The Standby

As I left for my second trip to Saint Louis, my hopes were in the ascendency. My mind was free. The past was now only a memory, and the future looked glorious. This was my attitude and state of mind as I arrived at the world’s fair only a few days after my first hurried visit. I checked my baggage at Union Station as I had done before, intending
to make permanent arrangements after I had conferred with Fennell and Cooper. I whistled as I went directly to the electricity building. What a jolly lot we three boys would be surrounded daily by the gay sightseers at the fair, with not a worry to mar the serenity of our young, carefree lives. Billy Fennell greeted me in his usual friendly manner,
with a jovial smile and cordial handshake, but I was quick to detect that although he was apparently glad to see me, the greeting was far too formal and constrained to be natural and spontaneous. I sensed that behind his mask of welcome was hidden a disturbing element. My hunch was that all was not well. I had a strange feeling that I was not
wanted. This greeting was entirely different from the genuine attitude that he displayed when I had left him several days earlier.

“Billy, what in the world has happened?” I inquired anxiously. “You act so strangely. Is there—”

Without permitting me to finish, he replied, “Well, Frank, I might as well tell you right off the bat. I’ve got bad news for you.”

“What?” I answered in fear.

“I was within my capacity when I sent for you, but Dr. de Forest did not know I had you in mind for that job I wired you about. So unbeknownst to me, he hired someone else, and the fellow starts tomorrow. Now there is no job here for you.” The deeper the sorrow, the less tongue it had. I was speechless. My faculties seemed powerless. In that moment, the world about me spun around. It was all so incomprehensible. Surely, it must be a nightmare.
I couldn’t believe I had now lost everything. Billy’s double-barreled, never-to-be-forgotten words, “Hired someone else,” and “There is no job,” burned my soul with desolation. I felt empty, all used up, and unwanted by God and man. Every word of his was packed with a wallop
strong enough to floor me. It was like a hard left blow driven to the chin followed quickly by a deadly cross uppercut straight from the shoulder. In spirit, I went down. In such a short time so much had happened.

Now I was right back where I started a few years earlier. I was a ragged, unkempt boy without the faintest idea how, when, or where I could again start on another upward climb. A climb that undoubtedly would be much more difficult to negotiate, especially without the influence
of friends, to whom my past, rapid advance had been due, for surely it was not a result of my own ability or good judgment. The previous week, I had been on the road to possible fame and security. This week, I was a jobless, pitiful outcast. But why should I expect mercy, pity, or compassion from man or God when it is my own
fault? During these grief-stricken moments, I thought I had lost it all, everybody had been right, I had twice been wrong, and I was an impetuous young fool, an egotistical ass, and a conceited dunce. It was a moment when I could fully appreciate Omar Khayyam’s lines of wisdom.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

At a time like this, the mind refuses to comprehend the workings of a wise and kind Providence, who oftentimes uses sorrow to weave patterns into the elements of character, possibly through the process of humbling our pride. Yet it is just such unexpected jolts and disappointments of life—if rightfully accepted—that become a means of improvement and creates in us the sinews of strength. Often under the shadow of disappointment, we may be walking side by side in the bracing air of a higher purpose and the very roughness of the path stimulating us to higher climbing with steadier steps.

But I wasn’t out—not after my wits began to function, and I got my second wind. I remembered the story often told us by my father about the pugilist Gentleman Jim Corbett, whom Dad greatly admired.

Pompadour Jim, after he had won the world’s heavyweight championship from the great John L. Sullivan, was asked what the secret of winning bouts was. To which he promptly replied, “Fight one more round! If you do that, you’ve got a chance. Knockdowns are not lost fights. It’s the getting-up, that counts. You’re never licked or counted out as long as you will, or can fight one more round.”

I realized that I would get nowhere by whining, complaining, or cursing. I could not go back from where I came, so it was there that I remained with but one other thing to do: Go forward! But how? A few years earlier when I had applied for my first telegraph job, I had had only twenty-five cents in my pocket. Now I faced the world again, jobless and in a strange town. But this time, I had twenty-five dollars. In other words, I now had a hundred-to-one better odds in money than I had had at first, and I had accumulated more experience, if not wisdom.