“A man is judged by his appearance to-day,” said Ben sententiously. “I was reading an article by a big business man in The Post the other day. He says he always looks at a man’s shoes before he gives him a job.”
He spoke seriously, haltingly, in the same way that he read, without genuine conviction. Eugene writhed to hear his fierce condor prattle this stale hash of the canny millionaires, like any obedient parrot in a teller’s cage. Ben’s voice had a dull flat quality as he uttered these admirable opinions: he seemed to grope behind it all for some answer, with hurt puzzled eyes. As he faltered along, with scowling intensity, through a success-sermon, there was something poignantly moving in his effort: it was the effort of his strange and lonely spirit to find some entrance into life—to find success, position, companionship. And it was as if, spelling the words out with his mouth, a settler in the Bronx from the fat Lombard plain, should try to unriddle the new world by deciphering the World Almanac, or as if some woodsman, trapped by the winter, and wasted by an obscure and terrible disease, should hunt its symptoms and its cure in a book of Household Remedies.
“Did the Old Man send you enough money to get along on?” Ben asked. “Were you able to hold your own with the other boys? He can afford it, you know. Don’t let him stint you. Make him give it to you,’Gene.”
“I had plenty,” said Eugene, “all that I needed.”
“This is the time you need it—not later,” said Ben. “Make him put you through college. This is an age of specialization. They’re looking for college-trained men.”
“Yes,” said Eugene. He spoke obediently, indifferently, the hard bright mail of his mind undinted by the jargon: within, the Other One, who had no speech, saw.
“So get your education,” said Ben, scowling vaguely. “All the Big Men—Ford, Edison, Rockefeller—whether they had it or not, say it’s a good thing.”
“Why didn’t you go yourself?” said Eugene curiously.
“I didn’t have any one to tell me,” said Ben. “Besides, you don’t think the Old Man would give me anything, do you?” He laughed cynically. “It’s too late now.”
