Ann was severe.
“You revolt me!” she said. “I never heard anything so thoroughly disgraceful. You -need- work!”
“One of these days,” said Jimmy plaintively, “I shall be sitting by the roadside with my dinner-pail, and you will come by in your limousine, and I shall look up at you and say ‘-You- hounded me into this!’ How will you feel then?”
“Very proud of myself.”
“In that case, there is no more to be said. I’d much rather hang about and try to get adopted by a millionaire, but if you insist on my working–Waiter!”
“What do you want?” asked Ann.
“Will you get me a Classified Telephone Directory,” said Jimmy.
“What for?” asked Ann.
“To look for a profession. There is nothing like being methodical.”
The waiter returned, bearing a red book. Jimmy thanked him and opened it at the A’s.
“The boy, what will he become?” he said. He turned the pages. “How about an Auditor? What do you think of that?”
“Do you think you could audit?”
“That I could not say till I had tried. I might turn out to be very good at it. How about an Adjuster?”
“An adjuster of what?”
“The book doesn’t say. It just remarks broadly–in a sort of spacious way–‘Adjuster.’ I take it that, having decided to become an adjuster, you then sit down and decide what you wish to adjust. One might, for example, become an Asparagus Adjuster.”
“A what?”
“Surely you know? Asparagus Adjusters are the fellows who sell those rope-and-pulley affairs by means of which the Smart Set lower asparagus into their mouths–or rather Francis the footman does it for them, of course. The diner leans back in his chair, and the menial works the apparatus in the background. It is entirely superseding the old-fashioned method of picking the vegetable up and taking a snap at it. But I suspect that to be a successful Asparagus Adjuster requires capital. We now come to Awning Crank and Spring Rollers. I don’t think I should like that. Rolling awning cranks seems to me a sorry way of spending life’s springtime. Let’s try the B’s.”
“Let’s try this omelette. It looks delicious.” Jimmy shook his head.
“I will toy with it–but absently and in a -distrait- manner, as becomes a man of affairs. There’s nothing in the B’s. I might devote my ardent youth to Bar-Room Glassware and Bottlers’ Supplies. On the other hand, I might not. Similarly, while there is no doubt a bright future for somebody in Celluloid, Fiberloid, and Other Factitious Goods, instinct tells me that there is none for–” he pulled up on the verge of saying, “James Braithwaite Crocker,” and shuddered at the nearness of the pitfall. “–for–” he hesitated again–“for Algernon Bayliss,” he concluded.
Ann smiled delightedly. It was so typical that his father should have called him something like that. Time had not dimmed her regard for the old man she had seen for that brief moment at Paddington Station. He was an old dear, and she thoroughly approved of this latest manifestation of his supposed pride in his offspring.
“Is that really your name–Algernon?”
“I cannot deny it.”
“I think your father is a darling,” said Ann inconsequently.
Jimmy had buried himself in the directory again.
“The D’s,” he said. “Is it possible that posterity will know me as Bayliss the Dermatologist? Or as Bayliss the Drop Forger? I don’t quite like that last one. It may be a respectable occupation, but it sounds rather criminal to me. The sentence for forging drops is probably about twenty years with hard labour.”
“I wish you would put that book away and go on with your lunch,” said Ann.
“Perhaps,” said Jimmy, “my grandchildren will cluster round my knee some day and say in their piping, childish voices, ‘Tell us how you became the Elastic Stocking King, grandpa!’ What do you think?”
“I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are wasting your time, when you ought to be either talking to me or else thinking very seriously about what you mean to do.”
Jimmy was turning the pages rapidly.
“I will be with you in a moment,” he said. “Try to amuse yourself somehow till I am at leisure. Ask yourself a riddle. Tell yourself an anecdote. Think of life. No, it’s no good. I don’t see myself as a Fan Importer, a Glass Beveller, a Hotel Broker, an Insect Exterminator, a Junk Dealer, a Kalsomine Manufacturer, a Laundryman, a Mausoleum Architect, a Nurse, an Oculist, a Paper-Hanger, a Quilt Designer, a Roofer, a Ship Plumber, a Tinsmith, an Undertaker, a Veterinarian, a Wig Maker, an X-ray apparatus manufacturer, a Yeast producer, or a Zinc Spelter.” He closed the book. “There is only one thing to do. I must starve in the gutter. Tell me–you know New York better than I do–where is there a good gutter?”