第66章

THE VENTURERS.

Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the _Non Sequitur_Limited, if it will; first you must take your seat in the observation car "_Raison d'^etre_" for one moment.It is for no longer than to consider a brief essay on the subject--let us call it: "What's Around the Corner."_Omne mundus in duas partes divisum est_--men who wear rubbers and pay poll-taxes, and men who discover new continents.There are no more continents to discover; but by the time overshoes are out of date and the poll has developed into an income tax, the other half will be paralleling the canals of Mars with radium railways.

Fortune, Chance, and Adventure are given as synonymous in the dictionaries.To the knowing each has a different meaning.

Fortune is a prize to be won.Adventure is the road to it.Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside.The face of Fortune is radiant and alluring; that of Adventure is flushed and heroic.The face of Chance is the beautiful countenance--perfect because vague and dream-born--that we see in our tea-cups at breakfast while we growl over our chops and toast.

The VENTURER is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune.That is the difference between him and the Adventurer.Eating the forbidden fruit was the best record ever made by a Venturer.Trying to prove that it happened is the highest work of the Adventuresome.To be either is disturbing to the cosmogony of creation.So, as bracket-sawed and city-directoried citizens, let us light our pipes, chide the children and the cat, arrange ourselves in the willow rocker under the flickering gas jet at the coolest window and scan this little tale of two modern followers of Chance.

"Did you ever hear that story about the man from the West?" asked Billinger, in the little dark-oak room to your left as you penetrate the interior of the Powhatan Club.

"Doubtless," said John Reginald Forster, rising and leaving the room.

Forster got his straw hat (straws will be in and maybe out again long before this is printed) from the checkroom boy, and walked out of the air (as Hamlet says).Billinger was used to having his stories insulted and would not mind.Forster was in his favorite mood and wanted to go away from anywhere.A man, in order to get on good terms with himself, must have his opinions corroborated and his moods matched by some one else.(I had written that "somebody"; but an A.D.T.boy who once took a telegram for me pointed out that I could save money by using the compound word.

This is a vice versa case).

Forster's favorite mood was that of greatly desiring to be a follower of Chance.He was a Venturer by nature, but convention, birth, tradition and the narrowing influences of the tribe of Manhattan had denied him full privilege.He had trodden all the main-traveled thoroughfares and many of the side roads that are supposed to relieve the tedium of life.But none had sufficed.The reason was that he knew what was to be found at the end of every street.He knew from experience and logic almost precisely to what end each digression from routine must lead.He found a depressing monotony in all the variations that the music of his sphere had grafted upon the tune of life.He had not learned that, although the world was made round, the circle has been squared, and that it's true interest is to be in "What's Around the Corner."Forster walked abroad aimlessly from the Powhatan, trying not to tax either his judgment or his desire as to what streets he traveled.

He would have been glad to lose his way if it were possible; but he had no hope of that.Adventure and Fortune move at your beck and call in the Greater City; but Chance is oriental.She is a veiled lady in a sedan chair, protected by a special traffic squad of dragonians.Crosstown, uptown, and downtown you may move without seeing her.

At the end of an hour's stroll, Forster stood on a corner of a broad, smooth avenue, looking disconsolately across it at a picturesque old hotel softly but brilliantly lit.Disconsolately, because he knew that he must dine; and dining in that hotel was no venture.It was one of his favorite caravansaries, and so silent and swift would be the service and so delicately choice the food, that he regretted the hunger that must be appeased by the "dead perfection" of the place's cuisine.Even the music there seemed to be always playing _da capo_.

Fancy came to him that he would dine at some cheap, even dubious, restaurant lower down in the city, where the erratic chefs from all countries of the world spread their national cookery for the omnivorous American.Something might happen there out of the routine--he might come upon a subject without a predicate, a road without an end, a question without an answer, a cause without an effect, a gulf stream in life's salt ocean.He had not dressed for evening; he wore a dark business suit that would not be questioned even where the waiters served the spaghetti in their shirt sleeves.

So John Reginald Forster began to search his clothes for money;because the more cheaply you dine, the more surely must you pay.

All of the thirteen pockets, large and small, of his business suit he explored carefully and found not a penny.His bank book showed a balance of five figures to his credit in the Old Ironsides Trust Company, but--Forster became aware of a man nearby at his left hand who was really regarding him with some amusement.he looked like any business man of thirty or so, neatly dressed and standing in the attitude of one waiting for a street car.But there was no car line on that avenue.

So his proximity and unconcealed curiosity seemed to Forster to partake of the nature of a personal intrusion.But, as he was a consistent seeker after "What's Around the Corner," instead of manifesting resentment he only turned a half-embarrassed smile upon the other's grin of amusement.

"All in?" asked the intruder, drawing nearer.