The Revelations of Dft. MODESTO Hal Hingham was an unsuccessful insurance salesman. His job filled *him with panic, his girl left him cold and his landlady’s efforts to lead him into temptation only annoyed him. So when he saw an advertisement saying: ‘STO- 1 WHY ARE YOU UNHAPPY? FAILURE ? tr\ centralism’ he decided to do just that, and wrote tor the pamphlet. Dr Modesto’s system of Centralism turned out to be as effective as the pamphlet claimed. It taught Hal to be more average than anyone, whereupon he instantly became successful In every way. Had he known where to stop he would have been happy to the end of his days; but forgetting Dr Modesto’s warning against being too good at anything, even Centralism itself, Hal went too far. He was whirled away into a series of breathless picaresque adventures and ended in desperation when he tried to get an interview with the great Dr Modesto in person, only to find . . . What he found must not be revealed. It is the sting in the tail of this extremely enter- taining satirical novel. The Revelations of DU. MODESTO Alan Harrington SHUT PUBLISHED 1917 BY i^NDRE DEUTSCH LIMITED <^j ALAN HARRINGTON I917 LONDON W I ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY D. R. HILLMAN AND SONS LIMITED PROBE SOMERSET Contents Part One i The Failure, 3 11 The Old Story, 9 hi Swan Boats at Twilight, 12 iv A Glimmer of Hope, 16 v Fred Purdy and the Misfit, 23 vi A Message from Nebraska, 28 THE CONFESSIONS OF DR. MODESTO [1], J1 THE CONFESSIONS OF DR. MODESTO [2], 39 THE CONFESSIONS OF DR. MODESTO [3]: THE DOCTRINE OF CENTRALISM, 47 vii A New Life, 35 viii Exterminator at Work , 56 hc In the Center, 61 x Spring Practice, 65 xi Waiting for an Undistinguished Lover, 72 xii The Love-Date, 79 xiii The Centralist's Walk . 85 xiv The Rape of Bradford, 92 xv Rewards of Faith, 99 Part Two xvi The Athletic Crowd, 107 xvii The Death of Jiujitsu, 121 Contents xviii The Human Fly, 124 xix Merko, 133 xx The Life of an Individualist, 137 xxi Hal and Mefko, 149 xxii July in Boston, 159 xxm Plans for September and Business Love- Making, 163 .xxiv Deserted by Dr. Modesto, 171 xxv The Love-Date ( 2 ), 173 xxvi Joan and Merko, 178 xxvii Merko Makes It, 186 Part Three xxviii The Depths of August, 193 xxix How My Life is Spent, 197 xxx On the Train, 204 xxxi The Tercentenary Parade, 207 xxxii Back to Life, 212 xxxiii Pressure on Jack Swan, 216 xxxiv The Hal Hingham Story, 218 xxxv Masks Off, 222 xxxvi At the Convention, 229 xxxvii Ace Insurance Salesman Flees Convention Hall, 235 xxxviii Rewards and Punishments, 240 xxxix Through the Curtain, 243 xl Occupational Therapy, 243 To My Mother Part One Chapter I The Failure The absent-minded salesman picked his way down the aisle past a double row of desks where the stenographers sat in a long line banging their typewrit- ers. At the water-cooler he paused. He started to his left, then right, and hesitated again. None of the paths before him seemed to lead anywhere. The room was im- mense, a regular city, and so noisy that he lost all sense of direction. He looked around. A fellow needed a guide, and he thought: ‘They ought to have arrows.’ He craned his neck, searching the room with an expres- sion of polite, patient bewilderment, while all around him girls and clerks swarmed in the aisles. Telephones were ringing everywhere. Huge black business machines gave off a steady hum. He imagined a generator under the floor making the business go. Wherever he turned he saw hard-eyed men in shirt sleeves rattling off dicta- tion, girls stapling and stamping and sealing envelopes, tidy old men wrapping and opening packages, and a horde of office boys racing through the labyrinth with more work for everyone. Even the furniture seemed to be in motion. Rows of desks and filing-cabinets, jammed together at all angles, spread out over the loft in a disorderly spiral This for- mation looked as chough it were being flung slowly across die room. He imagined that Mr. Carmody’s busi- ness was about to crash through the far wall and burst into space. He stood and watched the people work. Their industry pA'ftT One 4 struck at his confidence, yet he pitied the sullen faces. It seemed to him that there was no life in them; only a pur- poseless devotipn to their jobs. But he had no purpose either, and was hardly qualified to pity anyone. Resting on a bench, he put his head in his hands. He had a weak impulse to duck out of the interview. He knew what Carmody would be like. Impatient, ham-handed men ran offices of this kind. He would walk in on a fat' face. ... He pulled himself together. It was time to get on the ball. A phone rang near his elbow. It was snatched up by a leathery little man who had tom his collar open, who raked his fingers through his wild hair and shouted: “No, I won’t! Your deadline is Tuesday!” He hadn’t meant to stare, but before he knew it the bright, exasperated eyes were fixed on him, and the question was apparently di- rected at him: “Well then, what are you waiting for?” Who? He moved away quickly. He gripped his briefcase and stepped back from the maze streaked now by ladders of sunlight slanting through the Venetian blinds. The blaze on the frosted- glass cubicles made him rub his eyes. When he opened them the entire office was illuminated by a dusty glow shot through with sunbeams, and he was surprised to find that a bright, vaguely electric fog lay between him and the job he had to do. “Who do you want?” demanded a.i angry voice. A truculent little bulldog face, fiercely lipsticked, glared at him from under a fringe of bangs. “Mr. Carmody . . .” “Keep rigjit.” 5 i The Failure “But where?” “There!” She pointed to an aisle broader than the oth- ers that soon disappeared in the jungle* yf furniture. “Thank you very much, I — ” but she simply brushed past him. He turned to watch her go. She had treated him as though he were carrying packages to the stock room. He wandered on down the broad aisle. He walked through slatted sunlight. Stripes danced on his gray gab- ardine and touched up the watery shine on his shoes. He was bumped, and cried out: “Excuse me!” The man who had done it called back over his shoulder: “Sorry, Mac!” The contact spun him around. He nearly backed into a machine that was throwing a stream of papers into a trough. There was a pretty girl with sun in her hair. She would direct him. He started toward her, but she shut the file drawer, clasped a big folder to her breast, and ran away. It wasn’t intentional; she hadn’t seen him. Yet, he knew, there were some people she would have seen. Any of Arcadia’s top agents would have captured her eye without effort. Clerks, waitresses, and shopgirls re- sponded to their most casual gestures. They seemed to radiate a worthwhileness that communicated itself in- stantly to others. He had often tried to imitate their stances and tones of voice, but strangers still walked away from him. His prospects still looked out the win- dow. He crossed a small clearing and passed some clerks nos- ing over a field of ledgers. They lifted their heads dazedly. Paht One 6 One squinted at him through lenses as thick .as eye cups. In spit: of his nervousness (the throbbing had already begun in, the pit of his stomach), their tired scrutiny made him feel stronger. At least his life wasn’t trapped in columns of figures . t He quickened his steps and showed them a slim, fairly good-looking boy about twenty-eight. He had a nice, rather round face weakened by an over-friendly smile/ He was of medium height and seemed acceptable at first glance. But he soon gave himself away. An early habit of fear had left a mark on him. He moved cautiously with an instinctive awkwcrdness, as though aware that his fraud would be discovered at any moment. He winced every now and then in response to some hidden worry. At other times his gray eyes shone wide with a distant focus,. and he appeared to be concentrating on imaginary airplanes. He was pale now. His lips puckered anxiously. He gave a faint whistle and stopped to look at some- thing that few salesmen would have bothered to notice. It was a pencil-sharpener lying on its side; the screws that fixed it to the desk had come loose. He was gazing at it sadly when another girl confronted him. This one had fat arms and a buttery yellow skin, and she said: “Are you looking for somebody?” "Yes,” he said, “but I was just noticing your sharpener. It’s too bad when they come apart like that. If I had \ny tools here — I’ve got a way of welding them into the desk.” "Who do you want to see?” asked the fat girl, putting her hands on her hips and staring at him. "Oh . . . Mr. Carmody. I have an appointment.” 7 i The Failure “Go straight ahead. No, no, this way. Do you see that door with the transom open? The big door — see k?” He thanked her, and moved toward /he office that could no longer be avoided. He went slowly and more slowly, blinking through the sunbeams. The .broken, abslhdoned pencil-sharpener had depressed him. It re- minded him of himself. People didn’t care how they treated mass-produced equipment. He might start an artistic repair business. He had ideas of remaking office chairs and tables into works of art. They would be created especially for Teception rooms. He would re-create each piece one at a time with a thousand little painstaking hammerings and carvings, lay golden designs in the flowering wood. At first, nat- urally, office-managers would resist the idea, and . . . nothing. His feeble fantasy embarrassed him. He knew why his mind so often took flight before an interview. Rose had put her finger on that. He was running away from real- ity. Yet sometimes he felt that the things he dreamed of were much more solid than the things he tried to sell. Even so, he would stop dreaming. He had the will power. He squared his shoulders, but almost at once suc- cumbed to a rush of self-pity. What a monotonous life lay ahead of him! His life was already mapped out, fatSd. He saw himself in ten, fifteen, twenty years, older and sorrier but otherwise unchanged, a dim figure with a transparent briefcase condemned to wander through hot dusty rooms on impossible errands, and he won- dered: ‘Why do I have to do it? Who started all this, anyway?’ Part On* 8 A woman stepped across his path and looked at him questioningly. The salesman’s mild, friendly features un- derwent »flick^r«of distress. He forced a smile. “Boston Chemical?” “No, I’m Hal Hinglptm from Arcadia Life. Is Mr. Car- mody — ?” “Yes, he’s in. I don’t think he has much time for you today, Mr. Hingham.” “Well, if he’s busy . . “He’ll see you, though, I’m pretty sure. Would you wait a moment, please.” He leaned against che glass partition. He started to put his hat down, but there wasn’t any convenient place, so he tucked it under his elbow, meanwhile tug- ging at the clasp of his briefcase. A breeze rattled the blinds in the long windows, blowing in the clean, sweet smell of the spring afternoon. He thought: ‘If I get through soon enough I can take a sunbath.’ The do