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and PG Distributed Proofreaders











[Illustration: "You can be worth a million... within a year"]


THE FORTUNE HUNTER

By

Louis Joseph Vance

Author Of "The Brass Bowl,"
"The Bronze Bell," Etc.

_With illustrations by_
Arthur William Brown

1910


To
George Spellvin, Esq.,

_This book is cheerfully dedicated_


CONTENTS

CHAPTER


I.       FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT

II.      TO HIM THAT HATH

III.     INSPIRATION

IV.      TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN

V.       MARGARET'S DAUGHTER

VI.      INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER

VII.     A WINDOW IN RADVILLE

VIII.    THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO

IX.      SMALL BEGINNINGS

X.       ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND

XI.      BLINKY LOCKWOOD

XII.     DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE

XIII.    THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
 XIV.     MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY

XV.      MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE

XVI.     WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD

XVII.    TRACEY'S TROUBLES

XVIII.   A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN

XIX.     PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG

XX.      ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND

XXI.     AS OTHERS SAW HIM

XXII.    ROLAND'S TRIUMPH

XXIII.   THE RAINBOW'S END


ILLUSTRATIONS

"You can be worth a million... within a year"

"You mean you're going to work here?"

"Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"

"Betty!"

"You're a thief with a reward out for you"

"Forever and ever and a day"




I


FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT

Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater & Spaulding, importers
of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and
in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and
attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his
caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he
had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that,
Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in
private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent
imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.

Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he
entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a
prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind;
a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine's
vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in
him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself
could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
himself of some worth to the world--and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
him.

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--."

"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's
the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his--like
yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor
cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day--and all that sort of
thing. My father's failure--you know about that?"

Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
freely than he would at any other time--suffering, in fact, from that
species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down
on his luck.

"That smash came when I was five years out of college--I'd never
thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
more coin than I could spend--never had to consider the worth of money
or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to
want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed
and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive
wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education--and not so much
of that that you'd notice it--and not a cent.... I was too proud to
look to my friends for help in those days--and perhaps that was as
well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a
fish-market?"

"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.

"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise,
suddenly remembering himself.

"You're not. Go on."

"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an
explanation of Kellogg's kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual
way--felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
through his misplaced interest in me."

"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm
interested. About the fish-market?"

"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience--and the
last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned
every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of
finance--paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying
lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you
know--one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never
could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too:
didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great
constitution I've got."

He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed
upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.

"And then--?"

"Oh--?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he
found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a
sure-enough optimist."

Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose
unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had assuredly done his case no good
by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet,