So he was in fairly good humor when he met Reva at the country club, racket in hand, arrayed in immaculate garments and trying to smile as if he were looking forward to the event with pleasure.
Reva proved to be a fairly good player and gave him stiff opposition as long as she lasted, but when they reached the end of a set, she professed to be weary and wanted to sit down and rest. What she really wanted was a chance for a good flirtation, and Paige had no mind for resting, so he sat down for five minutes and then stood up again.
“Come, we are wasting our strength. We were just getting warmed up for a good fight. Let’s get back to work again. You play a good game. You’ll soon get your second wind and won’t feel tired.”
So they went back to playing, and Reva found very little opportunity to talk.
When they had finished their two hours, Paige escorted her down to the club, declined the offer of drinks or other refreshments, and hurried away.
You know I told you I had other things to do,” he said with a farewell smile.
“Oh, just the Bible! That’s silly on a lovely day like this. Let the old Bible go, and have a good time with me,” she pleaded.
“Sorry, I couldn’t,” he said. “But I thank you for the game, and maybe sometime if I get time, we’ll try it again. You can bring some of your other friends along to take over when I have to stop.”
Reva sat gloomily on the club veranda and took a drink. Then she slammed into her car and whizzed off in search of a more peppy game. She wasn’t sure but this guy was just a waste of time. There were plenty of other fellows who were ready to join in with any whim she happened to have, and they didn’t have to go off and study a Bible! Well, he was intriguing of course, and stunningly handsome, and he certainly could smash the tennis ball across the net and beat her every time. She could always use him for a fill-in, any time her regular dates failed. But really, he would be worth it, if she could ever get a chance to cultivate him. Perhaps she and Dad could do something clever for a vacation and rope him in to go along.
So Reva went home to think up something devilish and plan how she could get her father to help her work it out. If Dad told Paige that he needed him for some work this summer, he would have to go along wherever they chose to go, wouldn’t he? Well, she would see what she could do about it, for she certainly didn’t intend to let a little old religious notion or two spoil her fun, and she certainly meant to win over this reluctant swain.
Meantime, Paige went home and, after a refreshing shower, went into a deep study of the Bible, specializing on the Sunday school lesson for the morrow, and then went to his knees in further preparation. This was his first opportunity for what was usually called real witnessing, and he wanted to make it count for the young souls who were to be put under his care for a time.
As he rose from his knees, he looked out the window toward the Culbertson house and gave a wistful sigh. How he would enjoy a talk with June now! He would so like to talk over that Bible lesson and see what she thought on different points. She had a wonderful way with young people. Witness that Shambley kid. She could wind him right around her finger. She would know whether Paige’s thoughts were wise. Well, that was silly thinking. She wasn’t here, and he had no right whatever to be making her the center of his thoughts, just because they had spent a couple of days in company working for the Shambleys. June probably had some intimate friends there where she had gone, perhaps some very special friend, and she would soon forget that he, Paige Madison, existed. Well, that was that. If she ever wrote again, he would know how to think of her. But at present, he knew in his heart that she was the finest girl he had ever met. The most beautiful, too. Reva wasn’t to be compared to her, and it had not taken that afternoon of tennis to show him that. Of course, he had never played tennis with June, but what difference did that make? If she did not play tennis already, he would teach her to like it, that is if he ever got the chance, or if she didn’t like it, he didn’t really care. He would certainly rather talk with June than with a brainless girl like Reva.
Then suddenly he came to himself. What was he doing? Thinking about a girl he scarcely knew as if he were going to have an opportunity to spend his life having a good time with her, when in reality he wasn’t sure of even seeing her again. He must get his mind off girls of all kinds and get this school lesson ready to hold the attention of those new boys, boys that he didn’t know at all, and who very likely might not have any use for him.
So back he went to his study and finally again to his knees.
“Something else, dear Lord, that You need to take over. Just my wandering thoughts and hopes. Help me to lay them all at Thy disposal.”
A little later in the evening, Paige got into his car and took a turn up to the Shambleys just to have a few minutes’ talk with Mr. Shambley and make sure he would take a thorough rest on Sunday, because Monday he was starting to work. There wasn’t any need of it, of course, but Paige was restless and wanted to get his mind away from himself and his various problems. So he talked with Mr. Shambley and gained his confidence still more than before. During the talk more information concerning Harris Chalmers and Company came to the surface, and the impression of them that he had had from the first grew more unsettling than before. Of course, Mr. Shambley was not a good judge of character and was in position to be prejudiced against the firm that had made life so hard for him of late, but after all, it could not be denied that the firm he now worked for was hard. They might not be dishonest, they might not overstep the law, but they certainly were hard. Did a business firm have to be hard, unfeeling, and unkind in order to be successful? It suddenly came to him that he wished he could be in some kind of business for himself and try it out.
There had to be business in the world, of course, and it had to have success or it could not be carried on, but did it have to be hard?
And did a Christian have any right to be hard? He had to be wise and use judgment of course, but when a man got into a tight corner, did he have to be treated with cruelty? If he only had some money, he certainly would like to go into business and try out some of his theories that were being developed.
He drove slowly, taking quite a detour while he thought out these matters, and when he finally reached home, his mother called to him from upstairs. For once she had not sat up for him. At least she had started to bed.
“Paige, Miss Chalmers called up twice and said it was very important.”
“Yes, I was afraid of that,” said Paige. “I’m sure it was not important. Don’t worry.”
“And Paige, there’s a letter for you, special delivery airmail. It came just a few minutes ago.”
“A letter! Where is it?”
“Right there on the hall table. Do you find it, dear?”
“Yes, I have it, thank you, Mother, and good night!”
Paige came leaping up the stairs with the letter in his hand and a shine on his face. His precious letter. It had come, and she had sent it special delivery! That showed, didn’t it, that she knew how much he needed a word from her?
It was sometime afterward that that thought came to him again, and he wondered at himself for having dared to think it. Yet it had given him a very welcome assurance. This was a matter of his Christian experience, and he had asked her a serious question about whether it could possibly be real or whether he was letting his imagination run wild. And he needed to know what she thought before he went to teach that new Sunday school class. So he need not condemn himself for thinking too much about June. She was a Christian friend, and there was nothing foolish about his feeling for her. They were merely new friends who had discovered they thought in the same way about spiritual things.
Then he turned on the light and sat down to read his letter.
And about that time Reva Chalmers was accosting her father, who had just come into the house.
“Dad, I played tennis with your handsome assistant manager today, and do you know, I think he’s sweet, and it really would be quite easy to h
umanize him. I got a start on him this afternoon, and I think he already likes me a lot. If you’ll give me the job of educating him, I believe I could make him quite easy for you to manage. You know, all he needs is to get rid of some of his sentimentality, and he’d be a fine businessman, ready for the hardest proposition you could hand him.”
Oh, Reva was clever, and she knew exactly what her father wanted of Paige Madison, and just how he had failed in her father’s scheme of business matters. She knew also how to get around her father so that he would eventually listen to her and see that her suggestion was not only wise but altogether interesting from more than one point of view.
“Oh? You don’t say! And how could you bring all that about?” asked her father. His tone was sarcastic, amused. He often humored his daughter’s suggestions for the time being, and on occasion he found them to be worth trying.
“Well, come on and sit down in your big chair, Daddy, and I’ll tell you all about it. This is a real plan, Daddy, and I’m sure it will work, if you’ll just back me up in it. And I have a nice cold drink in here for you. Come on, Daddy.”
So she cajoled her father into his big easy chair, put a cool little kiss on his forehead and a cold frosty glass into his hand, and then she settled down on a low footstool in front of him.
“Now, let’s hear what your proposition is!” said the father, with an amiable smile.
So Reva began her story.
“Why you see, Dad, I’ve been getting quite a line on Paige Madison since you let me take that membership card for the University Club to him. He took me to lunch the next day, and he really was not half bad! He can talk, Daddy; that guy can talk when he wants to! And I believe all he needs is to get a different point of view. You see, he hasn’t been brought up the way we were. He doesn’t know the ways of good society, and he needs to be taught. I think I could teach him if I had half a chance to be with him enough. And that’s where you come in, Dad. You’ve got to give me a chance.”
Her father grinned.
“I should think that was up to you, Reva. You seem to be able to get enough other young fellows around you without my assistance. I never heard you call for my help in that direction.”
“Yes, but Dad, he’s very special, you know, and he thinks he’s so awfully wise and grown up. And when you practically have to make a man over before you can do anything with him, you certainly do need help. Besides, Dad, he’s all hemmed around with ideas.”
“Ideas? What kinds of ideas?”
“Well, old fogy kinds of ideas. He can’t do this and he can’t do that, and he won’t do the other thing, and he seems to think it’s practically wicked to have a good time. So if I’m going to make him over, I’ve got to get him out of that idea. Don’t you see how much more valuable he’ll be to your business if I do? He’s simply got to get so he can—what’s that thing you say?—be all things to all men, you know. He’s got to get to be a good society man, ‘rejoice with them that do rejoice.’ That’s one Bible verse I learned that day you made me go to Sunday school when I didn’t want to. But now, why, he couldn’t do that at all. He’s glum as an owl most of the time when I see him.”
“Why, I thought he was rather a pleasant young man. He has a nice smile.”
“Oh, yes, when he uses it, but most of the time he doesn’t. And I’m beginning to find out why he’s that way. Dad, do you know what he’s doing tonight, and what he’s planning to do tomorrow, why he can’t accept any of the invitations I’ve given him? Dad, he’s going to teach a Sunday school class of boys tomorrow, and tonight he’s studying his Sunday school lesson! Can you imagine that? For a full-grown man, and one that’s been to war, too?”
“Well, that’s a commendable thing to do, isn’t it?” asked the grinning father. “I was asked to take a class in Sunday school once myself. Of course I didn’t do it. But it shows what good people think of the young man when they ask him to do that. It won’t hurt his reputation a bit.”
“Oh, that! What’s reputation? But you couldn’t expect a young man to mingle in good society if all he does for recreation is study the Bible. Why, my teachers in school, practically all the teachers in all the schools I ever attended, said that the Bible is an antiquated book and practically nobody believes in it anymore. And just fancy any businessman getting his education out of the Bible nowadays!”
“Well, they do claim there’s some very wise sayings in the Bible,” said Mr. Chalmers amusedly. “I suppose he could do worse. But I don’t understand just what all this has to do with me. What do you want me to do about it? I can’t call Paige Madison into my office Monday morning and tell him I don’t want him to read the Bible anymore, can I?”
“Oh, you silly! Of course not. But you can get him away from here on a vacation, and arrange it so I can come with you and get a chance to work on him. Now, Dad, don’t you begin to say no. You haven’t given this enough thought yet. You are all tired out, aren’t you? And didn’t I hear you say you needed to get away and rest somewhere? And you said, too, that you couldn’t get away from your business. But why couldn’t you take your business with you? Take Paige along and let him write letters for you. He types, I know, for I saw him doing it the other day. That, of course, would be the only way you could lure him away with you, by telling him you weren’t well and the doctor wanted you to have a change of air and you would need him to go along with you. Then a few days later I would come down, wherever you want to go. I’d vote for the seashore. You know I adore swimming, and I’d work on him all the while, when he wasn’t taking dictation for you. How about it, Dad? Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
The father smiled with a humoring look in his eyes.
“Could be,” he said. “I’ll think it over, and meantime, you run along and get together your ideas and see whether you think it would really work.”
As it turned out, Reva kept at her father persistently, and at Paige also, trying to get another tennis game, or a dinner date, and at last Mr. Chalmers yielded his opposition.
“All right, work away at him, and I’ll see what I can do, but I doubt whether he’ll go. He isn’t hired for a stenographer or secretary, and he may balk at the idea.”
“But he’s working for you, isn’t he? Doesn’t he have to do what you say, or you could fire him, couldn’t you? Isn’t he important to you?”
“He will be, I hope, after a while, when I get him trained.”
“Well then, couldn’t you make this work out?”
“I suppose I could,” laughed the father. “Well, run along, kitten, and we’ll see what can be done. I suppose there is something in your idea, and at least it will give you a decent somebody to run around with—I won’t have to sit up nights worrying about where you are and whether you are staying out too late. It probably won’t last very long with you, for I have a hunch you can’t wind that young man around your little finger, even if you do get him off at the shore by himself where you can work on him.”
“You’ll be surprised, Daddy, what I can do when I get a chance,” said Reva coyly.
So Harris Chalmers went to his office and began to study maps and make reservations at a favorite seaside resort, and conspicuously sent for his doctor to come to the office so that the whole working staff would know he had been there. And afterward he sent for Paige Madison.
Chapter 14
When Paige got the message that he was to come to the office at eleven o’clock that morning, he frowned. Now what was going to happen? Another foreclosing trip? Because he simply wouldn’t do it. If that was the kind of thing they were going to do with him every little while, nothing doing! There certainly were other jobs in the city, and there was no reason why he couldn’t find one if he made a business of looking for it.
So he put his desk in order, gave last directions to his secretary about the letters he had been dictating, and went to meet Mr. Chalmers.
He found the boss in a most amiable mood, so he was not probably going to find fault about anything.
Paige sat down in the chair the boss indicated and prepared for orders. After a pleasant morning greeting Mr. Chalmers began, with a smiling face, as if he were about to confide in a close friend.
“Well, Madison,” he said in a confidential tone, “I’ve just had a visit from my doctor.” He paused to let that sink in.
“Doctor?” said Paige with a concerned, polite lifting of the eyebrows. What next, he wondered. Was the business about to fold up, and was he being dismissed? “Why, sir, are you sick?”
“Well, not exactly sick,” said the boss apologetically. “This is more a matter of prevention. There were certain symptoms that I knew ought to be checked up, and I found it was a wise thing. You know, if you catch a thing in time, you can prevent almost any ill that human flesh is heir to.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Paige answered, still puzzling over why he had been called into this intimate conversation. “But I wouldn’t have supposed you had anything the matter with you. You always look so well.”
“Well, yes, I still look that way, but it doesn’t take long when anything goes wrong. However, the doctor thinks he can put me in shape soon if I’ll do exactly as he says.”
Oh! thought Paige. This was probably a dismissal then, or else a plea for him to take over some disagreeable duty while his head was gone somewhere, to a hospital or sanitarium, or something.
But the pleasant, cajoling voice went on.
“He wants me to spend some weeks at the shore, and to go at once; that is, within a few days.”
“Oh?” said Paige trying to sound sympathetic. “That sounds like a pleasant cure.”
“Well, yes, it does sound that way, but you see, Madison, it means going away from my business, just now, at a critical time. And just when Bill Arsdel has gone on that trip, which is likely to take three months if he makes all the contacts I advised.”
“Yes, I see,” said Paige politely. Somehow he was going to be made to fit into this puzzle, he supposed, but he failed to see how. He was only a new assistant manager.