Part 17 (2/2)

”You think there is really something in it?”

”I see no reason why eloquence should not be taught by mail. One seems to be able to acquire every other desirable quality in that manner nowadays.”

”I might try it. After all, it's not expensive. There's no doubt about it,” he murmured, returning to his perusal, ”that fellow does look popular. Of course, the evening dress may have something to do with it.”

”Not at all. The other man, you will notice, is also wearing evening dress, and yet he is merely among those on the outskirts. It is simply a question of writing for the booklet.”

”Sent post free.”

”Sent, as you say, post free.”

”I've a good mind to try it.”

”I see no reason why you should not.”

”I will, by Duncan!” He tore the page out of the magazine and put it in his pocket. ”I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give this thing a trial for a week or two, and at the end of that time I'll go to the boss and see how he reacts when I ask for a rise of salary. If he crawls, it'll show there's something in this. If he flings me out, it will prove the thing's no good.”

We left it at that, and I am bound to say--owing, no doubt, to my not having written for the booklet of the Memory Training Course advertised on the adjoining page of the magazine--the matter slipped from my mind.

When, therefore, a few weeks later, I received a telegram from young Mackintosh which ran:

_Worked like magic,_

I confess I was intensely puzzled. It was only a quarter of an hour before George himself arrived that I solved the problem of its meaning.

”So the boss crawled?” I said, as he came in.

He gave a light, confident laugh. I had not seen him, as I say, for some time, and I was struck by the alteration in his appearance. In what exactly this alteration consisted I could not at first have said; but gradually it began to impress itself on me that his eye was brighter, his jaw squarer, his carriage a trifle more upright than it had been. But it was his eye that struck me most forcibly. The George Mackintosh I had known had had a pleasing gaze, but, though frank and agreeable, it had never been more dynamic than a fried egg. This new George had an eye that was a combination of a gimlet and a searchlight.

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, I imagine, must have been somewhat similarly equipped. The Ancient Mariner stopped a wedding guest on his way to a wedding; George Mackintosh gave me the impression that he could have stopped the Cornish Riviera express on its way to Penzance.

Self-confidence--aye, and more than self-confidence--a sort of sinful, overbearing sw.a.n.k seemed to exude from his very pores.

”Crawled?” he said. ”Well, he didn't actually lick my boots, because I saw him coming and side-stepped; but he did everything short of that. I hadn't been talking an hour when----”

”An hour!” I gasped. ”Did you talk for an hour?”

”Certainly. You wouldn't have had me be abrupt, would you? I went into his private office and found him alone. I think at first he would have been just as well pleased if I had retired. In fact, he said as much.

But I soon adjusted that outlook. I took a seat and a cigarette, and then I started to sketch out for him the history of my connection with the firm. He began to wilt before the end of the first ten minutes. At the quarter of an hour mark he was looking at me like a lost dog that's just found its owner. By the half-hour he was making little bleating noises and ma.s.saging my coat-sleeve. And when, after perhaps an hour and a half, I came to my peroration and suggested a rise, he choked back a sob, gave me double what I had asked, and invited me to dine at his club next Tuesday. I'm a little sorry now I cut the thing so short.

A few minutes more, and I fancy he would have given me his sock-suspenders and made over his life-insurance in my favour.”

”Well,” I said, as soon as I could speak, for I was finding my young friend a trifle overpowering, ”this is most satisfactory.”

”So-so,” said George. ”Not un-so-so. A man wants an addition to his income when he is going to get married.”

”Ah!” I said. ”That, of course, will be the real test.”

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