosity in
their minds, much less to suggest the propriety of their inquiring his
business.

As the moments passed Cameron became conscious of a feeling of affront.
How differently a gentleman was treated by the clerks in the office
of Messrs. Rae & Macpherson, where prompt attention and deferential
courtesy in a clerk were as essential as a suit of clothes. Gradually
Cameron's head went up, and with it his choler. At length, in his
haughtiest tone, he hailed a passing youth:

"I say, boy, is this Mr. Fleming's office?"

The clicking and banging of the typewriters, and the hum of voices
ceased. Everywhere heads were raised and eyes turned curiously upon the
haughty stranger.

"Eh?" No letters can represent the nasal intonation of this syllabic
inquiry, and no words the supreme indifference of the boy's tone.

"Is Mr. Fleming in? I wish to see him!" Cameron's voice was loud and
imperious.

"Say, boys," said a lanky youth, with a long, cadaverous countenance
and sallow, unhealthy complexion, illumined, however, and redeemed to
a certain extent by black eyes of extraordinary brilliance, "it is the
Prince of Wales!" The drawling, awe-struck tones, in the silence that
had fallen, were audible to all in the immediate neighbourhood.

The titter that swept over the listeners brought the hot blood to
Cameron's face. A deliberate insult a Highlander takes with calm. He is
prepared to deal with it in a manner affording him entire satisfaction.
Ridicule rouses him to fury, for, while it touches his pride, it leaves
him no opportunity of vengeance.

"Can you tell me if Mr. Fleming is in?" he enquired again of the boy
that stood scanning him with calm indifference. The rage that possessed
him so vibrated in his tone that the lanky lad drawled again in a
warning voice:

"Slide, Jimmy, slide!"

Jimmy "slid," but towards the counter.

"Want to see him?" he enquired in a tone of brisk impertinence, as if
suddenly roused from a reverie.

"I have a letter for him."

"All right! Hand it over," said Jimmy, fully conscious that he was the
hero of more than usual interest.

Cameron hesitated, then passed his letter over to Jimmy, who, reading
the address with deliberate care, winked at the lanky boy, and with a
jaunty step made towards a door at the farther end of the room. As he
passed a desk that stood nearest the door, a man who during the last few
minutes had remained with his head down, apparently so immersed in
the papers before him as to be quite unconscious of his surroundings,
suddenly called out, "Here, boy!"

Jimmy instantly assumed an air of respectful attention.

"A letter for Mr. Fleming," he said.

"Here!" replied the man, stretching out his hand.

He hurriedly glanced through the letter.

"Tell him there is no vacancy at present," he said shortly.

The boy came back to Cameron with cheerful politeness. The "old man's"
eye was upon him.

"There is no vacancy at present," he said briefly, and turned away as if
his attention were immediately demanded elsewhere by pressing business
of the Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company.

For answer, Cameron threw back the leaf of the counter that barred his
way, and started up the long room, past the staring clerks, to the desk
next the door.

"I wish to see Mr. Fleming, Sir," he said, his voice trembling slightly,
his face pale, his blue-gray eyes ablaze.

The man at the desk looked up from his work.

"I have just informed you there is no vacancy at present," he said
testily, and turned to his papers again, as if dismissing the incident.

"Will you kindly tell me if Mr. Fleming is in?" said Cameron in a voice
that had grown quite steady; "I wish to see him personally."

"Mr. Fleming cannot see you, I tell you!" almost shouted the man, rising
from his desk and revealing himself a short, pudgy figure, with flabby
face and shining bald head. "Can't you understand English?--I can't be
bothered--!"

"What is it, Bates? Someone to see me?"

Cameron turned quickly towards the speaker, who had come from the inner
room.

"I have brought you a letter, Sir, from Mr. Denman," he said quietly;
"it is there," pointing to Bates' desk.

"A letter? Let me have it! Why was not this brought to me at once, Mr.
Bates?"

"It was an open letter, Sir," replied Bates, "and I thought there was
no need of troubling you, Sir. I told the young man we had no vacancy at
present."

"This is a personal letter, Mr. Bates, and should have been brought to
me at once. Why was Mr.--ah--Mr. Cameron not brought in to me?"

Mr. Bates murmured something about not wishing to disturb the manager on
trivial business.

"I am the judge of that, Mr. Bates. In future, when any man asks to see
me, I desire him to be shown in at once."

Mr. Bates began to apologise.

"That is all that is necessary, Mr. Bates," said the manager, in a voice
at once quiet and decisive.

"Come in, Mr. Cameron. I am very sorry this has happened!"

Cameron followed him into his office, noting, as he passed, the red
patches of rage on Mr. Bates' pudgy face, and catching a look of fierce
hate from his small piggy eyes. It flashed through his mind that in Mr.
Bates, at any rate, he had found no friend.

The result of the interview with Mr. Fleming was an intimation to Mr.
Bates that Mr. Cameron was to have a position in the office of the
Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company, and to begin work the
following morning.

"Very well, Sir," replied Mr. Bates--he had apparently quite recovered
his equanimity--"we shall find Mr. Cameron a desk."

"We begin work at eight o'clock exactly," he added, turning to Cameron
with a pleasant smile.

Mr. Fleming accompanied Cameron to the door.

"Now, a word with you, Mr. Cameron. You may find Mr. Bates a little
difficult--he is something of a driver--but, remember, he is in charge
of this office; I never interfere with his orders."

"I understand, Sir," said Cameron, resolving that, at all costs, he
should obey Mr. Bates' orders, if only to show the general manager he
could recognise and appreciate a gentleman when he saw one.

Mr. Fleming was putting it mildly when he described Mr. Bates as
"something of a driver." The whole office staff, from Jimmy, the office
boy, to Jacobs, the gentle, white-haired clerk, whose desk was in the
farthest corner of the room, felt the drive. He was not only office
manager, but office master as well. His rule was absolute, and from his
decisions there was no appeal. The general manager went on the theory
that it was waste of energy to keep a dog and bark himself. In the
policy that governed the office there were two rules which Mr. Bates
enforced with the utmost rigidity--the first, namely, that every member
of the staff must be in his or her place and ready for work when the
clock struck eight; the other, that each member of the staff must work
independently of every other member. A man must know his business, and
go through with it; if he required instructions, he must apply to the
office manager. But, as a rule, one experience of such application
sufficed for the whole period of a clerk's service in the office of the
Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company, for Mr. Bates was gifted
with such an exquisiteness of ironical speech that the whole staff were
wont to pause in the rush of their work to listen and to admire when
a new member was unhappy enough to require instructions, their silent
admiration acting as a spur to Mr. Bates' ingenuity in the invention of
ironical discourse.