CHAPTER VIII.A Welcome to Wall Street and Us.
CHAPTER VIII.
A Welcome to Wall Street and Us.
“Welcome!” intoned Captain Tolliver, with his hat in his hand, bowing low to Mrs. Barslow. “Welcome, Madam and suh, in the capacity of Lattimoreans! That we shall be the bettah fo’ yo’ residence among us the’ can be no doubt. That you will be prospahed beyond yo’ wildest dreams I believe equally cehtain. Welcome!”
This address was delivered within thirty seconds of the time of our arrival at our old rooms in the Centropolis. The Captain saluted us in a manner extravagantly polite, mysteriously enthusiastic. The air of mystery was deepened when he called again to see Mr. Elkins in the evening and was invited in.
“Did you-all notice that distinguished and opulent-looking gentleman who got off the train this evening?” said he in a stage whisper. “Mahk my words, the coming of such men,hiscoming, is fraught with the deepest significance to us all. All my holdin’s ah withdrawn from mahket until fu’the’ developments!”
“Seems to travel in style,” said Jim; “all sorts of good clothes, colored body-servant, closed carriage ordered by wire—it does look juicy, don’t it, now?”
“He has the entiah second flo’ front suite. Theniggah has already sent out fo’ a bahbah,” said the Captain. “Lattimore has at last attracted the notice of adequate capital, and will now assume huh true place in the bright galaxy of American cities. Mr. Barslow, I shall ask puhmission to call upon you in the mo’nin’ with reference to a project which will make the fo’tunes of a dozen men, and that within the next ninety days. Good evenin’, suh; good evenin’, Madam. I feel that you have come among us at a propitious moment!”
“The Captain merely hints at the truth which struggles in him for utterance,” said Jim. “I prove this by informing you that I couldn’t get you a house. This shows, too, that the census returns are a calumny upon Lattimore. You’ll have to stay at the Centropolis until something turns up or you can build.”
“Oh, dear!” said Alice. “Hotel life isn’t living at all. I hope it won’t be long.”
“It will have its advantages for Al,” said Mr. Elkins. “This financial maelstrom, which will draw everything to Lattimore, will have its core right in this hotel—a mighty good place to be. Things of all kinds have been floating about in the air for months; the precipitation is beginning now. The psychological moment has arrived—you have brought it with you, Mrs. Barslow. The moon-flower of Lattimore’s ‘gradual, healthy growth’ is going to burst, and that right soon.”
“Has Captain Tolliver infected you?” inquired Alice. “He told us the same thing, with less of tropes and figures.”
“On any still morning,” said Jim, “you can hear the wheels go round in the Captain’s head; but his instinct for real-estate conditions is as accurate as a pocket-gopher’s. The Captain, in a hysterical sort of way, is right: I consider that a cinch. Good-night, friends, and pleasant dreams. I expect to see you at breakfast; but if I shouldn’t, Al, you’ll come aboard at nine, won’t you, and help run up the Jolly Roger? I think I smell pieces-of-eight in the air! And, by the way, Miss Trescott says for me to assure you that her vertigo, which she had for the first time in her life, is gone, and she never felt better.”
As Mr. Elkins passed from our parlor, he let in a bell-boy with the card of Mr. Clifford Giddings, representing the Lattimore MorningHerald.
“See him down in the lobby,” said Alice.
“I want a story,” said he as we met, “on the city and its future. TheHeraldreaders will be glad of anything from Mr. Barslow, whose coming they have so long looked forward to, as intimately connected with the city’s development.”
“My dear sir,” I replied, somewhat astonished at the importance which he was pleased to attach to my arrival, “abstractly, my removal to Lattimore is my best testimony on that; concretely, I ought to ask information of you.”
We sat down in a corner of the lobby, our chairs side by side, facing opposite ways. He lighted a cigar, and gave me one. In looks he was young; in behavior he had the self-possession and poise of maturity. He wore a long mackintosh which sparkled with mist. His slouch hat looked new andwas carefully dinted. His dress was almost natty in an unconventional way, and his manners accorded with his garb. He acted as if for years we had casually met daily. His tone and attitude evinced respect, was entirely free from presumption, equally devoid of reserve, carried with it no hint of familiarity, but assumed a perfect understanding. The barrier which usually keeps strangers apart he neither broke down, which must have been offensive, nor overleaped, which would have been presumptuous. He covered it with that demeanor of his, and together we sat down upon it.
“I thought theHeraldwas an evening paper,” said I.
“It was, in the days of yore,” he replied; “but Mr. Elkins happened to see me in Chicago one day, and advised me to come out and look the old thing over with a view to purchasing the plant. You observe the result. As fellow immigrants, I hope there will be a bond of sympathy between us. You think, of course, that Lattimore is a coming city?”
“Yes.”
“Its geographical situation seems to render its development inevitable, doesn’t it? And,” he went on, “the railway conditions seem peculiarly promising just now?”
“Yes,” said I, “but the natural resources of the city and the surrounding country appeal most strongly to me.”
“They are certainly very exceptional, aren’t they?” said he, as if the matter had never occurred to him before. Then he went on telling me things, morethan asking questions, about the jobbing trades, the brick and tile and associated industries, the cement factory, which he spoke of as if actuallyin esse, the projected elevators, the flouring-mills, and finally returned to railway matters.
“What is your opinion of the Lattimore & Great Western, Mr. Barslow?” he asked.
“I cannot say that I have any,” I answered, “except that its construction would bring great good to Lattimore.”
“It could scarcely fail,” said he, “to bring in two or three systems which we now lack, could it?”
I very sincerely said that I did not know. After a few more questions concerning our plans for the future, Mr. Giddings vanished into the night, silently, as an autumn leaf parting from its bough. I thought of him no more until I unfolded theHeraldin the morning as we sat at breakfast, and saw that my interview was made a feature of the day’s news.
“Mr. Albert F. Barslow,” it read, “of the firm of Elkins & Barslow, is stopping at the Centropolis. He arrived by the 6:15 train last evening, and with his family has taken a suite of rooms pending the erection of a residence. They have not definitely decided as to the location of their new home; but it may confidently be stated that they will build something which will be a notable addition to the architectural beauties of Lattimore—already proud of her title, the City of Homes.”
“I am very glad to know about this,” said Alice.
“Your man Giddings has nerve, whatever else he may lack,” said I to the smiling Elkins across the table.“Am I obliged to make good all these representations? I ask, that I may know the rules of the game, merely.”
“One rule is that you mustn’t deny any accusations of future magnificence, for two reasons: they may come true, and they help things on. You are supposed to have left your modesty in cold storage somewhere. Read on.”
“Mr. Barslow,” I read, “has long been a most potent political factor in his native state, but is, first of all, a business man. He brings his charming young wife—”
“Really, a most discriminating journalist,” interjected Alice.
“—and social circles, as well as the business world, will find them a most desirable accession to Lattimore’s population.”
“Why this is absolute, slavish devotion to facts,” said Jim; “where does the word-painting come in?”
“Here it is,” said I.
“Mr. Barslow is some years under middle age, and looks the intense modern business man in every feature. His mind seems to have already become saturated with the conception of the enormous possibilities of Lattimore. He impresses those who have met him as one of the few men capable of pulling his share in double harness with James R. Elkins.”
“The fellow piles it on a little strong at times, doesn’t he, Mrs. Barslow?” said Jim.
“He brings to our city,” I read on, “his vigorous mind, his fortune, and a determination never to rest until the city passes the 100,000 mark. To aHeraldrepresentative, last night, he spoke strongly and eloquently of our great natural resources.”
Then followed a skillfully handled expansion of ourtête-à-têtetalk in the lobby.
“Mr. Barslow,” the report went on, “very courteously declined to discuss the L. & G. W. situation. It seems evident, however, from remarks dropped by him, that he regards the construction of this road as inevitable, and as a project which, successfully carried out, cannot fail to make Lattimore the point to which all the Western and Southwestern systems of railways must converge.”
“You’re doing it like a veteran!” cried Jim. “Admirable! Just the proper infusion of mystery; I couldn’t have done better myself.”
“Credit it all to Giddings,” I protested. “And note that the center of the stage is reserved to our mysterious fellow lodger and co-arrival.”
“Yes, I saw that,” said Jim. “Isn’t Giddings a peach? Let Mrs. Barslow hear it.”
“She ought to be able to hear these headlines,” said I, “without any reading: ‘J. Bedford Cornish arrives! Wall Street’s Millions On the Ground in the Person of One of Her Great Financiers! Bull Movement in Real Estate Noted Last Night! Does He Represent the Great Railway Interests?’”
“Real estate and financial circles,” ran the article under these headlines, “are thrown into something of a fever by the arrival, on the 6:15 express last evening, of a gentleman of distinguished appearance, who took five roomsen suiteon the second floor of the Centropolis, and registered in a bold hand as J. Bedford Cornish, of New York. Mr. Cornish consented to see aHeraldrepresentative last night, butwas very reticent as to his plans and the objects of his visit. He simply says that he represents capital seeking investment. He would not admit that he is connected with any of the great railway interests, or that his visit has any relation to the building of the Lattimore & Great Western. TheHeraldis able to say, however, that its New York correspondent informs it that Mr. Cornish is a member of the firm of Lusch, Carskaddan & Mayer, of Wall Street. This firm is well known as one of the concerns handling large amounts of European capital, and said to be intimately associated with the Rothschilds. Financial journals have recently noted the fact that these concerns are becoming embarrassed by the plethora of funds seeking investment, and are turning their attention to the development of railway systems and cities in the United States. Their South American and Australian investments have not proven satisfactory, especially the former, owing to the character of the people of Latin America. It has been pointed out that no real-estate investment can be more than moderately profitable in climates which render the people content with a mere living, and that the restless and unsatisfied vigor of the Anglo-Saxon alone can make lands and railways permanently remunerative. Mr. Cornish admitted these facts when they were pointed out to him, and immediately changed the subject.
“Mr. Cornish is a very handsome and opulent-looking gentleman, and seems to live in a style somewhat luxurious for the Occident. He has a colored body-servant, who seems to reflect the mystery ofhis master; but if he has any other reflections, theHeraldis none the wiser for them. Admittance to the suite of rooms was obtained by sending in the reporter’s card, which vanished into a sybaritic gloom, borne on a golden salver. Mr. Cornish seems to be very exclusive, his meals being served in his rooms; and even his barber has instructions to call upon him each morning. One wonders why the barber is called in so frequently, until one marks the smooth-shaven cheeks above the close-clipped, pointed, black, Vandyke beard. He is withal very cordial and courtly in his manners.
“James R. Elkins, when seen last evening, refused to talk, except to say that, in financial circles, it has been known for some days that important developments may be now momently expected, and that some such thing as the visit of Mr. Cornish was imminent. Captain Marion Tolliver expressed himself freely, and to the effect that this mysterious visit is of the utmost importance to Lattimore, and a thing of national if not world-wide importance.”
“Now, that justifies my confidence in Giddings,” said Mr. Elkins, “fulfilling at the same time the requirements of journalism and hypnotism. Come, Al, our bark is on the sea, our boat is on the shore. The Spanish galleons are even now hiding in the tall grass, in expectation of our cruise. Let us hence to the office!”
CHAPTER IX.I Go Aboard and We Unfurl the Jolly Roger.
CHAPTER IX.
I Go Aboard and We Unfurl the Jolly Roger.
“We must act, and act at once!” said the Captain, his voice thrilling with intensity. “This piece of property will be gone befo’ night! All it takes is a paltry three thousand dolla’s, and within ninety days—no man can say what its value will be. We can plat it, and within ten days we may have ouah money back. Allow me to draw on you fo’ three thou—”
“But,” said I, “I can make no move in such a matter at this time without conference with Mr.—”
“Very well, suh, very well!” said the Captain, regarding me with a look that showed how much better things he had expected of me. “Opportunity, suh, knocks once—By the way, excuse me, suh!”
And he darted from the office, took the trail of Mr. Macdonald, whom he had seen passing, brought him to bay in front of the post-office, and dragged him away to some doom, the nature of which I could only surmise.
This took place on the morning of my first day with Elkins & Barslow. I was to take up the office work.
“That will be easy for you from the first,” said Jim. “Your experience as rob-ee down there in Posey County makes you a sort of specialist in that sort of thing; and pretty soon all other things shall be added unto it.”
The Captain’s onslaught in the first half-hour admonished me that a good deal was already added to it. On that very day, too, we had our first conference with Mr. Hinckley. We wanted to handle securities, said Mr. Elkins, and should have a great many of them, and that was quite in Mr. Hinckley’s line. To carry them ourselves would soon absorb all our capital. We must liberate it by floating the commercial paper which we took in. Mr. Hinckley’s bank was known to be strong, his standing was of the highest, and a trust company in alliance with him could not fail to find a good market for its paper. With an old banker’s timidity, Hinckley seemed to hesitate; yet the prospects seemed so good that I felt that this consent was sure to be given. Jim courted him assiduously, and the intimacy between him and the Hinckley family became noticeable.
“Jim,” said I, one day, “you have an unerring eye for the pleasant things of life. I couldn’t help thinking of this to-day when I saw you for the twentieth time spinning along the street in Miss Hinckley’s carriage, beside its owner. She’s one of the handsomest girls, in her flaxen-haired way, that I know of.”
“Isn’t she a study in curves and pink and white?” said Jim. “And she understands this trust company business as well as her father.”
The trust company’s stock, he went on to explain, ignoring Antonia, seemed to be already oversubscribed. Our firm, Hinckley, and Jim’s Chicago and New York friends, including Harper, all stood ready to take blocks of it, and there was no reason for requiring Hinckley to put much actual money in for this. He could pay for it out of his profits soon, and make a fortune without any outlay. Good credit was the prime necessity, and that Mr. Hinckley certainly had. So the celebrated Grain Belt Trust Company was begun—a name about which such mighty interests were to cluster, that I know I should have shrunk from the responsibility had I known what a gigantic thing we were creating.
As the days wore on, Captain Tolliver’s dementia spread and raged virulently. The dark-visaged Cornish, with his air of mystery, his habits so at odds with the society of Lattimore, was in the very focus of attention.
For a day or so, the effect which Mr. Giddings’s report attributed to his invasion failed to disclose itself to me. Then the delirium became manifest, and swept over the town like a were-wolf delusion through a medieval village.
Its immediate occasion seemed to be a group of real-estate conveyances, announced in theHeraldone morning, surpassing in importance anything in the history of the town. Some of the lands transferred were acreage; some were waste and vacant tracts along Brushy Creek and the river; one piece was a suburban farm; but the mass of it was along Main Street and in the business district.The grantees were for the most part strange names in Lattimore, some individuals, some corporations. All the sales were at prices hitherto unknown. It was to be remarked, too, that in most cases the property had been purchased not long before, by some of the group of newer comers and at the old modest prices. Our firm seemed to have profited heavily in these transactions, as had Captain Tolliver also. We of the “new crowd” had begun our mock-trading to “establish the market.” Prices were going up, up; and all one had to do was to buy to-day and sell to-morrow. Real values, for actual use, seemed to be forgotten.
The most memorable moment in this first, acutest stage in our development was one bright day, within a week or so of our coming. The lawns were taking on their summer emerald, robins were piping in the maples, and down in the cottonwoods and lindens on the river front crows and jays were jargoning their immemorial and cheery lingo. Surveyors were running lines and making plats in the suburbs, peeped at by gophers, and greeted by the roundelays of meadow-larks. But on the street-corners, in the offices of lawyers and real-estate agents, and in the lobbies of the hotels, the trading was lively.
Then for the first time the influx of real buyers from the outside became noticeable. The landlord of the Centropolis could scarcely care for his guests. They talked of blocks, quarter-blocks, and the choice acreage they had bought, and of the profits they had made in this and other cities and towns (where this same speculative fever was epidemic), until Alicefled to the Trescott farm—as she said, to avoid the mixture of real estate with her meals. The telegraph offices were gorged with messages to non-resident property owners, begging for prices on good inside lots. Staid, slow-going lot-owners, who had grown old in patiently paying taxes on patches of dog-fennel and sand-burrs, dazedly vacillated between acceptance and rejection of tempting propositions, dreading the missing of the chance so long awaited, fearing misjudgment as to the height of the wave, dreading a future of regret at having sold too low.
One of these, an old woman, toothless and bent, hobbled to our office and asked for Mr. Elkins. He was busy, and so I received her.
“It’s about that quarter-block with the Donegal ruin on it,” said Jim; “the one I showed you yesterday. Offer her five thousand, one-fourth down, balance in one, two, and three years, eight per cent.”
“I wanted to ask Mr. Elkins about me home,” said she. “I tuk in washin’ to buy it, an’ me son, poor Patsy, God rist ’is soul, he helped wid th’ bit of money from the Brotherhood, whin he was kilt betune the cars. It was sivin hundred an’ fifty dollars, an’ now Thronson offers me four thousan’. I told him I’d sell, fer it’s a fortune for a workin’ woman; but befure I signed papers, I wanted to ask Mr. Elkins; he’s such a fair-spoken man, an’ knowin’ to me min-folks in Peoria.”
“If you want to sell, Mrs. Collins,” said I, “we will take your property at five thousand dollars.”
She started, and regarded me, first in amazement, then with distrust, shading off into hostility.
“Thank ye kindly, sir,” said she; “I’ll be goin’ now. I’ve med up me moind, if that bit of land is wort all that money t’ yees, it’s wort more to me. Thank ye kindly!” and she fled from the presence of the tempter.
“The town is full of Biddy Collinses,” commented Jim. “Well, we can’t land everything, and couldn’t handle the catch if we did. In fact, for present purposes, isn’t it better to have her refuse?”
This incident was the hint upon which our “Syndicate,” as it came to be called, acted from time to time, in making fabulous offers to every Biddy Collins in town. “Offer twenty thousand,” Jim would say. “The more you bid the less apt is he to accept; he’s a Biddy Collins.” And whatever Mr. Elkins advised was done.
There were eight or ten of us in the “Syndicate,” dubbed by Jim “The Crew,” among whom were Tolliver, Macdonald, and Will Lattimore. But the inner circle, now drawing closer and closer together, were Elkins, our ruling spirit; Hinckley, our great force in the banking world; and myself. Soon, I was given to understand, Mr. Cornish was to take his place as one of us. He and Jim had long known each other, and Mr. Elkins had the utmost confidence in Mr. Cornish’s usefulness in what he called “the thought-transference department.”
Elkins & Barslow kept their offices open night and day, almost, and the number of typewriters and bookkeepers grew astoundingly. I became almost astranger to my wife. I got hurried glimpses of Miss Trescott and her mother at the hotel, and knew that she and Alice were becoming fast friends; but so far the social prominence which theHeraldhad predicted for us had failed to arrive.
This, to be sure, was our own fault. Miss Addison soon gave us up as not available for the church and Sunday-school functions to which she devoted herself. Her family connections would have made herthesocial leader had it not been for the severity of her views and her assumption of the character of the devotee—in spite of which she protestingly went almost everywhere. Antonia Hinckley, however, was frankly fond of a good time, and with her dashing and almost hoydenish character easily took the leadership from Miss Addison; and Miss Hinckley sought diligently for means by which we could be properly launched. As I left the office one day, a voice from the curb called my name. It was Miss Hinckley in a smart trap, to which was harnessed a beautiful horse, standard bred, one could see at a glance. I obeyed the summons, and stepped beside the equipage.
“I want to scold you,” said she. “Society is being defrauded of the good things which your coming promised. Have you taken a vow of seclusion, or what?”
“I’ve been spinning about in the maelstrom of business,” I replied. “But do not be uneasy; some time we shall take up the matter of inflicting ourselves, and pursue it as vigorously as we now follow our vocation.”
“Wouldn’t you like to get into the trap, and take a spin of another sort?” said she. “I’ll deposit you safely with Mrs. Barslow in time for tea.”
I got in, glad of the drive, and for ten minutes her horse was sent at such a pace that conversation was difficult. Then he was slowed down to a walk, his head toward home. We chatted of casual things—the scenery, the horse, the splendid color of the sunset. I was becoming interested in her.
“I had almost forgotten that there were such things in Lattimore,” said I, referring to the topics of our talk. “I have become so saturated with lands and lots.”
“I don’t know much about business,” said she, “and I think I’ll improve my opportunity by learning something. And, first, aren’t men sometimes losers by the dishonesty of those who act for them—agents, they are called, aren’t they?”
Such, I admitted, was unfortunately the case.
“I should be sorry for—any one I liked—to be injured in such a way.... Now you must understand how the things you men are interested in permeate the society of us women. Why, mamma has almost forgotten the enslavement of our sex, in these new things which have changed our old town so much; so you mustn’t wonder if I have heard something of a purely business nature. I heard that Captain Tolliver was about to sell Mr. Elkins the land where the old foundry is, over there, for twenty thousand dollars. Now, papa says it isn’t worth it; and I know—Sadie Allen and I were in school together, and she comes over from Fairchild several times ayear to see me, and I go there, you know; and that land is in her father’s estate—I know that the executor has told Captain Tolliver to sell it for ever so much less than that. And it seemed so funny, as the Captain was doing the business for both sides—isn’t it odd, now?”
“It does seem so,” said I, “and it is very kind of you. I’ll talk with Mr. Elkins about it. Please be careful, Miss Hinckley, or you’ll drop the wheel in that washout!”
She reined up her horse and began speeding him again. I could see that this conversation had embarrassed her somehow. Her color was high, and her grip of the reins not so steady as at starting. This attempt to do Jim a favor was something she considered as of a good deal of consequence. I began to note more and more what a really splendid woman she was—tall, fair, her tailor-made gown rounding to the full, firm curves of her figure, her fearless horsemanship hinting at the possession of large and positive traits of character.
“We women,” said she, “might as well abandon all the things commonly known as feminine. What good do they do us?”
“They gratify your sense of the beautiful,” suggested I.
“You know, Mr. Barslow,” said she, “that it’s not our own sense of the beautiful, mainly, that we seek to gratify; and if the eyes for which they are intended are looking into ledgers and blind to everything except dollar-signs, what’s the use?”
“Go down to the seashore,” said I, “where the people congregate who have nothing to do.”
“Not I,” said she; “I’ll go into real estate, and become as blind as the rest!”
Jim paid no attention to my chaffing when I spoke of his conquest, as I called Antonia. In fact, he seemed annoyed, and for a long time said nothing.
“You can see how the Allen estate proposition stands,” said he, at last. “To let that sell for less than twenty thousand might cost us ten times that amount in lowering the prevailing standard of values. The old rule that we should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest is suspended. Base is the slave who pays—less than the necessary and proper increase.”
CHAPTER X.We Dedicate Lynhurst Park.
CHAPTER X.
We Dedicate Lynhurst Park.
The Hindu adept sometimes suspends before the eyes of his subject a bright ball of carnelian or crystal, in the steady contemplation of which the sensitive swims off into the realms of subjectivity—that mysterious bourn from whence no traveler brings anything back. J. Bedford Cornish was Mr. Elkins’s glittering ball; his psychic subject was the world in general and Lattimore in particular. Scientific principles, confirmed by experience, led us to the conclusion that the attitude of fixed contemplation carried with it some nervous strain, ought to be of limited duration, and hence that Mr. Cornish should remove from our midst the glittering mystery of his presence, lest familiarity should breed contempt. So in about ten days he went away, giving to theHeralda parting interview, in which he expressed unbounded delight with Lattimore, and hinted that he might return for a longer stay. Editorially, theHeraldexpressed the hope that this characteristically veiled allusion to a longer sojourn might mean that Mr. Cornish had some idea of becoming a citizen of Lattimore. This would denote, the editorial continued,that men like Mr. Cornish, accustomed to the mighty world-pulse of New York, could find objects of pursuit equally worthy in Lattimore.
“Which is mixed metaphor,” Mr. Giddings admitted in confidence; “but,” he continued, “if metaphors, like drinks, happen to be more potent mixed, theHeraldproposes to mix ’em.”
All these things consumed time, and still our life was one devoted to business exclusively. At last Mr. Elkins himself, urged, I feel sure, by Antonia Hinckley, gave evidence of weariness.
“Al,” said he one day, “don’t you think it’s about time to go ashore for a carouse?”
“Unless something in the way of a let-up comes soon,” said I, “the position of lieutenant, or first mate, or whatever my job is piratically termed, will become vacant. The pace is pretty rapid. Last night I dreamed that the new Hotel Elkins was founded on my chest; and I have had troubles enough of the same kind before to show me that my nervous system is slowly ravelling out.”
“I have arrangements made, in my mind, for a sort of al fresco function, to come off about the time Cornish gets back with our London visitor,” he replied, “which ought to knit up the ravelled sleeve better than new. I’m going to dedicate Lynhurst Park to the nymphs and deities of sport—which wrinkled care derides.”
“I hadn’t heard of Lynhurst Park,” I was forced to say. “I’m curious to know, first, who named it, and, second, where it is.”
“Didn’t I show you those blueprints?” he asked.“An oversight I assure you. As for the scheme, you suggested it yourself that night we first drove out to Trescott’s. Don’t you remember saying something about ‘breathing space for the populace’? Well, I had the surveys made at once; contracted for the land, all but what Bill owns of it, which we’ll have to get later; and had a landscapist out from Chicago to direct us as to what we ought to admire in improving the place. As for the name, I’m indebted to kind nature, which planted the valley in basswood, and to Josie, who contributed the philological knowledge and the taste. That’s the street-car line,” said he, unrolling an elaborate plat and pointing. “We may throw it over to the west to develop section seven, if we close for it. Otherwise, that line is the very thing.”
Our street-railway franchise had been granted by the Lattimore city council—they would have granted the public square, had we asked for it in the potent name of “progress”—and Cornish was even now making arrangements for placing our bonds. The impossible of less than a year ago was now included in the next season’s program, as an inconsiderable feature of a great project for a street-railway system, and the “development” of hundreds of acres of land.
The place so to be named Lynhurst Park was most agreeably reached by a walk up Brushy Creek from Lattimore. Such a stroll took one into the gorge, where the rocks shelved toward each other, until their crowning fringes of cedar almost interlocked, like the eyelashes of drowsiness. Downthere in the twilight one felt a sense of being defrauded, in contemplation of the fact that the stream was troutless: it was such an ideal place for trout. The quiet and mellow gloom made the gorge a favorite trysting-place, and perhaps the cool-blooded stream-folk had fled from the presence of the more fervid dwellers on the banks. In the crevices of the rocks were the nests of the village pigeons. The combined effects of all these causes was to make this a spot devoted to billing and cooing.
Farther up the stream the rock walls grew lower and parted wider, islanding a rich bottom of lush grass-plot, alternating with groves of walnut, linden, and elm. This was the Lynhurst Park of the blueprints and plats. Trescott’s farm lay on the right bank, and others on either side; but the houses were none of them near the stream, and the entire walk was wild and woodsy-looking. None but nature-lovers came that way. Others drove out by the road past Trescott’s, seeing more of corn and barn, but less of rock, moss, and fern.
Mr. Cornish was to return on Friday with the Honorable De Forest Barr-Smith, who lived in London and “represented English capital.” To us Westerners the very hyphen of his name spoke eloquently of £ s. d. Through him we hoped to get the money to build that street railway. Cornish had written that Mr. Barr-Smith wanted to look the thing over personally; and that, given the element of safety, his people would much prefer an investment of a million to one of ten thousand. Cornish further hinted that the London gentleman actedlike a man who wanted a side interest in the construction company; as to which he would sound him further by the way.
“He’ll expect something in the way of birds and bottles,” observed Elkins; “but they won’t mix with the general society of this town, where the worm of the still is popularly supposed to be the original Edenic tempter. And he’ll want to inspect Lynhurst Park. I want him to see our beauty and our chivalry,—meaning the ladies and Captain Tolliver,—and the rest of our best people. I guess we’ll have to make it a temperate sort of orgy, making up in the spectacular what it lacks in spirituousness.”
Mr. Cornish came, gradually moulting his mystery; but still far above the Lattimore standard in dress and style of living. In truth, he always had a good deal of the swell in his make-up, and can almost be acquitted of deceit in the impressions conveyed at his coming. The Honorable De Forest Barr-Smith fraternized with Cornish, as he could with no one else. No one looking at Mr. Cornish could harbor a doubt as to his morning tub; and his evening dress was always correct. With Jim, Mr. Barr-Smith went into the discussion of business propositions freely and confidentially. I feel sure that had he greatly desired a candid statement of the very truth as to local views, or the exact judgment of one on the spot, he would have come to me. But between him and Cornish there was the stronger sympathy of a common understanding of the occult intricacies of clothes, and a view-point as to the surface of things, embracing manifold points of agreement. Cornish’sunerring conformity of vogue in the manner and as to the occasion of wearing the tuxedo or the claw-hammer coat was clearly restful to Mr. Barr-Smith, in this new and strange country, where, if danger was to be avoided, things had to be approached with distended nostril and many preliminary snuffings of the wind.
There came with these two a younger brother of Mr. Barr-Smith, Cecil—a big young civil engineer, just out of college, and as like his brother in accent and dress as could be expected of one of his years; but national characteristics are matters of growth, and college boys all over the world are a good deal alike. Cecil Barr-Smith, with his red mustache, his dark eyes, and his six feet of British brawn, was nearer in touch with our younger people that first day than his honorable brother ever became. To Antonia, especially, he took kindly, and respectfully devoted himself.
“At this distance,” said Mr. Barr-Smith, as he saw his brother sitting on the grass at Miss Hinckley’s feet, “I’d think them brother and sister. She resembles sister Gritty remarkably; the same complexion and the same style, you know. Quite so!”
The Lynhurst function was the real introduction of these three gentlemen to Lattimore society. I knew nothing of the arrangements, except what I could deduce from Jim’s volume of business with caterers and other handicraftsmen; and I looked forward to the fête with much curiosity. The weather, that afternoon, made an outing quite the natural thing; for it was hot. The ladies in theirmost summery gowns fluttered like white dryads from shade to shade, uttering bird-like pipings of surprise at the preparations made for their entertainment.
The ravine had been transformed. At an available point in its bed Jim had thrown a dam across the stream, and a beautiful little lake rippled in the breeze, bearing on its bosom a bright-colored boat, which in our ignorance of things Venetian we mistakenly dubbed a gondola. At the upper end of this water the canvas of a large pavilion gleamed whitely through the greenery, displaying from its top the British and American flags, their color reflected in a particolored streak on the wimpling face of the lake. The groves, in the tops of which the woodpeckers, warblers, and vireos disturbedly carried on the imperatively necessary work of rearing their broods, were gay with festoons of Chinese lanterns in readiness for the evening. Hammocks were slung from tree to tree, cushions and seats were arranged in cosy nooks; and when my wife and I stepped from our carriage, all these appliances for the utilization of shade and leisure were in full use. The “gondola” was making, trips from the cascade (as the dam was already called) to the pavilion, carrying loads of young people from whom came to our ears those peals of merriment which have everywhere but one meaning, and that a part of the world-old mystery of the way of a man with a maid.
Jim was on the ground early, to receive the guests and keep the management in hand. Josie Trescott and her mother walked down through the Trescottpasture, and joined Alice and me under one of the splendid lindens, where, as we lounged in the shade, the sound of the little waterfall filled the spaces in our talk. Long before any one else had seen them coming through the trees, Mr. Elkins had spied them, and went forward to meet them with something more than the hospitable solicitude with which he had met the others. In fact, the principal guests of the day had alighted from their carriage before Jim, ensconced in a hammock with Josie, was made aware of their arrival. I am not quick to see such things; but to my eyes, even, the affair had assumed interest as a sort of public flirtation. I had not thought that Josie would so easily fall into deportment so distinctly encouraging. She was altogether in a surprising mood,—her eyes shining as with some stimulant, her cheeks a little flushed, her lips scarlet, her whole appearance suggesting suppressed excitement. And when Jim rose to meet his guests, she dismissed him with one of those charmingly inviting glances and gestures with which such an adorable woman spins the thread by which the banished one is drawn back,—and then she disappeared until the dinner was served.
The green crown of the western hill was throwing its shadow across the valley, when Mr. Hinckley came with Mr. Cornish and Mr. Barr-Smith in a barouche; followed by Antonia, who brought Mr. Cecil in her trap—and a concomitant thrill to the company. Mr. Cornish, in his dress, had struck a happy medium between the habiliments of business and those of sylvan recreation. Mr. Barr-Smithon the other hand, was garbed cap-a-pie for an outing, presenting an appearance with which the racket, the bat, or even the alpenstock might have been conjoined in perfect harmony. As for the men of Lattimore, any one of them would as soon have been seen in the war-dress of a Sioux chief as in this entirely correct costume of our British visitor. We walked about in the every-day vestments of the shops, banks, and offices, illustrating the difference between a state of society in which apparel is regarded as an incident in life, and one rising to the height of realizing its true significance as a religion. Mr. Barr-Smith bowed not the knee to the Baal of western clothes-monotone, but daily sent out his sartorial orisons, keeping his windows open toward the Jerusalem of his London tailor, in a manner which would have delighted a Teufelsdröckh.
He was a short man, with protruding cheeks, and a nose ending in an amorphous flare of purple and scarlet. His mustache, red like that of his brother, and constituting the only point of physical resemblance between them, grew down over a receding chin, being forced thereto by the bulbous overhang of the nose. He had rufous side-whiskers, clipped moderately close, and carroty hair mixed with gray. His erect shoulders and straight back were a little out of keeping with the rotundity of his figure in other respects; but the combination, hinting, as it did, of affairs both gastronomic and martial, taken with a manner at once dignified, formal, and suave, constituted the most intensely respectable appearance I ever saw. To the imaginationof Lattimore he represented everything of which, Cornish fell short, piling Lombard upon Wall Street.
The arrival of these gentlemen was the signal for gathering in the pavilion where dinner was served. The tables were arranged in a great L, at the apex of which sat Jim and the distinguished guests. On one side of him sat Mr. Barr-Smith, who listened absorbedly to the conversation of Mrs. Hinckley, filling every pause with a husky “Quite so!” On the other sat Josie Trescott, who was smiling upon a very tall and spare old man who wore a beautiful white mustache and imperial. I had never met him, but I knew him for General Lattimore. His fondness for Josie was well known; and to him Jim attributed that young lady’s lack of enthusiasm over our schemes for city-building. His presence at this gathering was somewhat of a surprise to me.
Antonia and Cecil Barr-Smith, the Tollivers, Mr. Hinckley and Alice, myself, Mr. Giddings, and Miss Addison sat across the table from the host. Mrs. Trescott, after expressing wonder at the changes wrought in the ravine, and confiding to me her disapproval of the useless expense, had returned to the farm, impelled by that habitual feeling that something was wrong there. Mr. Giddings was exceedingly attentive to Miss Addison.
“I know why you’re trying to look severe,” said he to her, as the consommé was served; “and it’s the only thing I can imagine you making a failure of, unless it would be looking anything but pretty.But you are trying it, and I know why. You think they ought to have had some one say grace before pulling this thing off.”
“I’m not trying to look—anyhow,” she answered. “But you are right in thinking that I believe such duties should not be transgressed, for fear that the world may call us provincial or old-fashioned.”
And she shot a glance at Cornish and Barr-Smith as the visible representatives of the “world.”
“Don’t listen to that age-old clash between fervor and unregeneracy,” said Josie across the narrow table, her remarks made possible by the music of the orchestra, “but tell us about Mr. Barr-Smith and—the other gentlemen.”
“I wanted to ask you about the Britons,” said I; “are they good specimens of the men you saw in England?”
“An art-student, with a consciousness of guilt in slowly eating up the year’s shipment of steers, isn’t likely to know much more of the Barr-Smiths’ London than she can see from the street. But I think them fine examples of not very rare types. I should like to try drawing the elder brother!”
“Before he goes away, I predict—” I began, when my villainous pun was arrested in mid-utterance by the voice of Captain Tolliver, suddenly becoming the culminating peak in the table-talk.
“The Anglo-Saxon, suh,” he was saying, “is found in his greatest purity of blood in ouah Southe‘n states. It is thah, suh, that those qualities of virility and capacity fo’ rulership which make the racewhat is ah found in theiah highest development—on this side of the watah, suh, on this side!”
“Quite so! I dare say, quite so!” responded Mr. Barr-Smith. “I hope to know the people of the South better. In fact, I may say, really, you know, an occasion like this gives one the desire to become acquainted with the whole American people.”
General Lattimore, whose nostrils flared as he leaned forward listening, like an opponent in a debate, to the remarks of Captain Tolliver, subsided as he heard the Englishman’s diplomatic reply.
“What’s the use?” said he to Josie. “He may be nearer right than I can understand.”
“We hope,” said Mr. Elkins, “that this desire may be focalized locally, and grow to anything short of a disease. I assure you, Lattimore will congratulate herself.”
Mr. Barr-Smith’s fingers sought his glass, as if the impulse were on him to propose a toast; but the liquid facilities being absent, he relapsed into a conversation with Mrs. Hinckley.
“I’d say those things, too, if I were in his place,” came the words of Giddings, overshooting their mark, the ear of Miss Addison; “but it’s all rot. He’s disgusted with the whole barbarous outfit of us.”
“I am becoming curious,” was thesotto vocereply, “to know upon what model you found your conduct, Mr. Giddings.”
“I know what you mean,” said Mr. Giddings. “But I have adopted Iago.”
“Why, Mr. Giddings! How shocking! Iago—”
“Now, don’t be horrified,” said Giddings, with an air of candor, “but look at it from a practical standpoint. If Othello hadn’t been such a fool, Iago would have made his point all right. He had a right to be sore at Othello for promoting Cassio over his head, and his scheme was a good one, if Othello hadn’t gone crazy. Iago is dominated by reason and the principle of the survival of the fittest. He is an agreeable fellow—”
Miss Addison, with a charming mixture of tragedy and archness, suppressed this blasphemy by a gesture suggestive of placing her hand over the editor’s mouth.
“Ah, Mrs. Hinckley, you shouldn’t do us such an injustice!” It was Mr. Cornish, who took the center of the stage now. “You seem to fail to realize the fact that, in any given gathering, the influence of woman is dominant; and as the entire life of the nation is the sum total of such gatherings, woman is already in control. Now how can you fail to admit this?”
I missed the rather extended reply of Mrs. Hinckley, in noting the evident impression made upon the company by this first utterance of the mysterious Cornish. It was not what he said: that was not important. It was the dark, bearded face, the jetty eyes, and above all, I think, the voice, with its clear, carrying quality, combining penetrativeness with a repression of force which gave one the feeling of being addressed in confidence. Every man, and especially every woman, in the company, looked fixedly upon him, until he ceased to speak—allexcept Josie. She darted at him one look, a mere momentary scrutiny, and as he discoursed of woman and her power, she seemed to lose herself in contemplation of her plate. The blush upon her cheek became more rosy, and a little smile, with something in it which was not of pleasure, played about the corners of her mouth. I was about to offer her the traditional bargain-counter price for her thoughts, when my attention was commanded by Jim’s voice, answering some remark of Antonia’s.
“This is the merest curtain-riser, just a sort of kick-off,” he was saying. “In a year or two this valley will bethepleasure-ground of all the countryside, a hundred miles around. This tent will be replaced by a restaurant and auditorium. The conventions and public gatherings of the state will be held here—there is no other place for ’em; and our railway will bring the folks out from town. There will be baseball grounds, and facilities for all sorts of sports; and outings and games will center here. I promise you the next regatta of the State Rowing Association, and a street-car line landing passengers where we now sit.”
“Hear, hear!” said Mr. Barr-Smith, and the company clapped hands in applause.
Mr. Hinckley was introduced by Jim as “one who had seen Lynhurst Park when it was Indian hunting-ground”; and made a speech in which he welcomed Mr. Cornish as a new citizen who was already prominent. Dining in this valley, he said, reminded him of the time when he and two other guests now present had, on almost the identical spot, dined on venisondressed and cooked where it fell. Then Lattimore was a trading-post on the frontier, surrounded by the tepees of Indians, and uncertain as to its lease of life. General Lattimore, who shot the deer, or Mr. Macdonald, who helped eat it, could either of them tell more about it. Mr. Barr-Smith and our other British guest might judge of the rapidity of development in this country, where a man may see in his lifetime progress which in the older states and countries could be discerned by the student of history only.
Mr. Cornish very briefly thanked Mr. Hinckley for his words of welcome; but begged to be excused from making any extended remarks. Deeds were rather more in his line than words.
“Title-deeds,” said Giddings under his breath, “as the real-estate transfers show!”
General Lattimore verified Mr. Hinckley’s statement concerning the meal of venison; and, politely expressing pleasure at being present at a function which seemed to be regarded as of so much importance to the welfare of the town in which he had always taken the pride of a godfather, resumed his seat without adding anything to the oratory of the boom.
“In fact,” said Captain Tolliver to me, “I wahned Mr. Elkins against having him hyah. In any mattah of progress he’s a wet blanket, and has proved himself such by these remahks.”
Mr. Barr-Smith, in response to the allusions to him, assured us that the presence of people such as he had had the pleasure of meeting in Lattimore was sufficientin itself to account for the forward movement in the community, which the visitor could not fail to observe.
“In a state of society where people are not averse to changing their abodes,” he said, “and where the social atom, if I may so express myself, is in a state of mobility, the presence of such magnets as our toastmaster, and the other gentlemen to whose courteous remarks I am responding, must draw ’em to themselves, you may be jolly well assured of that! And if the gentlemen should fail, the thing which should resist the attractive power of the American ladies must be more fixed in its habits than even the conservative English gentleman, who prides himself upon his stability, er—ah—his taking a position and sticking by it, in spite of the—of anything, you know.”
As his only contribution to the speechmaking, Mr. Cecil Barr-Smith greeted this sentiment with a hearty “Hear, hear!” He fell into step with Antonia as we left the pavilion. Then he went back as if to look for something; and I saw Antonia summon Mr. Elkins to her side so that she might congratulate him on the success of this “carouse.”
Everything seemed going well. There was, however, in that gathering, as in the day, material for a storm, and I, of all those in attendance, ought to have seen it, had my memory been as unerring as I thought it.