Frank Harris - My Life and Loves, Book 1

«I'd do my best,» I replied, the very thought of Chicago and the Great West drawing me. «Will you let me think it over?» «Sure, sure!» he replied. «I don't go back till Friday; that gives you three days to decide.» Allison stuck to his opinion that a good stand would make more money; but when I talked it over with the Mulligans, they were both in favor of the hotel. I saw Jessie that same evening and told her of the «stand» and begged for another evening, but she stuck to it that her sister was suspicious and cross with me and would not leave us alone again. Accordingly, I said nothing to her of Chicago. I had always noticed that sexual pleasure is in its nature profoundly selfish. So long as Jessie yielded to me and gave me delight, I was attracted to her; but as soon as she denied me, I became annoyed and dreamed of more pliant beauties. I was rather pleased to leave her without even a word; «That'll teach her!» my wounded vanity whispered; «She deserves to suffer a little for disappointing me.» But parting with the Mulligans was really painful: Mrs. Mulligan was a dear, kind woman who would have mothered the whole race if she could, one of those sweet Irish women whose unselfish deeds and thoughts are the flowers of our sordid, human life. Her husband, too, was not unworthy of her, very simple and straight and hard-working, without a mean thought in him, a natural prey to good fellowship and songs and poteen. On Friday afternoon I left New York for Chicago with Mr. Kendrick. The country seemed to me very bare, harsh and unfinished, but the great distances enthralled me; it was indeed a land to be proud of, every broad acre of it spoke of the future and suggested hope. My first round, so to speak, with American life was over. What I had learned in it remains with me still. No people is so kind to children and no life so easy for the handworkers; the hewers of wood and drawers of water are better off in the United States than anywhere else on earth. To this one class, and it is by far the most numerous class, the American democracy more than fulfills its promises. It levels up the lowest in a most surprising way. I believed then with all my heart what so many believe today, that all deductions made, it was on the whole the best civilization yet known among men. In time deeper knowledge made me modify this opinion more and more radically. Five years later I was to see Walt Whitman, the noblest of all Americans, living in utter poverty at Camden, dependent upon English admirers for a change of clothes or a sufficiency of food; and Poe had suffered in the same way. Bit by bit the conviction was forced upon me that if the American democracy does much to level up the lowest class, it is still more successful in leveling down the highest and best. No land on earth is so friendly to the poor illiterate toilers, no land so contemptuous-cold to the thinkers and artists, the guides of humanity. What help is there here for men of letters and artists, for the seers and prophets? Such guides are not wanted by the idle rich and are ignored by the masses, and after all, the welfare of the head is more important even than that of the body and feet. What will become of those who stone the prophets and persecute the teachers? The doom is written in flaming letters on every page of history.

The Fremont house, Kendrick's hotel, was near the Michigan Street depot. In those days, when Chicago had barely 300,000 inhabitants, it was a hotel of the second class. Mr. Kendrick had told me that his uncle, a Mr. Cotton, really owned the House, but left him the chief share in the management, adding, «What uncle says, goes always.» In the course of time, I understood the nephew's loyalty, for Mr. Cotton was really kindly and an able man of business.

My duties as night clerk were simple: from eight at night till six in the morning, I was master in the office and had to apportion bedrooms to the incoming guests, and give bills and collect the moneys due from the outgoing public. I set myself at once to learn the good and bad points of the hundred odd bedrooms in the house and the arrival and departure times of all the night trains. When guests came in, I met them at the entrance, found out what they wanted and told this or that porter or bellboy to take them to their rooms. However curt or irritable they were, I always tried to smooth them down and soon found I was succeeding. In a week Mr. Kendrick told me that he had heard golden opinions of me from a dozen visitors. «You have a dandy night clerk,» he was told, «Spares no pains… pleasant manners… knows everything… some clerk; yes, sir!» My experience in Chicago assured me that if one does his very best, he comes to success in business in comparatively short time; so few do all they can. Going to bed at six, I was up every day at one o'clock for dinner, as it was called, and after dinner I got into the habit of going into the billiard room, at one end of which was a large bar. By five o'clock or so, the billiard room was crowded and there was no one to superintend things, so I spoke to Mr. Kendrick about it and took the job on my own shoulders. I had little to do but induce newcomers to await their turn patiently and to mollify old customers who expected to find tables waiting for them. The result of a little courtesy and smiling promises was so marked that at the end of the very first month the bookkeeper, a man named Curtis, told me with a grin that I was to get sixty dollars a month and not forty dollars, as I had supposed. Needless to say the extra pay simply quickened my desire to make myself useful.

But now I found my way up barred by two superiors; the bookkeeper was one and the steward, a dry, taciturn westerner named Payne, was the other. Payne bought everything and had control of the dining room and waiters, while Curtis ruled the office and the bellboys. I was really under Curtis, but my control of the billiard room gave me a sort of independent position. I soon made friends with Curtis, got into the habit of dining with him, and when he found that my handwriting was very good, he gave me the day book to keep and in a couple of months had taught me bookkeeping while entrusting me with a good deal of it. He was not lazy, but most men of forty like to have a capable assistant. By Christmas that year I was keeping all the books except the ledger and I knew, as I thought, the whole business of the hotel.

The dining room, it seemed to me, was very badly managed; but as luck would have it, I was first to get control of the office. As soon as Curtis found that I could safely be trusted to do his work, he began going out at dinner time and often stayed away the whole day.

About New Year he was away for five days and confided in me when he returned that he had been on a «bust.» He wasn't happy with his wife, it appeared, and he used to drink to drown her temper. In February he was away for ten days, but as he had given me the key of the safe I kept everything going. One day Kendrick found me in the office working and wanted to know about Curtis: «How long has he been away?» «A day or two,» I replied. Kendrick looked at me and asked for the ledger.

«It's written right up!» he exclaimed; «Did you do it?» I had to say I did, but at once I sent a bellboy for Curtis. The boy didn't find him at his house and next day I was brought up before Mr. Cotton. I couldn't deny that I had kept the books and Cotton soon saw that I was shielding Curtis out of loyalty. When Curtis came in next day, he gave the whole show away; he was half-drunk still and rude to boot. He had been unwell, he said, but his work was in order. He was «fired» there and then by Mr. Cotton and that evening Kendrick asked me to keep things going properly till he could persuade his uncle that I was trustworthy and older than I looked. In a couple of days I saw Mr. Cotton and Mr. Kendrick together. «Can you keep the books and be night clerk and take care of the billiard room?» Mr. Cotton asked me sharply. «I think so,» I replied. «I'll do my best.» «Hm!» he grunted. «What pay do you think you ought to have?» «I'll leave that to you, Sir,» I said. «I shall be satisfied whatever you give me.» «The devil you will,» he said grumpily; «Suppose I said keep on at your present rate?» I smiled, «O.K., Sir.» «Why do you smile?» he asked. «Because, Sir, pay like water tends to find its level!» «What the devil d'ye mean by 'its level'?» «The level,» I went on, «is surely the market price; sooner or later it'll rise towards that and I can wait.» His keen grey eyes suddenly bored into me. «I begin to think you're much older than you look, as my nephew here tells me,» he said. «Put yourself down at a hundred a month for the present and in a little while we'll perhaps find the 'level,'«and he smiled. I thanked him and went out to my work.