75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

And the strange thing was that the letter that the bartender carried up that morning was from the management of the Louisiana Lottery. It contained a draft on New York, signed by the treasurer of the State of Louisiana, for two hundred thousand dollars. The schoolmaster had won the Grand Prize.

The above story, I am afraid, is a little gloomy. I put it down merely for the moral it contained, and I became so absorbed in telling it that I almost forgot what the moral was that it was meant to convey. But I think the idea is that if the schoolmaster had long before abandoned the study of medicine, for which he was not fitted, and gone in, let us say, for playing the banjo, he might have become end-man in a minstrel show. Yes, that was it.

Let me pass on to other elements in success.

I suppose that anybody will admit that the peculiar quality that is called initiative – the ability to act promptly on one’s own judgement – is a factor of the highest importance.

I have seen this illustrated two or three times in a very striking fashion.

I knew, in Toronto [353] – it is long years ago – a singularly bright young man whose name was Robinson. He had had some training in the iron and steel business, and when I knew him was on the lookout for an opening.

I met him one day in a great hurry, with a valise in his hand.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

‘Over to England,’ he said. ‘There is a firm in Liverpool that have advertised that they want an agent here, and I’m going over to apply for the job.’

‘Can’t you do it by letter?’ I asked.

‘That’s just it,’ said Robinson, with a chuckle, ‘all the other men will apply by letter. I’ll go right over myself and get there as soon or sooner than the letters. I’ll be the man on the spot, and I’ll get the job.’

He was quite right. He went over to Liverpool, and was back in a fortnight with English clothes and a big salary.

But I cannot recommend his story to my friends. In fact, it should not be told too freely. It is apt to be dangerous.

I remember once telling this story of Robinson to a young man called Tomlinson who was out of a job. Tomlinson had a head two sizes too big, and a face like a bun. He had lost three jobs in a bank and two in a broker’s office, but he knew his work, and on paper he looked a good man.

I told him about Robinson, to encourage him, and the story made a great impression.

‘Say, that was a great scheme, eh?’ he kept repeating. He had no command of words, and always said the same thing over and over.

A few days later I met Tomlinson in the street with a valise in his hand.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

‘I’m off to Mexico,’ he answered. ‘They’re advertising for a Canadian teller for a bank in Tuscapulco [354] . I’ve sent my credentials down, and I’m going to follow them right up in person. In a thing like this, the personal element is everything.’

So Tomlinson went down to Mexico and he travelled by sea to Mexico City [355] , and then with a mule train to Tuscapulco. But the mails, with his credentials, went by land and got there two days ahead of him.

When Tomlinson got to Tuscapulco he went into the bank and he spoke to the junior manager and told him what he came for. ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ the junior manager said, ‘I’m afraid that this post has just been filled.’ Then he went into an inner room to talk with the manager. ‘The tellership that you wanted a Canadian for,’ he asked, ‘didn’t you say that you have a man already?’

‘Yes,’ said the manager, ‘a brilliant young fellow from Toronto; his name is Tomlinson, I have his credentials here – a first-class man. I’ve wired him to come right along, at our expense, and we’ll keep the job open for him ten days.’

‘There’s a young man outside,’ said the junior, ‘who wants to apply for the job.’

‘Outside?’ exclaimed the manager. ‘How did he get here?’

‘Came in on the mule train this morning: says he can do the work and wants the job.’

‘What’s he like?’ asked the manager.

The junior shook his head.

‘Pretty dusty looking customer,’ he said. ‘Shifty looking.’

‘Same old story,’ murmured the manager. ‘It’s odd how these fellows drift down here, isn’t it? Up to something crooked at home, I suppose. Understands the working of a bank, eh? I guess he understands it a little too well for my taste. No, no,’ he continued, tapping the papers that lay on the table, ‘now that we’ve got a first-class man like Tomlinson, let’s hang on to him. We can easily wait ten days, and the cost of the journey is nothing to the bank as compared with getting a man of Tomlinson’s stamp. And, by the way, you might telephone to the Chief of Police and get him to see to it that this loafer gets out of town straight off.’

So the Chief of Police shut up Tomlinson in the calaboose and then sent him down to Mexico City under a guard. By the time the police were done with him he was dead broke, and it took him four months to get back to Toronto; when he got there, the place in Mexico had been filled long ago.