Target Practice (Stout, Rex)

by Rex Stout

  And besides, it was purely temporary. Which proves that he knew nothing of the awful power of the millstones of a metropolis.

  Carl was twenty-two, lovable, able, and ambitious; and yet he was in a very fair way to become a head bookkeeper at thirty, go to the Hippodrome each year, marry a stenographer, and live in Brooklyn, if it had not been for an incredible piece of luck and the mysterious ways of the little naked god.

  On this particular April morning he was more than usually lonesome and dissatisfied.

  It was Saturday, the last day of his third week at Cohen & Aduchefsky’s. As Miss Alteresko, the stenographer, entered the office he groaned audibly. It is true that Miss Alteresko was not beautiful, and she was a girl, and no girl should be forced to pound a typewriter in April. It is a crime against nature.

  “You don’t feel well, Mr. McNair,” she observed.

  Carl said that he felt as well as could be expected, and began billing the orders for the day before. Miss Alteresko sat regarding his back with a curious air of interest until the door opened to admit Mr. Cohen, when she started to bang the typewriter with a becoming zeal.

  Mr. Cohen gave his usual good morning, half groan and half grunt, and proceeded to the sample room.

  To Carl the morning passed with exasperating slowness. Through the open window came the alluring call of spring, little unmistakable breaths and cadences that reach to the most hidden vault and the deafest of ears.

  Eleven o’clock found the billing still unfinished, with Carl gazing at the calendar above his desk in a sort of helpless resentment.

  At sound of the chimes on the Metropolitan Tower he awoke with a start and fell to his task resignedly; and as he glanced through the latticed window which looked out on the salesroom he saw Mr. Cohen regarding him with an air of disapproval. An hour later he closed the sales book with a bang, stuffed the bunch of orders in the drawer of his desk, and, turning to look through the window for the ubiquitous Mr. Cohen, found himself gazing directly into the most beautiful pair of eyes in the world.

  Carl grew red, then pale.

  He started to turn away, then turned back again. He tried to speak, and couldn’t. The girl at the window regarded him with silent sympathy. The symptoms evidently were by no means unknown to her.

  By a gesture she directed Carl’s attention to a card lying on the window ledge. He picked it up with fumbling fingers and read:

  INSPECTOR

  Bureau of Labor

  City of New York

  Then, looking into the eyes again, he stammered: “Yes—er—oh, yes!”

  “I have come to inspect your loft. Your factory is here, isn’t it?”

  Even with its businesslike tone, the voice was sweetly modulated, as the call of spring.

  Mr. Cohen, who heard everything, came bustling up. “What is it you want?” he demanded.

  The girl flushed at his tone. “I want to see if the operators are working under proper sanitary conditions,” she answered.

  Mr. Cohen regarded her with an air of suspicion. “Well, why should—Oh, all right.” To Carl: “Mr. McNair, the young lady wants to see the factory. You should go up with her, because I got a customer—Mr. Waldstein, from Yonkers.”

  And he hurried back to Mr. Waldstein as one ready and anxious for battle.

  During the interruption Carl had somewhat recovered his wits; in thinking it over afterward, he was amazed at his own composure in conducting the girl courteously to the elevator and through the whirring maze of sewing machines and finishers on the upper floor.

  He watched her silently as she talked with the foreman and gave him some final instructions as to the ventilation. When she turned to go he hastened before her to the elevator and pressed the button carefully and firmly, as though it were a most important ceremony, and entered the car after her.

  Arrived at the first floor, they walked together to the outer vestibule. The girl turned and held out her hand. “Thank you so much,” she said.

  Carl hesitated, took the offered hand, and let it fall. Then, gathering himself together: “I—er—I—wanted to say something. May I?”

  “Certainly. What is it?”

  “You are sure you won’t be offended?”

  “Well,” she hesitated in her turn, “that depends on what you have to say.”

  “I know I don’t want to offend you,” declared Carl, smiling with so engaging a frankness that she returned it involuntarily, “but I probably shall.”

  There could be no doubt about his sincerity. “Well?” the girl asked encouragingly.

  “Of course,” he managed to continue, “you won’t, I know. But I thought—could—would you—go to lunch with me?”

  He asked the commonplace question with a tragic earnestness that was completely ludicrous. The girl hesitated.

  “Is it a lark?” she asked. And noting his surprise, “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she continued. “What I meant was, I’ll go.”

  Carl could scarcely believe his ears. He had asked her just as a gambler throws his last dollar on the wheel, sure of failure, on a hopeless chance. Which may seem exaggerated to those of my readers to whom spring means merely a time to plant cabbages.

  “But—but perhaps you don’t want to go,” he stammered foolishly.

  “Of course I do. But I don’t want to stand in this vestibule all day,” smiling.

  Carl blurted out an excuse, and went to the office for his hat and gloves. He had no time to wonder why she had agreed to go, but he might have known. The reader may guess.

  In less than a minute he returned, and they started up Fifth Avenue.

  “Now”—as they neared Twenty-second Street—“the first thing is where to go. Is Martin’s all right?”

  “Certainly. But how did you happen to think of Martin’s?”

  Carl flushed at the implication. “Well, I don’t eat there every day,” he admitted.

  “Oh!” exclaimed the girl, embarrassed. “I—why, you know I couldn’t mean—”

  “It doesn’t matter the least bit if you did,” he asserted. “I refuse to consider myself disgraced because I am rich. Anyway,” meaningly, “I certainly can’t expect you to be conventional. And now I’m even.”

  “That is very rude of you, and I’ve a mind to go back.”

  “Forgive me,” humbly. “If I were to live a thousand years I couldn’t tell you how very, very grateful I am.”

  They walked on in silence.

  “Do you know,” he continued, after they had entered the restaurant and seated themselves at a table over against the side wall, “I believe you were right, after all.”

  “How? What did I say?”

  “It is a lark.”

  “I was wrong; it is nothing of the sort. At least, not for me.”

  “Well, what is it, then?”

  “A—an act of charity.”

  “Oh, that is all forgotten,” airily. “I was just pretending. Or if I was a little blue, now I’m gay as—as a lark.”

  “ ‘Hence, vain, deluding joys,’ ” the girl quoted solemnly.

  For the next five minutes Carl was lost in the mazes of the menu. He felt sure that there was nothing on it—or anywhere—good enough for her; but something must be ordered. He ended by selecting those items with the longest names and the highest prices, and turned to the girl with a sigh of relief.

  She was gazing out of the window at the passersby, her elbow on the table, her chin resting in her hand, her lips curved in a thoughtful smile.

  Carl watched her so for a full minute. If, he thought, he had collected all his vague longings of the morning into one wish, it would have been for this. She was perfect, no less. If he had been a nice observer, he might have thought the finely tailored suit and fashionable French bonnet rather out of place on a humble inspector of the bureau of labor; but all he knew or cared was that they were suited to her.

  “Do you know,” he remarked, “I don’t even know your name.”

  She started and turned at the sound
of his voice. “Well, I—” hesitating, “a rose by—only I don’t pretend to be a rose.”

  “But you are.”

  “That, Mr. McNair, was very clumsy—and obvious.”

  “I knew you knew mine,” scornfully. “Mr. Cohen called me, and you heard him.”

  “You are dreadfully conceited,” she retorted, cheated out of her surprise. “Of course I heard him call you; but why should I remember it?”

  Carl meanly took advantage of the opening. “Well,” he said, “you did.”

  “Oh, very well! Now I shall never tell you.”

  “Please.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “Never.”

  There was a pause. Carl looked at her imploringly. She busied herself with a plate of clams. Finally;

  “I wish you would tell me something,” she said. “Will you?”

  “Never,” declared Carl firmly. They both laughed.

  “Must I say ‘please’?” she asked.

  “Yes. Twice.”

  “No; I am in earnest. Please tell me.”

  “Anything.” And he, too, was in earnest.

  “I want to know all about you.”

  “Oh, then it wouldn’t be a lark!” he protested.

  “But I really want to know.”

  “Well—what, for instance?”

  “Well,” hesitating, “your college.”

  “How do you know I had one?”

  “Oh, that is easy! Anyone could tell that.”

  Carl laughed, pleased. Nothing is more delightful to a man than such a tribute to his alma mater.

  Perhaps the girl knew it; at any rate, she got from Carl all that she wanted to know. It is always dangerous to tell a man that you want to hear about himself. In thirty minutes you are sure to think him either a bore or a hero.

  And they are equally uncomfortable, though for different reasons.

  But the girl was certainly not bored. Carl told her of Caxton; its people, its play, its life; his friends, his mother, his ambitions. When once started, he spoke with an easy earnestness that was charming.

  Besides, you can talk forever, and well, to a pretty girl who admits that she likes to hear you.

  When he came to his departure for New York he stopped short. “The rest,” he declared, “is funny. And I don’t want you to laugh at me.”

  “You know I won’t,” she said earnestly. “Please.”

  And so he told of his high hopes and silly pretensions, his disappointment and shame, and finally of the ignominious fall that landed him in the office of Cohen & Aduchefsky.

  “The truth is,” he concluded, “that New York is too big for me. There’s nothing for me to get hold of.”

  “The truth is,” she contradicted, “that you are foolish to expect to do anything in New York without knowing someone. No one ever has.”

  Their luncheon was finished and they arose to go. As they left the restaurant and started toward Broadway, Carl remarked that on account of the Saturday half-holiday he need not return to the office.

  “I’m so sorry I have an engagement,” said the girl. “Wouldn’t it be pleasant to walk?”

  Carl nodded. “With you?”

  “Of course, with me,” she agreed. “Because,” smiling, “I let you talk all you want to.”

  But he was in no mood for badinage. What, he reflected, was he to do for the rest of the day, when she was gone? And the next, and the next, and all the others?

  He turned and looked at her beseechingly. They had stopped on the platform of the elevated railroad station, waiting for her train. “Won’t you please tell me?” he pleaded.

  She returned his gaze steadily, smiling. “No,” she replied. “I would, but—”

  Her train rolled in alongside the platform.

  “Here,” she said, and handed him a card. Before he had time to move she was on the car, and gone. He gazed at the receding train stupidly, and when it had disappeared, looked at the card. It read:

  INSPECTOR

  Bureau of Labor

  City of New York

  He tore the card in pieces and threw them on the platform, then carefully picked them up again and put them in his pocket. Two or three waiting passengers stared at him in wonder. He returned the stare with indifference and made his way to the street.

  His first impulse was to go to the offices of the bureau of labor; but he thought better of it, and went to walk in the square. After half an hour of indecision he went to a telephone and called up the bureau.

  The office was closed.

  “It’s lucky they were closed,” he commented to himself. “What could I have said? ‘Have you an inspector in your office with brown hair and beautiful eyes?’ Of course they’d tell me all about it.”

  He wandered down Broadway, musing. When a sudden impact with a lamppost made him realize that he was in no condition to take care of himself, he returned to his room and tried to read; but he could see nothing but a sweet, laughing face and teasing eyes.

  He started to write a letter, and finished one paragraph in two hours. And yet, after all this, it was nearly eleven o’clock before he admitted to himself that he was in love.

  Sunday passed, dull and eventless. On Monday morning he approached Mr. Cohen with an air of satisfaction and announced that he would leave on the following Saturday. Mr. Cohen was astonished and excited.

  “That’s the way!” he exclaimed. “After you learn the job a whole month’s expenses you go at once. What do they give you?”

  “Who?”

  “Why, where you’re going.”

  “Nothing. I have no other position. I am only leaving this one.”

  Mr. Cohen was called to wait on a customer, and Carl commenced his daily task with a light heart. Why, Heaven only knows.

  At noon he went to the factory and asked the foreman what instructions had been given him by the labor inspector. The foreman was very obliging.

  “Didn’t she say the thing would be looked over?” Carl asked carelessly.

  “Yes,” answered the foreman. “Said she’d be around Tuesday.” Which explains the light heart.

  On Tuesday morning, therefore, Carl entered the office whistling. Miss Alteresko handed him a letter. He tore open the envelope and found, on an embossed sheet, the somewhat startling information that Mr. R. U. Carson of R. U. Carson & Co., would be pleased to have him call and see him at his office on Tuesday morning after ten.

  Mr. Carson was well known to Carl, as indeed he was to everyone who read the newspapers. In the war of finance, though perhaps not a general, he was at the very least a colonel. His name was one of the household words of the metropolis, and not the least important.

  Carl wondered vaguely what the great Carson could want with him.

  At ten o’clock he told Mr. Cohen that he wished to go downtown on business. Mr. Cohen eyed him suspiciously, but said nothing; and fifteen minutes later Carl entered the imposing offices of R. U. Carson & Co. and handed in the letter he had received.

  The boy returned with me information that Mr. Carson was engaged, but would see him presently.

  Carl seated himself, full of conjectures as to the purpose of this unexpected invitation. Five, ten minutes passed, and he began to feel worried; for the inspector—he smiled at the title—had promised to return on Tuesday, and he had decided that, Carson or no Carson, he would be back in the office by eleven.

  By half past ten he was decidedly anxious, and was watching the clock.

  “Mr. Carson will see you now, sir,” announced the boy. “This way.”

  And Carl was led through a succession of passages and rooms to a large, elegantly furnished apartment overlooking the street. The great Carson himself was seated at a desk in the center of the room, dictating to his stenographer. At Carl’s approach he arose and extended his hand.

  “Mr. McNair,” he said, “I am glad to know you.”

  “And I you, sir,” taking the hand.

  Mr. Carson dismissed th
e stenographer, and conducting Carl to an inner room, waved him to a seat.

  “Now, my boy,” he began abruptly, “to come to the point at once, you have been recommended to me as a very worthy young man. In the first place, would a position with our firm be agreeable to you?”

  Carl concealed his surprise. “Certainly, sir. That is,” he added, “it depends a little on the position.”

  “Of course,” agreed Mr. Carson. “But that will be arranged to your satisfaction. What I want is the man. I prefer to teach him myself; the less he knows the better, if he isn’t a blockhead. And now to details.”

  For a quarter of an hour Carl was kept busy answering questions. Finally Mr. Carson expressed himself as satisfied. He arose and again extended his hand.

  “There is one thing, sir, that I would like to know,” said Carl as he prepared to leave. “I can’t imagine which of my friends has done me this favor. In fact, I didn’t know that—”

  He was interrupted by a voice from the outer room. “Oh, dear, he’s always busy,” someone was saying.

  Carl’s heart leaped; it was the girl’s voice! Mr. Carson walked to the door, smiling. “Come in,” he invited.

  The girl, for it was she, hurried over to him.

  “Oh, dad,” she cried, “I haven’t a minute. I just ran in to tell you that when you write to Mr. McNair—you know who I mean—you mustn’t mention me. You see, I didn’t tell him—”

  Mr. Carson interrupted with a laugh. “Well, you’ve told him now. This is your friend, Mr. McNair.”

  The girl turned and saw Carl, who was gazing at her stupidly. “Oh!” she cried, and stopped short. Her cheeks became crimson. Then, recovering herself, “Good morning, Mr. McNair,” politely.

  “Good morning, Miss Carson,” still more politely.

  Carl walked across the room, hat in hand. Turning at the door, “I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Carson,” he said. “Good morning, sir.” And he ran, rather than walked, through the corridors and down the stairs to the street door. Arrived there, he stopped to consider.

  He understood it all, he assured himself, bitterly. He felt that he had been cheated and deceived. Of course it was all very plain. Miss Carson—the wealthy, the socially elect—had picked him out as a worthy object of charity.