Hobo to Millionaire
“He was practically dead broke. An employment office extracted from him the usual $2 fee—all he had—and sent him to a job in a lumber-mill some distance from the city. Alvo tramped many miles to the mill only to be refused employment upon his ticket. He could scarcely speak any English, but he knew how to use his fists. Walking all the way back to Seattle, he proceeded to beat up the employment agent in thorough and picturesque fashion. Afterward he secured temporary rough work at various mills along Puget Sound.
“His first job in British Columbia was the whitewashing of a salmon-cannery at the little village of Ladner, near the mouth of the Fraser River. His wardrobe included overalls and a dozen dress-shirts—the latter relics of his grander days—but he had no socks. From wielding the whitewash-brush to hauling the nets was the next step, and it was not long before the Prussian Junker’s son was engaged in partnership with a rough-neck fisherman making nightly trips out into the Gulf of Georgia, and doing his share in one of the hardest and most dangerous callings in the world, that of a deep-sea salmon-fisher.
“In two months, with the money obtained from his salmon fishing, he was enabled to purchase an ancient mare and a light wagon. Over night he blossomed out as a produce-dealer, buying poultry and dairy products from the farmers in the vicinity of Ladner. These he brought to the city of Vancouver and sold them from house to house in opposition to the Chinamen. Business increased, and the staid old Vancouver Club, a hoary and the most exclusive institution, in which only the most elect held membership, became his best customer.
“But Alvo did not stay long in the business; but went up by leaps and bounds. Real-estate clerk, then curb-broker, then large independent dealer were some of his upward steps, until two years after he had sold his last load of produce to the Vancouver Club he was himself a member.”
There was one little incident of the club life which pleasantly reminds us that Alvo was not an upstart and therefore not a snob. He was entertaining a German baron soon after having become a member, and he noticed that the waiter eyed him very curiously. Presently divining the reason, Alvo suddenly looked up at the waiter and said: “Yes, by jingo, I’m the man who used to deliver chickens at the back door. Now go on serving dinner, and stop staring.”