HOW DAVIS WENT DOWN HILL

New Zealand Tablet, 15 October 1908, Page 5

HOW DAVIS WENT DOWN HILL

Occasionally it is as interesting to watch the career of a man who is going downhill as it is to watch the one who is going up. Invariably it is as profitable. Therefore the case of Davis deserves to be chronicled in a place where those who are interested in going uphill may read. Davis's career is an illuminating example of how easy it is to slip one's grip and to go down hill after the slip has been made. Just when, where and how the first fatal slip was made in the case of Davis it would be hard to say. He first comes into notice as a chief rate clerk in the traffic department of Going and Co.'s office, and upon first inspection he is all that a chief rate cleric should be, experienced and capable, a hard worker, of good appearance. Two years before this he had come into the office, as a common rate clerk. But- nobody pays any attention to a common clerk, and though Davis was the kind .of a clerk who works up from the ranks to the chief clerk's desk in two years, he was no object of interest to this tale until that position had been achieved. He was going up then, and the story has to do. with him when he began to go down. - - The fashion in which he came up "caused people to .pay attention to him, and everybody who .cared -to venture an idea on him expressed themselves to the effect that all that Davis had to do was to keep going the way he had started, and in time the head of the department would have to get up and make way for the new blood. - - ' It was for his absolute- reliability that Davis was remarkable. He wasn't particularly swift, .and he didn't institute any newschemes- for lessening the work of his desk or' any of the other things that go s to attract the attention of an office -man. But when one of the clerks under' him had looked up the rate on pig hocks in tins to Bahia, Brazil, or ..beef quarters, refrigerator service, to Lahore,. India, . and Davis had checked.it, that rate was 'correct, and the rest of the office knew it. , This is something which can be said of only a few men in any office. These few will be^-found occupying positions where" their reliability is of the most value to the firm, and they wiil be looked up to coasiderably by the rest of " the - force. Conse-

quently, -Davis had the . respect of his fellow-workers as well as • of his" employers, and if there was" one idea farther from their minds than all othersj it was the' -one that Davis ever would' l turn out to be a loser.- They began to -cultivate his friendship," wisely figuring, ahead unto the day when Davis should be a- power , in "the office. - - ' - Then— something slipped. For a few" weeks '■ Davis ■ the '"c- - liable was ' Davis the incompetent. - He made, error - after error, delayed shipment after shipment, . and at the end of the -week, - when he began to get into form again, he had the" work of h ; s desk mixed up in a way that would have been a. shame to th«* rawest beginner. When he came back to his own, however, he was the same old Davis, the reliable one, and within two weeks he had -things whipped back into shape 'again, and the work of rating went on wtih the old macTiine-like regularity and ' accuracy. 'What was the matter?' asked the head of the department when things were" going right. 'Were VQ4I sick?' l ' I wasn't right, somehow,' said Davis. ' I couldn't Handle myself the way I ought to. All right now, though.' _ - ' Oh, of course.' The head wanted. Davis to sec that he was well satisfied with him. ' I didn't ask because - 1 wanted to find fault. I know how a man has those spells sometimes ; no matter how hard lie tries or what he does, things simply will persist in going wrong. It's one of the most inexplicable thing.-; in the world. I suppose it's all due to a man's physical and mental condition. It's easy enough to see how -at times a man for some reason or other would be below his normal average of keeness and abilit)'. Glad to see that you're all right again. - Now, that easy-going, good-natured head helped Davis on" his career downhill, though, of course, he never knew 'it.. But his complacence and sympathy made it easier 'He never suspected a thing,' said Davis td himself. ' H^'U never get on. ' So that night he went out and had a good time with a bunch of good fellows that he had fallen in with, which same bunch and their good times had been responsible for his in-" efficiency of the week previous. • ' Bobbie,' said his wife next morning, ' don't you think that you've been going out just a little bit too much lately?' ' No, I don't,' said Davis. 'Do you?' ' I don!t-kno\v just what to think,' said Mrs. Davis. ' But if it was anybody but you I'm sure I would say yes. But you're so careful, I know you wouldn't do anything that would hurt you.' ' Of course I wouldn't,' grunted Davis, who had a headache. ' Forget it. ' That day he had another bad day at the office. But he was in shape next day, and by working like a Trojan — a Trojan of pencil and paper — he managed to straighten his errors out before they were discovered by the people up aliead. Of course you know what it was that started Davis on his journey downhill. Just booze, that's all. But it took Him some time to reach the bottom, and the different stages of his' descent are all interesting. It was a year after he had started to have his good times that the head of the department was fully convinced that it was booze and booze only' that was taking tfie steel out of his cracjl^ chief clerk. It took him this long to be convinced, because he wanted to keep Davis if it was possible, and he .hated the stuff that was spoiling him like sin itself. When he was forced to admit the truth he had to let Davis go. ' You will give me a reference?' The head said: ' I am sorry, but I can not do, so. ' So Davis was cast upon the world with a record of four years' employment with a firm from which he could not -get a recommendatfbn behind him. tWhile \i is l strictly true that a fulsome recommendation is a liltle worse than none,* it is also true that when a man works four years for a firm and can not use its name as a reference he is heavily handicapped. ' Where did you get your experience?' asked the people where Davis applied for a position in the tariff department. ' -- ' At- Going and Co.,' replied Davis. . ' "T ' Who were you under there ? ' / "■ . -"T • Davis told them. _ ,»' - -■ v ■ ' Can we write Mr. Blank reyarding you?' Then Davis had to up and confess that he had* left Going and Co. because of a quarrel with this same Mr. Blank? and consequently it would be preposterous to imagine that he would be favorable to~ Mr. Davis. - >. I -' - >: ' All right Call in again in about four days.' In the meantime the firm receiving the application communicated with Mr. Blank regarding Davis, and when the latter called

he was informed thar the vacancy had teen filled. They promised to let him know if anything- turned up. • Then they tore up his application.. * . While these rebuffs were being,, met with, Davis kept on drinking a 'little. Having only a- little money, he couldn't drink a lot. -He_,was.out of.-work for a month. Then he took a;clerk's position: at i& dollars a week.. At Going and Co.'s he had made 40" dollars.^- Likewise," thej Davis household shifted its lares and . pen ates " from a to "an iS-dollar-fla't. The first big step downhill had been taken; Davis' had dropped from" • the" ranks of "the comers to a place in the tnob. - ~ When "you look at jt carefully-;this is. a bigger drop than would appear on the surface. Here was a man through .his — own ability had won his way to ,a position where the big- things . were immediately before him"' There -could" be- ho question thai he ' had it in him 'togo on and -witflhe^big prizes ? He had ability far be.vond a chief cleric's "requirements, and.."he. was developing with every day. Then"^ suddenly the slip) and here he was down among the men who had only .such ability as. is tequired to perform the most mechanical and insignificant of duties allotted to man. He began to think of this phase of his condition, and then he bctjan to drink a little more. He was "what is- known as ' quite a souse ' now. On pay night he^yould come home wobbly on' his feet and fuddled about- the . head, and with a good share, of his 15 dollars gone to the'bourne whence, no money ever returns And then came the near-panic of last fall/ and Davis, being a new man, was dropped from his new' position. - That broke Davis's nerve. He felt the fates were against him. He, accepted the first job he came across, that of packing orders in the crockery department of a big store. He's there now. ■He gets ten dollars a week. He and his wife live -in two .furnished rooms on the north side just across the river, and sometimes when she feels strong .Mrs." Davis works as a ~ salcswoma.i in the store in which Davis is a packer. ._ Davis never expects to be anything but a packer as long as he lives. What's -the use of trying, he argues, when everything is against you? So he shoves the excelsior between the sides of the box and the lamp and tries to forget what a chance he once had. _ Moral,: The downfall route is so easy that it's no wonder so many take it. — Chicago Tribune. •