The Efficiency Expert | Page 7

which it was just like you to send
without a lot of grumbling and reproaches, even if I do deserve them.
Your letter shows me what a rotten mess I have made of myself. I'm not going to hand
you a lot of mush, dad, but I want to try to do something that will give you reason to at
least have hopes of rejoicing before I come home again. If I fail I'll come home anyway,
and then neither one of us will have any doubt but what you will have to support me for
the rest of my life. However, I don't intend to fail, and one of these days I will bob up all
serene as president of a bank or a glue factory. In the mean time I'll keep you posted as to
my whereabouts, but don't send me another cent until I ask for it; and when I do you will
know that I have failed.
Tell mother that I will write her in a day or two, probably from Chicago, as I have always
had an idea that that was one burg where I could make good.
With lots of love to you all,
Your affectionate SON.
It was a hot July day that James Torrance, Jr., alighted from the Twentieth Century
Limited at the La Salle Street Station, and, entering a cab, directed that he be driven to a
small hotel; "for," he soliloquized, "I might as well start economizing at once, as it might
be several days before I land a job such as I want," in voicing which sentiments he spoke
with the tongues of the prophets.
Jimmy had many friends in Chicago with whom, upon the occasion of numerous previous
visits to the Western metropolis, he had spent many hilarious and expensive hours, but
now he had come upon the serious business of life, and there moved within him a strong
determination to win financial success without recourse to the influence of rich and
powerful acquaintances.
Since the first crushing blow that his father's letter had dealt his egotism, Jimmy's

self-esteem had been gradually returning, though along new and more practical lines. His
self-assurance was formed in a similar mold to those of all his other salient characteristics,
and these conformed to his physical proportions, for physically, mentally and morally
Jimmy Torrance was big; not that he was noticeably taller than other men or his features
more than ordinarily attractive, but there was something so well balanced and
harmonious in all the proportions of his frame and features as to almost invariably
compel a second glance from even a casual observer, especially if the casual observer
happened to be in the nonessential creation class.
And so Jimmy, having had plenty of opportunity to commune with himself during the
journey from New York, was confident that there were many opportunities awaiting him
in Chicago. He remembered distinctly of having read somewhere that the growing need
of big business concerns was competent executive material--that there were fewer big
men than there were big jobs--and that if such was the case all that remained to be done
was to connect himself with the particular big job that suited him.
In the lobby of the hotel he bought several of the daily papers, and after reaching his
room he started perusing the "Help Wanted" columns. Immediately he was impressed and
elated by the discovery that there were plenty of jobs, and that a satisfactory percentage
of them appeared to be big jobs. There were so many, however, that appealed to him as
excellent possibilities that he saw it would be impossible to apply for each and every one;
and then it occurred to him that he might occupy a more strategic position in the
negotiations preceding his acceptance of a position if his future employer came to him
first, rather than should he be the one to apply for the position.
And so he decided the wisest plan would be to insert an ad in the "Situations Wanted"
column, and then from the replies select those which most appealed to him; in other
words, he would choose from the cream of those who desired the services of such a man
as himself rather than risk the chance of obtaining a less profitable position through
undue haste in seizing upon the first opening advertised.
Having reached this decision, and following his habitual custom, he permitted no grass to
grow beneath his feet. Writing out an ad, he reviewed it carefully, compared it with
others that he saw upon the printed page, made a few changes, rewrote it, and then
descended to the lobby, where he called a cab and was driven to the office of one of the
area's metropolitan morning newspapers.
Jimmy felt very important