Burned Bridges

Late that evening Thompson walked into his room at the Globe. He seated

himself in a rickety chair under a fly-specked incandescent lamp, beside

a bed that was clean and comfortable if neither stylish nor massive.

Over against the opposite wall stood a dresser which had suffered at the

hands of many lodgers. Altogether it was a cheap and cheerless abode, a

place where a man was protected from the weather, where he could lie

down and sleep. That was all.

Thompson smiled sardonically. With hands clasped behind his head he

surveyed the room deliberately, and the survey failed to please him.

"Hell," he exploded suddenly. "I'd ten times rather be out in the woods

with a tent than have to live like this--always."

He had spent a pleasant three hours in surroundings that approximated

luxury. He had been graciously received and entertained. However, it was

easy to be gracious and entertaining when one had the proper setting. A

seven-room suite and two servants were highly desirable from certain

angles. Oh, well--what the devil was the difference!

Thompson threw off his clothes and got into bed. But he could not escape

insistent thought. Against his dull walls, on which the street light

cast queer patterns through an open window, he could see, through drowsy

eyes, Sophie half-buried in a great chair, listening attentively while

he and her father talked. Of course they had fallen into argument,

sometimes triangular, more often solely confined to himself and Carr.

Thompson was glad that the Grant Street orators had driven him to the

city library that winter. A man needed all the weapons he could command

against that sharp-tongued old student who precipitated himself joyfully

into controversy.

But of course they did not spend three hours discussing abstract

theories. There was a good deal of the personal. Thompson had learned

that they were in San Francisco for the winter only. Their home was in

Vancouver. And Tommy Ashe was still in Vancouver, graduated from an

automobile salesman to an agency of his own, and doing well in the

venture. Tommy, Carr said, had the modern business instinct. He did not

specify what that meant. Carr did not dwell much on Tommy. He appeared

to be much more interested in Thompson's wanderings, his experiences,

the shifts he had been put to, how the world impressed him, viewed from

the angle of the ordinary man instead of the ministerial.

"If you wish to achieve success as modern society defines success,

you've been going at it all wrong," he remarked sagely. "The big rewards

do not lie in producing and creating, but in handling the results of

creation and production--at least so it seems to me. Get hold of

something the public wants, Thompson, and sell it to them. Or evolve a

sure method of making big business bigger. They'll fall on your neck and

fill your pockets with money if you can do that. Profitable

undertakings--that's the ticket. Anybody can work at a job."