The same thing, strangely enough, seemed to be going on in a sphereof which he knew nothing, the world of art.He gathered from the papers that writers, painters, musicians, were holding shindies almost every night, at which delightful rebels, too busy to occupy themselves with actual creation, talked charmingly about their plans.Poets were reading poems incessantly, forgetting to write any.Much of the newspaper comment on literature made him shudder, for though this was a province quite strange to him, he had sound instincts.He discerned fatal ignorance and absurdity between the pompous lines.Yet, in its own way, it seemed a bold and honest ignorance.Were these, too, like the wistful executives, seeking where the blue begins?
But what was this strange agitation that forbade his fellow-creatures from enjoying the one thing that makes achievement possible--Solitude? He himself, so happy to be left alone--was no one else like that? And yet this very solitude that he craved and revelled in was, by a sublime paradox, haunted by mysterious loneliness.He felt sometimes as though his heart had been broken off from some great whole, to which it yearned to be reunited.It felt like a bone that had been buried, which God would some day dig up.Sometimes, in his caninomorphic conception of deity, he felt near him the thunder of those mighty paws.In rare moments of silence he gazed from his office window upon the sun-gilded, tempting city.Her madness was upon him--her splendid craze of haste, ambition, pride.Yet he wondered.This God he needed, this liberating horizon, was it after all in the cleverest of hiding-places--in himself? Was it in his own undeluded heart?
Miss Whippet came scurrying in to say that the Display Manager begged him to attend a conference.The question of apportioning window space to the various departments was to be reconsidered.Also, the book department had protested having rental charged against them for books exhibited merely to add a finishing touch to a furniture display.Other agenda: the Personnel Director wished an appointment to discuss the ruling against salesbitches bobbing their hair.The Commissary Department wished to present revised figures as to the economy that would be effected by putting the employees' cafeteria on the same floor as the store's restaurant.He must decide whether early closing on Saturdayswould continue until Labor Day.
As he went about these and a hundred other fascinating trivialities, he had a painful sense of treachery to Mr.Beagle senior.The old gentleman was so touchingly certain that he had found in him the ideal shoulders on which to unload his honourable and crushing burden.With more than paternal pride old Beagle saw Gissing, evidently urbane and competent, cheerfully circulating here and there.The shy angel of doubt that lay deep in Gissing's cider-coloured eye, the proprietor did not come near enough to observe.
If there is tragedy in our story, alas here it is.Gissing, incorrigible seceder from responsibilities that did not touch his soul, did not dare tell his benefactor the horrid truth.But the worm was in his heart.Late one night, in his room at Mrs.Purp's, he wrote a letter to Mr.Poodle.After mailing it at a street-box, he had a sudden pang.To the dreamer, decisions are fearful.Then he shook himself and ran lightly to a little lunchroom on Amsterdam Avenue, where he enjoyed doughnuts and iced tea.His mind was resolved.The doughnuts, by a simple symbolism, made him think of Rotary Clubs, also of millstones.No, he must be fugitive from honour, from wealth, from Chambers of Commerce.Fugitive from all save his own instinct.Those who have bound themselves are only too eager to see the chains on others.There was no use attempting to explain to Mr.Beagle--the dear old creature would not understand.
The next day, after happily and busily discharging his duties, and staying late to clean up his desk, Gissing left Beagle and Company for good.The only thing that worried him, as he looked round his comfortable office for the last time, was the thought of little Miss Whippet's chagrin when she found her new promotion at an end.She had taken such delight in their mutual dignity.On the filing cabinet beside her typewriter desk was a pink geranium in a pot, which she watered every morning.He could not resist pulling out a drawer of her desk, and smiled gently to see the careful neatness of its compartments, with all her odds and ends usefully arranged.The ink-eraser, with an absurd little whisk attached to it for brushing away fragments of rubbed paper; the fascicle of sharpened pencils held together by an elastic band; the tiny phial of typewriter oil; asmall box of peppermints; a crumpled handkerchief; the stenographic notebook with a pencil inserted at the blank page, so as to be ready for instant service the next day; the long paper-cutter for slitting envelopes; her memorandum pad, on which was written Remind Mr.G.of Window Display Luncheon--it seemed cruel to deprive her of all these innocent amusements in which she delighted so much.And yet he could not go on as a General Manager simply for the happiness of Miss Whippet.
In the foliage of the geranium, where he knew she would find it the first thing in the morning, he left a note:--MISS WHIPPET: I am leaving the store to-night and will not be back.Please notify Mr.Beagle.Explain to him that I shall never take a position with one of his competitors; I am leaving not because I didn't enjoy the job, but because if I stayed longer I might enjoy it too much.Tell Mr.Beagle that I specially urge him to retain you as assistant to the new Manager, whoever that may be.You are entirely competent to attend to the routine, and the new Manager can spend all his time at business lunches.
Please inform the Display Managers' Club that I can't speak at their meeting to-morrow.
I wish you all possible good-fortune.MR.GISSING.
As he passed through the dim and silent aisles of the store, he surveyed them again with mixed emotions.Here he might, apparently, have been king.But he had no very poignant regret.Another of his numerous selves, he reflected, had committed suicide.That was the right idea: to keep sloughing them off, throwing overboard the unreal and factitious Gissings, paring them down until he discovered the genuine and inalienable creature.
And so, for the second time, he made a stealthy exit from the employees' door.
Four days later he read in the paper of old Mr.Beagle's death.There can be no doubt about it.The merchant died of a broken heart.
