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CHAPTER I - A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION
The beginning of this yarn is my poor father's character. There
never was a better man, nor a handsomer, nor (in my view) a
more unhappy--unhappy in his business, in his pleasures, in his
place of residence, and (I am sorry to say it) in his son. He had
begun life as a land-surveyor, soon became interested in real
estate, branched off into many other speculations, and had the
name of one of the smartest men in the State of Muskegon.
"Dodd has a big head," people used to say; but I was never so
sure of his capacity. His luck, at least, was beyond doubt for
long; his assiduity, always. He fought in that daily battle of
money-grubbing, with a kind of sad-eyed loyalty like a
martyr's; rose early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-
eary, even from success; grudged himself all pleasure, if his
nature was capable of taking any, which I sometimes
wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or corner in
aluminium, the essence of which was little better than highway
robbery, treasures of conscientiousness and self-denial.
Unluckily, I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never
shall. My idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with
things of beauty, and have a fairly good time myself while
doing so. I do not think I mentioned that second part, which is
the only one I have managed to carry out; but my father must
have suspected the suppression, for he branded the whole affair
as self-indulgence.
"Well," I remember crying once, "and what is your life? You
are only trying to get money, and to get it from other people at
that."
He sighed bitterly (which was very much his habit), and shook
his poor head at me. "Ah, Loudon, Loudon!" said he, "you
boys think yourselves very smart. But, struggle as you please,
a man has to work in this world. He must be an honest man or
a thief, Loudon."
You can see for yourself how vain it was to argue with my
father. The despair that seized upon me after such an interview
was, besides, embittered by remorse; for I was at times
petulant, but he invariably gentle; and I was fighting, after all,
for my own liberty and pleasure, he singly for what he thought
to be my good. And all the time he never despaired. "There is
good stuff in you, Loudon," he would say; "there is the right
stuff in you. Blood will tell, and you will come right in time. I
am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only vexed he
should sometimes talk nonsense." And then he would pat my
shoulder or my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very
affecting in a man so strong and beautiful.
As soon as I had graduated from the high school, he packed me
off to the Muskegon Commercial Academy. You are a
foreigner, and you will have a difficulty in accepting the reality
of this seat of education. I assure you before I begin that I am
wholly serious. The place really existed, possibly exists to-day:
we were proud of it in the State, as something exceptionally
nineteenth century and civilized; and my father, when he saw
me to the cars, no doubt considered he was putting me in a
straight line for the Presidency and the New Jerusalem.
"Loudon," said he, "I am now giving you a chance that Julius
Caesar could not have given to his son--a chance to see life as
it is, before your own turn comes to start in earnest. Avoid rash
speculation, try to behave like a gentleman; and if you will take
my advice, confine yourself to a safe, conservative business in
railroads. Breadstuffs are tempting, but very dangerous; I
would not try breadstuffs at your time of life; but you may feel
your way a little in other commodities. Take a pride to keep
your books posted, and never throw good money after bad.
There, my dear boy, kiss me good-by; and never forget that
you are an only chick, and that your dad watches your career
with fond suspense."
The commercial college was a fine, roomy establishment,
pleasantly situate among woods. The air was healthy, the food
excellent, the premium high. Electric wires connected it (to use
the words of the prospectus) with "the various world centres."
The reading-room was well supplied with "commercial
organs." The talk was that of Wall Street; and the pupils (from
fifty to a hundred lads) were principally engaged in rooking or
trying to rook one another for nominal sums in what was called
"college paper." We had class hours, indeed, in the morning,
when we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like
goodly matters; but the bulk of our day and the gist of the
education centred in the exchange, where we were taught to
gamble in produce and securities. Since not one of the
participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a dollar's worth of
stock, legitimate business was of course impossible from the
beginning. It was cold-drawn gambling, without colour or
disguise. Just that which is the impediment and destruction of
all genuine commercial enterprise, just that we were taught
with every luxury of stage effect. Our simulacrum of a market
was ruled by the real markets outside, so that we might
experience the course and vicissitude of prices. We must keep
books, and our ledgers were overhauled at the month's end by
the principal or his assistants. To add a spice of verisimilitude,
"college paper" (like poker chips) had an actual marketable
value. It was bought for each pupil by anxious parents and
guardians at the rate of one cent for the dollar. The same pupil,
when his education was complete, resold, at the same figure,
so much as was left him to the college; and even in the midst of
his curriculum, a successful operator would sometimes realize
a proportion of his holding, and stand a supper on the sly in the
neighbouring hamlet. In short, if there was ever a worse
education, it must have been in that academy where Oliver met
Charlie Bates.
When I was first guided into the exchange to have my desk
pointed out by one of the assistant teachers, I was overwhelmed
by the clamour and confusion. Certain blackboards at the other
end of the building were covered with figures continually
replaced. As each new set appeared, the pupils swayed to and
fro, and roared out aloud with a formidable and to me quite
meaningless vociferation; leaping at the same time upon the
desks and benches, signalling with arms and heads, and
scribbling briskly in note-books. I thought I had never beheld a
scene more disagreeable; and when I considered that the whole
traffic was illusory, and all the money then upon the market
would scarce have sufficed to buy a pair of skates, I was at first
astonished, although not for long. Indeed, I had no sooner
called to mind how grown-up men and women of considerable
estate will lose their temper about half-penny points, than
(making an immediate allowance for my fellow-students) I
transferred the whole of my astonishment to the assistant
teacher, who--poor gentleman--had quite forgot to show me to
my desk, and stood in the midst of this hurly-burly, absorbed
and seemingly transported.
"Look, look," he shouted in my ear; "a falling market! The
bears have had it all their own way since yesterday."
"It can't matter," I replied, making him hear with difficulty, for
I was unused to speak in such a babel, "since it is all fun."
"True," said he; "and you must always bear in mind that the
real profit is in the book-keeping. I trust, Dodd, to be able to
congratulate you upon your books. You are to start in with ten
thousand dollars of college paper, a very liberal figure, which
should see you through the whole curriculum, if you keep to a
safe, conservative business.... Why, what's that?" he broke off,
once more attracted by the changing figures on the board.
"Seven, four, three! Dodd, you are in luck: this is the most
spirited rally we have had this term. And to think that the
same scene is now transpiring in New York, Chicago, St.
Louis, and rival business centres! For two cents, I would try a
flutter with the boys myself," he cried, rubbing his hands; "only
it's against the regulations."
"What would you do, sir?" I asked.
"Do?" he cried, with glittering eyes. "Buy for all I was worth!"
"Would that be a safe, conservative business?" I inquired, as
innocent as a lamb.
He looked daggers at me. "See that sandy-haired man in
glasses?" he asked, as if to change the subject. "That's Billson,
our most prominent undergraduate. We build confidently on
Billson's future. You could not do better, Dodd, than follow
Billson."
Presently after, in the midst of a still growing tumult, the
figures coming and going more busily than ever on the board,
and the hall resounding like Pandemonium with the howls of
operators, the assistant teacher left me to my own resources at
my desk. The next boy was posting up his ledger, figuring his
morning's loss, as I discovered later on; and from this ungenial
task he was readily diverted by the sight of a new face.
"Say, Freshman," he said, "what's your name? What? Son of
Big Head Dodd? What's your figure? Ten thousand? O,
you're away up! What a soft-headed clam you must be to touch
your books!"
I asked him what else I could do, since the books were to be
examined once a month.
"Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!" cries he. "One of our dead
beats--that's all they're here for. If you're a successful operator,
you need never do a stroke of work in this old college."
The noise had now become deafening; and my new friend,
telling me that some one had certainly "gone down," that he
must know the news, and that he would bring me a clerk when
he returned, buttoned his coat and plunged into the tossing
throng. It proved that he was right: some one had gone down;
a prince had fallen in Israel; the corner in lard had proved fatal
to the mighty; and the clerk who was brought back to keep my
books, spare me all work, and get all my share of the education,
at a thousand dollars a month, college paper (ten dollars,
United States currency) was no other than the prominent
Billson whom I could do no better than follow. The poor lad
was very unhappy. It's the only good thing I have to say for
Muskegon Commercial College, that we were all, even the
small fry, deeply mortified to be posted as defaulters; and the
collapse of a merchant prince like Billson, who had ridden
pretty high in his days of prosperity, was, of course, particularly
hard to bear. But the spirit of make-believe conquered even the
bitterness of recent shame; and my clerk took his orders, and
fell to his new duties, with decorum and civility.
Such were my first impressions in this absurd place of
education; and, to be frank, they were far from disagreeable.
As long as I was rich, my evenings and afternoons would be
my own; the clerk must keep my books, the clerk could do the
jostling and bawling in the exchange; and I could turn my mind
to landscape-painting and Balzac's novels, which were then my
two preoccupations. To remain rich, then, became my
problem; or, in other words, to do a safe, conservative line of
business. I am looking for that line still; and I believe the
nearest thing to it in this imperfect world is the sort of
speculation sometimes insidiously proposed to childhood, in
the formula, "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." Mindful of my
father's parting words, I turned my attention timidly to
railroads; and for a month or so maintained a position of
inglorious security, dealing for small amounts in the most inert
stocks, and bearing (as best I could) the scorn of my hired
clerk. One day I had ventured a little further by way of
experiment; and, in the sure expectation they would continue to
go down, sold several thousand dollars of Pan-Handle
Preference (I think it was). I had no sooner made this venture
than some fools in New York began to bull the market;
Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of half an
hour I saw my position compromised. Blood will tell, as my
father said; and I stuck to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued
selling that infernal stock, all afternoon it continued skying. I
suppose I had come (a frail cockle-shell) athwart the hawse of
Jay Gould; and, indeed, I think I remember that this vagary in
the market proved subsequently to be the first move in a
considerable deal. That evening, at least, the name of H.
Loudon Dodd held the first rank in our collegiate gazette, and I
and Billson (once more thrown upon the world) were
competing for the same clerkship. The present object takes the
present eye. My disaster, for the moment, was the more
conspicuous; and it was I that got the situation. So you see,
even in Muskegon Commercial College, there were lessons to
be learned.
For my own part, I cared very little whether I lost or won at a
game so random, so complex, and so dull; but it was sorry
news to write to my poor father, and I employed all the
resources of my eloquence. I told him (what was the truth) that
the successful boys had none of the education; so that if he
wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my misfortune. I went
on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up again, when I
would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable
railroads. Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured
him I was totally unfit for business, and implored him to take
me away from this abominable place, and let me go to Paris to
study art. He answered briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me
the vacation was near at hand, when we could talk things over.
When the time came, he met me at the depot, and I was
shocked to see him looking older. He seemed to have no
thought but to console me and restore (what he supposed I had
lost) my courage. I must not be down-hearted; many of the
best men had made a failure in the beginning. I told him I had
no head for business, and his kind face darkened. "You must
not say that, Loudon," he replied; "I will never believe my son
to be a coward."
"But I don't like it," I pleaded. "It hasn't got any interest for
me, and art has. I know I could do more in art," and I
reminded him that a successful painter gains large sums; that a
picture of Meissonier's would sell for many thousand dollars.
"And do you think, Loudon," he replied, "that a man who can
paint a thousand dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his
end up in the stock market? No, sir; this Mason (of whom you
speak) or our own American Bierstadt--if you were to put them
down in a wheat pit to-morrow, they would show their mettle.
Come, Loudon, my dear; heaven knows I have no thought but
your own good, and I will offer you a bargain. I start you again
next term with ten thousand dollars; show yourself a man, and
double it, and then (if you still wish to go to Paris, which I
know you won't) I'll let you go. But to let you run away as if
you were whipped, is what I am too proud to do."
My heart leaped at this proposal, and then sank again. It
seemed easier to paint a Meissonier on the spot than to win ten
thousand dollars on that mimic stock exchange. Nor could I
help reflecting on the singularity of such a test for a man's
capacity to be a painter. I ventured even to comment on this.
He sighed deeply. "You forget, my dear," said he, "I am a
judge of the one, and not of the other. You might have the
genius of Bierstadt himself, and I would be none the wiser."
"And then," I continued, "it's scarcely fair. The other boys are
helped by their people, who telegraph and give them pointers.
There's Jim Costello, who never budges without a word from
his father in New York. And then, don't you see, if anybody is
to win, somebody must lose?"
"I'll keep you posted," cried my father, with unusual animation;
"I did not know it was allowed. I'll wire you in the office
cipher, and we'll make it a kind of partnership business,
Loudon:--Dodd & Son, eh?" and he patted my shoulder and
repeated, "Dodd & Son, Dodd & Son," with the kindliest
amusement.
If my father was to give me pointers, and the commercial
college was to be a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my
future in the face. The old boy, too, was so pleased at the idea
of our association in this foolery that he immediately plucked
up spirit. Thus it befell that those who had met at the depot
like a pair of mutes, sat down to table with holiday faces.
And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a
word nor wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole
subsequent career. You have crossed the States, so that in all
likelihood you have seen the head of it, parcel-gilt and
curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide plain; for this
new character was no other than the State capitol of Muskegon,
then first projected. My father had embraced the idea with a
mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly
genuine. He was of all the committees, he had subscribed a
great deal of money, and he was making arrangements to have
a finger in most of the contracts. Competitive plans had been
sent in; at the time of my return from college my father was
deep in their consideration; and as the idea entirely occupied
his mind, the first evening did not pass away before he had
called me into council. Here was a subject at last into which I
could throw myself with pleasurable zeal. Architecture was
new to me, indeed; but it was at least an art; and for all the arts
I had a taste naturally classical and that capacity to take
delighted pains which some famous idiot has supposed to be
synonymous with genius. I threw myself headlong into my
father's work, acquainted myself with all the plans, their merits
and defects, read besides in special books, made myself a
master of the theory of strains, studied the current prices of
materials, and (in one word) "devilled" the whole business so
thoroughly, that when the plans came up for consideration, Big
Head Dodd was supposed to have earned fresh laurels. His
arguments carried the day, his choice was approved by the
committee, and I had the anonymous satisfaction to know that
arguments and choice were wholly mine. In the recasting of
the plan which followed, my part was even larger; for I
designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating for the
offices, which had the luck or merit to be accepted. The energy
and aptitude which I displayed throughout delighted and
surprised my father, and I believe, although I say it whose
tongue should be tied, that they alone prevented Muskegon
capitol from being the eyesore of my native State.
Altogether, I was in a cheery frame of mind when I returned to
the commercial college; and my earlier operations were
crowned with a full measure of success. My father wrote and
wired to me continually. "You are to exercise your own
judgment, Loudon," he would say. "All that I do is to give you
the figures; but whatever operation you take up must be upon
your own responsibility, and whatever you earn will be entirely
due to your own dash and forethought." For all that, it was
always clear what he intended me to do, and I was always
careful to do it. Inside of a month I was at the head of
seventeen or eighteen thousand dollars, college paper. And
here I fell a victim to one of the vices of the system. The paper
(I have already explained) had a real value of one per cent; and
cost, and could be sold for, currency. Unsuccessful speculators
were thus always selling clothes, books, banjos, and sleeve-
links, in order to pay their differences; the successful, on the
other hand, were often tempted to realise, and enjoy some
return upon their profits. Now I wanted thirty dollars' worth of
artist-truck, for I was always sketching in the woods; my
allowance was for the time exhausted; I had begun to regard
the exchange (with my father's help) as a place where money
was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour I realised three
thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my easel.
It was a Wednesday morning when the things arrived, and set
me in the seventh heaven of satisfaction. My father (for I can
scarcely say myself) was trying at this time a "straddle" in
wheat between Chicago and New York; the operation so called
is, as you know, one of the most tempting and least safe upon
the chess-board of finance. On the Thursday, luck began to
turn against my father's calculations; and by the Friday
evening, I was posted on the boards as a defaulter for the
second time. Here was a rude blow: my father would have
taken it ill enough in any case; for however much a man may
resent the incapacity of an only son, he will feel his own more
sensibly. But it chanced that, in our bitter cup of failure, there
was one ingredient that might truly be called poisonous. He
had been keeping the run of my position; he missed the three
thousand dollars, paper; and in his view, I had stolen thirty
dollars, currency. It was an extreme view perhaps; but in some
senses, it was just: and my father, although (to my judgment)
quite reckless of honesty in the essence of his operations, was
the soul of honour as to their details. I had one grieved letter
from him, dignified and tender; and during the rest of that
wretched term, working as a clerk, selling my clothes and
sketches to make futile speculations, my dream of Paris quite
vanished. I was cheered by no word of kindness and helped by
no hint of counsel from my father.
All the time he was no doubt thinking of little else but his son,
and what to do with him. I believe he had been really appalled
by what he regarded as my laxity of principle, and began to
think it might be well to preserve me from temptation; the
architect of the capitol had, besides, spoken obligingly of my
design; and while he was thus hanging between two minds,
Fortune suddenly stepped in, and Muskegon State capitol
reversed my destiny.
"Loudon," said my father, as he met me at the depot, with a
smiling countenance, "if you were to go to Paris, how long
would it take you to become an experienced sculptor?"
"How do you mean, father?" I cried. "Experienced?"
"A man that could be entrusted with the highest styles," he
answered; "the nude, for instance; and the patriotic and
emblematical styles."
"It might take three years," I replied.
"You think Paris necessary?" he asked. "There are great
advantages in our own country; and that man Prodgers appears
to be a very clever sculptor, though I suppose he stands too
high to go around giving lessons."
"Paris is the only place," I assured him.
"Well, I think myself it will sound better," he admitted. "A
Young Man, a Native of this State, Son of a Leading Citizen,
Studies Prosecuted under the Most Experienced Masters in
Paris," he added, relishingly.
"But, my dear dad, what is it all about?" I interrupted. "I never
even dreamed of being a sculptor."
"Well, here it is," said he. "I took up the statuary contract on
our new capitol; I took it up at first as a deal; and then it
occurred to me it would be better to keep it in the family. It
meets your idea; there's considerable money in the thing; and
it's patriotic. So, if you say the word, you shall go to Paris, and
come back in three years to decorate the capitol of your native
State. It's a big chance for you, Loudon; and I'll tell you what--
every dollar you earn, I'll put another alongside of it. But the
sooner you go, and the harder you work, the better; for if the
first half-dozen statues aren't in a line with public taste in
Muskegon, there will be trouble."
Content of CHAPTER I - A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION [Robert Louis Stevenson's novel: The Wrecker]
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