An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [97]
For to say the truth, Clyde had a soul that was not destined to grow up. He lacked decidedly that mental clarity and inner directing application that in so many permits them to sort out from the facts and avenues of life the particular thing or things that make for their direct advancement.
Chapter 4
However, as he now fancied, it was because he lacked an education that he had done so poorly. Because of those various moves from city to city in his early youth, he had never been permitted to collect such a sum of practical training in any field as would permit him, so he thought, to aspire to the great worlds of which these men appeared to be a part. Yet his soul now yearned for this. The people who lived in fine houses, who stopped at great hotels, and had men like Mr. Squires, and the manager of the bellhops here, to wait on them and arrange for their comfort. And he was still a bellhop. And close to twenty-one. At times it made him very sad. He wished and wished that he could get into some work where he could rise and be somebody—not always remain a bellhop, as at times he feared he might.
About the time that he reached this conclusion in regard to himself and was meditating on some way to improve and safeguard his future, his uncle, Samuel Griffiths, arrived in Chicago. And having connections here which made a card to this club an obvious civility, he came directly to it and for several days was about the place conferring with individuals who came to see him, or hurrying to and fro to meet people and visit concerns whom he deemed it important to see.
And it was not an hour after he arrived before Ratterer, who had charge of the pegboard at the door by day and who had but a moment before finished posting the name of this uncle on the board, signaled to Clyde, who came over.
“Didn’t you say you had an uncle or something by the name of Griffiths in the collar business somewhere in New York State?”
“Sure,” replied Clyde. “Samuel Griffiths. He has a big collar factory in Lycurgus. That’s his ad you see in all the papers and that’s his fire sign over there on Michigan Avenue.”
“Would you know him if you saw him?”
“No,” replied Clyde. “I never saw him in all my life.”
“I’ll bet anything it’s the same fellow,” commented Ratterer, consulting a small registry slip that had been handed him. “Looka here—Samuel Griffiths, Lycurgus, N. Y. That’s probably the same guy, eh?”
“Surest thing you know,” added Clyde, very much interested and even excited, for this was the identical uncle about whom he had been thinking so long.
“He just went through here a few minutes ago,” went on Ratterer. “Devoy took his bags up to K. Swell-looking man, too. You better keep your eye open and take a look at him when he comes down again. Maybe it’s your uncle. He’s only medium tall and kinda thin. Wears a small gray mustache and a pearl gray hat. Good-lookin’. I’ll point him out to you. If it is your uncle you better shine up to him. Maybe he’ll do somepin’ for you—give you a collar or two,” he added, laughing.
Clyde laughed too as though he very much appreciated this joke, although in reality he was flustered. His uncle Samuel! And in this club! Well, then this was his opportunity to introduce himself to his uncle. He had intended writing him before ever he secured this place, but now he was here in this club and might speak to him if he chose.
But hold! What would his uncle think of him, supposing he chose to introduce himself? For he was a bell-boy again and acting in that capacity in this club. What, for instance, might be his uncle’s attitude toward boys who worked as bell-boys, particularly at his— Clyde’s—years. For he was over twenty now, and getting to be pretty old for a bell-boy, that is, if one ever intended to be anything