Uneasy Money | Page 7

America!' The exact
words probably which Columbus had used, talking the thing over with
his wife.
Bill's knowledge of the great republic across the sea was at this period
of his life a little sketchy. He knew that there had been unpleasantness
between England and the United States in seventeen-something and
again in eighteen-something, but that things had eventually been

straightened out by Miss Edna May and her fellow missionaries of the
Belle of New York Company, since which time there had been no more
trouble. Of American cocktails he had a fair working knowledge, and
he appreciated ragtime. But of the other great American institutions he
was completely ignorant.
He was on his way now to see Gates. Gates was a comparatively recent
addition to his list of friends, a New York newspaperman who had
come to England a few months before to act as his paper's London
correspondent. He was generally to be found at the Pen and Ink Club,
an institution affiliated with the New York Players, of which he was a
member.
Gates was in. He had just finished lunch.
'What's the trouble, Bill?' he inquired, when he had deposited his
lordship in a corner of the reading-room, which he had selected because
silence was compulsory there, thus rendering it possible for two men to
hear each other speak. 'What brings you charging in here looking like
the Soul's Awakening?'
'I've had an idea, old man.'
'Proceed. Continue.'
'Oh! Well, you remember what you were saying about America?'
'What was I saying about America?'
'The other day, don't you remember? What a lot of money there was to
be made there and so forth.'
'Well?'
'I'm going there.'
'To America?'
'Yes.'
'To make money?'
'Rather.'
Gates nodded--sadly, it seemed to Bill. He was rather a melancholy
young man, with a long face not unlike a pessimistic horse.
'Gosh!' he said.
Bill felt a little damped. By no mental juggling could he construe
'Gosh!' into an expression of enthusiastic approbation.
Gates looked at Bill curiously. 'What's the idea?' he said. 'I could have
understood it if you had told me that you were going to New York for
pleasure, instructing your man Willoughby to see that the trunks were

jolly well packed and wiring to the skipper of your yacht to meet you at
Liverpool. But you seem to have sordid motives. You talk about
making money. What do you want with more money?'
'Why, I'm devilish hard up.'
'Tenantry a bit slack with the rent?' said Gates sympathetically.
Bill laughed.
'My dear chap, I don't know what on earth you're talking about. How
much money do you think I've got? Four hundred pounds a year, and
no prospect of ever making more unless I sweat for it.'
'What! I always thought you were rolling in money.'
'What gave you that idea?'
'You have a prosperous look. It's a funny thing about England. I've
known you four months, and I know men who know you; but I've never
heard a word about your finances. In New York we all wear labels,
stating our incomes and prospects in clear lettering. Well, if it's like that
it's different, of course. There certainly is more money to be made in
America than here. I don't quite see what you think you're going to do
when you get there, but that's up to you.
'There's no harm in giving the city a trial. Anyway, I can give you a
letter or two that might help.'
'That's awfully good of you.'
'You won't mind my alluding to you as my friend William Smith?'
'William Smith?'
'You can't travel under your own name if you are really serious about
getting a job. Mind you, if my letters lead to anything it will probably
be a situation as an earnest bill-clerk or an effervescent office-boy, for
Rockefeller and Carnegie and that lot have swiped all the soft jobs. But
if you go over as Lord Dawlish you won't even get that. Lords are
popular socially in America, but are not used to any great extent in the
office. If you try to break in under your right name you'll get the glad
hand and be asked to stay here and there and play a good deal of golf
and dance quite a lot, but you won't get a job. A gentle smile will greet
all your pleadings that you be allowed to come in and save the firm.'
'I see.'
'We may look on Smith as a necessity.'
'Do you know, I'm not frightfully keen on the name Smith. Wouldn't
something else do?'

'Sure. We aim to please. How would Jones suit you?'
'The trouble is, you know, that if I took a name I wasn't used to I might
forget it.'
'If you've the sort of