Christopher Morley - Where the Blue Begins

Indeed, Gissing had raised floorwalking to a new level. He was more prime minister than a mere patroller of aisles. With sparkling eye, with unending curiosity, tact, and attention, he moved quietly among the throng. He realized that shopping is the female paradise; that spending money she has not earned is the only real fun an elderly and wealthy lady can have; and if to this primitive shopping passion can be added the delights of social amenity — flattery, courtesy, good-humoured flirtation — the snare is complete.

But all this is not accomplished without rousing the jealousy of rivals. Among the other floorwalkers, and particularly in the gorgeously uniformed attendant at the front door (who was outraged by Gissing's habit of escorting special customers to their motors) moved anger, envy, and sneers. Gissing, completely absorbed in the fascination of his work, was unaware of this hostility, as he was equally unaware of the amazed satisfaction of his employer. He went his way with naive and unconscious pleasure. It did not take long for his enemies to find a fulcrum for their chagrin. One evening, after closing, when he sat in the dressing room, with his feet in the usual tub of hot water, placidly reviewing the day's excitements and smoking his pipe, the superintendent burst in.

“Hey!” he exclaimed. “Don't you know smoking's forbidden? What do you want to do, get our fire insurance cancelled? Get out of here! You're fired!”

It did not occur to Gissing to question or protest. He had known perfectly well that smoking was not allowed. But he was like the stage hand behind the scenes who concluded it was all right to light a cigarette because the sign only said Smoking Forbidden, instead of Smoking Strictly Forbidden. He had not troubled his mind about it, one way or about it, one way or another.

He had drawn his salary that evening, and his first thought was, Well, at any rate I've earned enough to pay for the clothes. He had been there exactly four weeks. Quite calmly, he lifted his feet out of the tub and began to towel them daintily. The meticulous way he dried between his toes was infuriating to the superintendent.

“Have you any children?” Gissing asked, mildly.

“What's that to you?” snapped the other.

“I'll sell you this bathtub for a quarter. Take it home to them. They probably need it.”

“You get out of here!” cried the angry official.

“You'd be surprised,” said Gissing, “how children thrive when they're bathed regularly. Believe me, I know.”

He packed his formal clothes in a neat bundle, left the bathtub behind, surrendered his locker key, and walked toward the employees' door, escorted by his bristling superior. As they passed through the empty aisles, scene of his brief triumph, he could not help gazing a little sadly. True merchant to the last, a thought struck him He scribbled a note on the back of a sales slip' and left it at Miss Whippet's post by the stocking counter. It said —

Miss Whippet : Show Mrs. Sealyham some of the bisque sports hose, Scotch wool, size 9. She's coming to-morrow. Don't let her get size 8 1/2. They shrink.

Mr. Gissing.

At the door he paused, relit his pipe leisurely, raised his hat to the superintendent, and strolled away.

In spite of this nonchalance, the situation was serious. His money was at a low ebb. All his regular income was diverted to the support of the large household in the country. He was too proud to appeal to his wealthy uncle. He hated also to think of Mrs. Purp's mortification if she learned that her star boarder was out of work. By a curious irony, when he got home he found a letter from Mrs. Spaniel —

Mr. Gishing, dere friend, the pupeys are well, no insecks, and eat with nives and forx Groups is the fattest but Yelpers is the lowdest they send wags and lix and glad to here Daddy is doing so well in buisness with respects from

Mrs. Spaniel.

He did not let Mrs. Purp know of the change in his condition, and every morning left his lodging at the usual time. By some curious attraction he felt drawn to that downtown region where his kinsman's office was. This part of the city he had not properly explored.

It was a world wholly different from Fifth Avenue. There was none of that sense of space and luxury he had known on the wide slopes of Murray Hill. He wandered under terrific buildings, in a breezy shadow where javelins of colourless sunlight pierced through thin slits, hot brilliance fell in fans and cascades over the uneven terrace of roofs. Here was where husbands worked to keep Fifth Avenue going: he wondered vaguely whether Mrs. Sealyham had bought those stockings? One day he saw his uncle hurrying along Wall Street with an intent face. Gissing skipped into a doorway, fearing to be recognized. He knew that the old fellow would insist on taking him to lunch at the Pedigree Club, would talk endlessly, and ask family questions. But he was on the scent of matters that talk could not pursue.

He perceived a sense of pressure, of prodigious poetry and beauty and amazement. This was a strange jungle of life. Tall coasts of windows stood up into the pure brilliant sky: against their feet beat a dark surf of slums. In one foreign street, too deeply trenched for sunlight, oranges were the only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, came close: there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipice stood a gilded statue — a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brilliance flamed between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of that pouring light seemed about to hover him off into blue air.

The world of working husbands was more tender than that of shopping wives: even in all their business, they had left space and quietness for the dead. Sunken among the crags he found two graveyards. They were cups of placid brightness. Here, looking upward, it was like being drowned on the floor of an ocean of light. Husbands had built their offices half-way to the sky rather than disturb these. Perhaps they appreciate rest all the more, Gissing thought, because they get so little of it? Somehow he could not quite imagine a graveyard left at peace in the shopping district. It would be bad for trade, perhaps? Even the churches on the Avenue, he had noticed, were huddled up and hemmed in so tightly by the other buildings that they had scarcely room to kneel. If I ever become a parson, he said (this was a fantastic dream of his), I will insist that all churches must have a girdle of green about them, to set them apart from the world.

The two little brown churches among the cliffs had been gifted with a dignity far beyond the dream of their builders. Their pointing spires were relieved against the enormous facades of business. What other altars ever had such a reredos? Above the strepitant racket of the streets, he heard the harsh chimes of Trinity at noonday — strong jags of clangour hurled against the great sounding-boards of buildings; drifting and dying away down side alleys. There was no soft music of appeal in the bronze volleying: it was the hoarse monitory voice of rebuke. So spoke the church of old, he thought: not asking, not appealing, but imperatively, sternly, as one born to command. He thought with new respect of Mr. Sealyham, Mr. Mastiff, Mr. Dachshund, all the others who were powers in these fantastic flumes of stone. They were more than merely husbands of charge accounts — they were poets. They sat at lunch on the tops of their amazing edifices, and looked off at the blue.

Day after day went by, but with a serene fatalism Gissing did nothing about hunting a job. He was willing to wait until the last dollar was broken: in the meantime he was content. You never know the soul of a city, he said, until you are down on your luck. Now, he felt, he had been here long enough to understand her. She did not give her secrets to the world of Fifth Avenue. Down here, where the deep crevice of Broadway opened out into greenness, what was the first thing he saw? Out across the harbour, turned toward open sea — Liberty! Liberty Enlightening the World, he had heard, was her full name. Some had mocked her, he had also heard. Well, what was the gist of her enlightenment? Why this, surely: that Liberty could never be more than a statue: never a reality. Only a fool would expect complete liberty. He himself, with all his latitude, was not free. If he were, he would cook his meals in his room, and save money — but Mrs. Purp was strict on that point. She had spoken scathingly of two young females she ejected for just that reason. Nor was Mrs. Purp free — she was ridden by the Gas Company. So it went.