The Futile Man.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 82, 7 April 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Futile Man.

Some ten or twelve years ago wh»ii I wan rew to London, I wrote an article for the Free Press entitled " Strapped Americans." It dealt with an exasperating kind of a swindler who preys principally upon Americans stationed in London There is another very exasperating kind of man, who steals what is more valuable thun money, and that is time. I call this brand of individual "The Futile Man." You can do nothing for him, nor with him. He is hopeless, and the law does not allow you to kill him. My experience shows me that there is a kind of man with a wobbly brain who doesn't know quite what God put htm in this world tor. Wtien you ask him what he can do, as he has applied to you for some f>ort of a situation, he answers quite cheerfully :—": — " Oh, I can turn my hand to almost anything." Now, I want to say right here, to the boys and to the young men who do me the honour of reading what I write, that the man who can do everything is not worth a cent. There is no place for him on this earth, and the world does not need him. SI) advice to boys is this: Make up your minds not to do everything, but to do one thing, and that particularly well. This is an age of specialists. The man who can dig a ditch, .the man who can plane a board, the man who can write a book, the man who can lay a one brick on another, or the man who can compose an opera, is the man who is needed, and who will get along in this world. The futile man is willing and ready to turn his hand to anything, and consequently he comes up bothering me and other busy men to find something for him to do. One pathetic fact about the futile man is his willingness to work. His nebulous brain, however, has never taught him the stem fact that he must do some one thing well, and not fool away his time doing everything badly. Then he must storm the citadels where that particular thing is being done until until he gets it to do, and, when he has got his situation, he must do his work so well that his master canuot afford to do without him. I give here a conversation which has no particular point to it, and whose only merit is that it is strictly true, and is a fair specimen of some hundreds like it that I have taken part in. My office boy brought in to mo the other day the card of a man whose name I had a dim recollection of having seen somewhere before. There was a vague something away back in my mind, as if I had read a book by a man of that name, but as I had uselessly lost so much time of late in seeing people, I a aid to the boy :—: — "Ask him what he wants." " He refuses to say what his business is," answered the boy. " Very well, go and tell him that he must say what his business is before I will see him." After a few moments the boy returned, saying : " He says he knows you, but that perhaps you won't remember him. He says he's from Amorica." " Oh, very well, then," I said "show him in," The moment, he cauie in, I remembered him. Some three months befoic he had called 011 rao and wasted the best part of un uflernoon while I explained to him that I hud no situation to give him ,and that I did not know anyone who warited a handy man who could do everything. He placed his hat on a table, his umbrella in a corner, und greeted me with great cordiality. A happy, optimistic air pervaded his manner toward me: in fact, all of his kind are optimistic, making one feel a cynical brute for not being able to phice them in pleasant and lucrative positions at once. 'I I see that you do not lemember me," he said. " Oh, yes, I do," I replied. " Have you found a t-ituation yet?" " No, not yet, but I have two or three people looking out for me, and I have no doubt that I will land on my feet yet alright. You see there are so many things I could do ; I can do a little shorthand, and have worked the typewriter a bit. lam a good salesman, and understand three or four lines of business. I can keep books, and I understand banking, so some of my friends, I have no doubt, will soon place me. I just dropped in now to see if you had happened to hit on anything, anything iv the reporting line on some of the dailies, for instance?" " I told you when you were here beforo that I don't know anybody connected with any daily in London, and at the same time I think I ventilated my theory, that no man oan help any man but himself." " Oh, yes," he replied cheerfully, " but a word in the right place often puts a man in a good situation. It's all tommy rot to say that situations don't go by favour." " They don't," I replied. "Well, I've knocked around the world too much to believe that. There's Blank. Now, couldn't give me a letter of introduction to him ?" He mentioned a wellknown literary man who had acquired a paper of his own. " [ uever give letters of introduction to anybody. J never uao a letter of introduction myself, ho J don't see why I should in flict them on my friends. Besides, I know that Blank has ten applications a day for bituations, and more than that when ho has luck. All the situations he has to. fill are tilled, so a letter will do you no good '" '' J'd be willing to try it," said the young man ; " it isn't much to write a letter that may help a fellow, now is it ?" " But you forget (hat I don't know you at all. I can't conscientiously recommend a man that I know nothing about." "Well, I suppose you are right, but it seems a little hard from my point of view. I'll drop in and see him and tell him that I am a friend of yours. You wouldn t object to that. I suppose ?" " Oh, I object to nothing. Try it if you think it will do you any good. I may warn you, though, that he is not t>uch a fool as I am, and yon may find it a little difficult to drop in." The young man laughed. "lam not so easily discouraged as you may imagine. I cajlefj. up here several times during the last three months and they told me you were away, but I didn't believe them." " 1 was away." ' ' Really ; where ?" " I was in Switzerland." " And did you have a good time ?'' " I didn't go to have a good time ; I went to work." "Oh, is that a fact?" "Yes." " YVny, I should think that there could be no better place to work than right here." ' ' You are mibtiken. There are too many interruptions. Too many people come up to see me on too many subjects about which I have very little interest." - "That's bad. Now, I would think that it would be very easy to keep anyone out — that is anyone that you did not want to see." "Itis v difficult matter. They get iv on one pretext or another." " Well, why don't you tell them straight out that you are busy and can't talk with them ? I should tell them to go." •"ft seems a brutal thing "to do, and I have never been able to work myfcelf up to it." " Then I would give them a pretty plain hint that they were iv the way." " As how, for iustance?" "Well, there's a dozen ways. I would say that I was so busy that I had no time to talk." " That is nearly always the case. For instance, here are a lot of proofs that 1 must do, and the boy is waiting for them in the next room. The printers are waiting foi him, and so you see, when I neglect my work I keep the wholo procession idle. It isn't only my time that is wasted, but the time of a lot of innoccut p. ople." " 'Hint's it exactly. But couldn't I help \ou on the proofs ? I can read proofs like a house, on fire." "Proofs are like salvation— every man must work out his own. They have been read oarefnllv enough by the professional proof-reader. J. am going oyer them to try to mitigate the original bad English.'* " Couldn't J help you on that?" " I'm afraid not. My theory— J think I mentioned it to you before — is tljat no one can help a man out himself." "Well, remember that I am always ready to lond a hand if you want me to." I have already taken up a great dial of* space iv setting down this purposeless talk. There is little use in giving any more. He talked on and on, while I nervously fingered the waiting proofs At last he said he must go. He would drop in later, he added, and if anything turned up .— Detroit Free Press.