Rich Man, Poor Man

Duncan Calderwood was a spare, laconic Yankee of about fifty, who had married late and had three daughters. Aside from the store, he owned a good deal of real estate in and around the town. Just how much was his own business. He was a closemouthed man who knew the value of a dollar. The day before, he had told Rudolph to drop around after the graduation exercises were over, he might have an interesting proposition to put to him.

Brad stopped the car in front of the entrance to the store.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Rudolph said, getting out.

“Take your time,” Brad said. “I’ve got my whole life ahead of me.” He opened his collar and pulled his tie loose, free at last. The top of the car was down and he lay back and closed his eyes luxuriously in the sunlight.

As Rudolph went into the store, he glanced approvingly at one of the windows, which he had arranged three nights before. The window was deyoted to carpentry tools and Rudolph had set them out so that they made a severe abstract pattern, uncluttered and gleaming. From time to time Rudolph went down to New York and studied the windows of the big stores on Fifth Avenue to pick up ideas for Calderwood’s.

There was a comfortable, female hum of shopping on the main floor and a slight, typical odor of clothes and new leather and women’s scents that Rudolph always enjoyed. The clerks smiled at him and waved hello as he went toward the back of the store, where Calderwood’s private office was located. One or two of the clerks said, “Congratulations,” and he waved at them. He was well liked, especially by the older people. They did not know that he was consulted on hiring and firing.

Calderwood’s door was open, as it always was. He liked to keep an eye on what was happening in the store. He was seated at his desk, writing a letter with a fountain pen. He had a secretary, who had an office beside his, but there were some things about his business he didn’t want even his secretary to know. He wrote four or five letters a day by hand and stamped them and mailed them himself. The door to the secretary’s office was closed.

Rudolph stood in the doorway, waiting. Although he left the door open, Calderwood did not like to be interrupted.

Calderwood finished a sentence, reread it, then looked up. He had a sallow, smooth face with a long blade of a nose and receding black hair. He turned the letter face down on his desk. He had big farmer’s hands and he dealt clumsily with frail things like sheets of paper. Rudolph was proud of his own slender, long-fingered hands, which he felt were aristocratic.

“Come in, Rudy,” Calderwood said. His voice was dry, uninflected.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Calderwood.” Rudolph stepped into the bare room in his good, blue, graduation suit. There was a giveaway Calderwood calendar on the wall, with a colored photograph of the store on it. Aside from the calendar the only other adornment in the room was a photograph of Calderwood’s three daughters, taken when they were little girls, on the desk.

Surprisingly, Calderwood stood up and came around the desk and shook Rudolph’s hand. “How did it go?” he asked.

“No surprises.”

“You glad you did it?”

“You mean go to college?” Rudolph asked.

“Yes. Sit down.” Calderwood went back behind his desk and sat on the straight-backed wooden chair. Rudolph seated himself on another wooden chair on the right side of the desk. In the furniture department on the second floor there were dozens of upholstered leather chairs, but they were for customers only.

“I suppose so,” Rudolph said. “I suppose I’m glad.”

“Most of the men who made the big fortunes in this country, who are making them today,” Calderwood said, “never had any real schooling. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Rudolph said.

“They hire schooling,” said Calderwood. It was almost a threat. Calderwood himself had not finished high school.

“I’ll try not to let my education interfere with my making a fortune,” Rudolph said.

Calderwood laughed, dry, economical. “I’ll bet you won’t, Rudy,” he said affably. He pulled open a drawer of the desk and took out a jeweler’s box, with the name of the store written in gilt script on the velvet cover. “Here,” he said, putting the box down on the desk. “Here’s something for you.”

Rudolph opened the box. In it was a handsome steel Swiss wristwatch, with a black suede band. “It’s very good of you, sir,” Rudolph said. He tried not to sound surprised.

“You earned it,” Calderwood said. He adjusted his narrow tie in the notch of his starched white collar, embarrassed. Generosity did not come easily to him. “You put in a lot of good work in this store, Rudy. You got a good head on your shoulders, you have a gift for merchandising.”

“Thank you, Mr. Calderwood.” This was the real Commencement address, none of that Washington stuff about the rising military curve and aid to our less fortunate brothers.

“I told you I had a proposition for you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir.”

Calderwood hesitated, cleared his throat, stood up, walked toward the calendar on the wall. It was as though before he took a stupendous final plunge, he had to re-check his figures one last time. He was dressed as always in a black suit with vest, and high-topped black shoes. He liked full support for his ankles, he said. “Rudy,” he began, “how would you like to work for Calderwood’s on a full-time basis?”

“That depends,” Rudolph said, carefully. He had expected this and he had decided what terms he would accept.

“Depends on what?” Calderwood asked. He sounded pugnacious.

“Depends on what the job is,” Rudolph said.

“The same as you’ve been doing,” Calderwood said. “Only more so. A little bit of everything. You want a title?”

“That depends on the title.”

“Depends, depends,” Calderwood said. But he laughed. “Who ever made up that idea about the rashness of youth? How about Assistant Manager? Is that a good enough title for you?”

“For openers,” Rudolph said.

“Maybe I ought to kick you out of this office,” Calderwood said. The pale eyes iced up momentarily.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” Rudolph said, “but I don’t want to get into any dead ends. I have some other offers and …”

“I suppose you want to rush down to New York, like all the other young damn fools,” Calderwood said. “Take over the city in the first month, get yourself invited to all the parties.”

“Not particularly,” Rudolph said. Actually he didn’t feel ready for New York yet. “I like this town.”

“With good reason,” Calderwood said. He sat down behind his desk again, with a sound that was almost a sigh. “Listen, Rudy,” he said, “I’m not getting any younger; the doctor says I’ve got to start taking it easier. Delegate responsibility, is the way he puts it, take holidays, prolong my life. The usual doctor’s sales talk. I have a high cholesterol count. That’s a new gimmick they got to scare you with, cholesterol count. Anyway, it makes sense. I have no sons …” He glared at the photograph of the three girl children at his desk, triply betrayed. “I’ve done the whole thing myself in here since my father died. Somebody’s got to help take over. And I don’t want any of those high-powered young snots from the business schools, changing everything and asking for a share in the shop after the first two weeks.” He lowered his head and looked at Rudolph measuringly from under his thick black eyebrows. “You start at one hundred a week. After a year we’ll see. Is that fair or isn’t it fair?”

“It’s fair,” Rudolph said. He had expected seventy-five.

“You’ll have an office,” Calderwood said. “The old wrapping room on the second floor. Assistant Manager on the door. But I want to see you on the floor during store hours. We shake on it?”

Rudolph put out his hand. Calderwood’s handshake was not that of a man with a high cholesterol count.