CHAPTER XIX.In Which Events Resume their Usual Course—at a Somewhat Accelerated Pace.
CHAPTER XIX.
In Which Events Resume their Usual Course—at a Somewhat Accelerated Pace.
The death of Mr. Trescott was treated with that consideration which the affairs of the locally prominent always receive in towns where local papers are in close financial touch with the circle affected. Nothing was said of suicide, or of the place where the body was found; and in fact I doubt if the family ever knew the real facts; but the property matters were looked upon as a legitimate subject for comment.
“Yesterday,” said, in due time, theHerald, “the Trescott estate passed into the hands of Will Lattimore, as administrator. He was appointed upon the petition of Martha D. Trescott, the widow. His bond, in the sum of $500,000, was signed by James R. Elkins, Albert F. Barslow, J. Bedford Cornish, and Marion Tolliver, as sureties, and is said to be the largest in amount ever filed in our local Probate Court.
“Mr. Lattimore is non-committal as to the value of the estate. The bond is not to be taken as altogether indicative of this value, as additional bondsmay be called for at any time, and the individual responsibility of the administrator is very large. He will at once enter upon the work of settling up the estate, receiving and filing claims, and preparing his report. He estimates the time necessary to a full understanding of the extent and condition of his trust at weeks and even months.
“The petition states that the deceased died intestate, leaving surviving him the petitioner and an only child, a daughter, Josephine. As Miss Trescott has attained her majority, she will at once come into the possession of the greater part of this estate, becoming thereby the richest heiress in this part of the West. This fact of itself would render her an interesting person, an interest to which her charming personality adds zest. She is a very beautiful girl, petite in figure, with splendid brown hair and eyes. She is possessed of a strong individuality, has had the advantages of the best American and Continental schools, and is said to be an artist of much ability. Mrs. Trescott comes of the Dana family, prominent in central Illinois from the earliest settlement of the state.
“President Elkins, of the L. & G. W., who, perhaps, knows more than any other person as to the situation and value of the various Trescott properties, could not be seen last night. He went to Chicago on Wednesday, and yesterday wired his partner, Mr. Barslow, that business had called him on to New York, where he would remain for some time.”
In another column of the same issue was adouble-leaded news-story, based on certain rumors that Jim’s trip to New York was taken for the purpose of financing extensions of the L. & G. W. which would develop it into a system of more than a thousand miles of line.
“Their past successes have shown,” said theHeraldin editorial comment on this, “that Mr. Elkins and his associates are resourceful enough to bring such an undertaking, gigantic as it is, quite within their abilities. The world has not seen the best that is in the power of this most remarkable group of men to accomplish. Lattimore, already a young giantess in stature and strength, has not begun to grow, in comparison with what is in the future for her, if she is to be made the center of such a vast railway system as is outlined in the news item referred to.”
From which one gathers that the young men left by Mr. Giddings in charge of his paper were entirely competent to carry forward his policy.
Jim had gone to Chicago to see Halliday, hoping to rouse in him an interest in the Belt Line and L. & G. W. properties; but on arriving there had telegraphed to me that he must go to New York. This message was followed by a letter of explanation and instructions.
“Halliday spends a good deal of his time in New York now,” the letter read, “and is there at present. His understudy here advised me to go on East. I should rather see him there than here, on account of the greater likelihood that Pendleton may detect us: so I’m going. I shall stay as long as I can do any good by it. Lattimore won’t get the condition ofthe estate worked out for a month, and until we know about that, there won’t anything come up of the first magnitude, and even if there should, you can handle it. I don’t really expect to come back with the two million dollars for the L. & G. W., but I do hope to have it in sight!
“In all your prayers let me be remembered; ‘if it don’t do no good, it won’t do no harm,’ and I’ll need all the help I can get. I’m going where the lobster à la Newburg and the Welsh rabbit hunt in couples in the interest of the Sure-Thing game; where the bird-and-bottle combine is the stalking-horse for the Frame-up; and where the Flim-flam (I use the word on the authority of Beaumont, Fletcher & Giddings) has its natural habitat. I go to foster the entente cordiale between our friends Pendleton and Halliday into what I may term a mutual cross-lift, of which we shall be the beneficiaries—in trust, however, for the use and behoof of the captives below decks.
“Giddings and Laura are here. I had them out to a box party last night. They are most insufferably happy. Clifford is not sane yet, but is rallying. He is rallying considerably; for he spoke of plans for pushing theHeraldAddition harder than ever when he gets home. And you know such a thing as business has never entered his mind for six months—unless it was business to write that ‘Apostrophe to the Heart,’ which he called a poem, and which, I don’t mind admitting now, I hired his foreman to pi after the copy was lost.
“Keep everything as near ship-shape as you can.Watch the papers, or they may do us more harm in a single fool story than can be remedied by wise counter-mendacity in a year. Especially watch theTimes, although there’s mighty little choice between them. You and Alice ought to spend as much time at the Trescotts’ as you can spare. You’ll hear from me almost daily. Wire anything of importance fully. Keep the L. & G. W. extension story before the people; it may make some impression even in the East, but it’s sure to do good in the local fake market. Don’t miss a chance to jolly our Eastern banks. I should declare a dividend—say 4%—on Cement stock. At Atlas Power Company meeting ask Cornish to move passing earnings to surplus in lieu of dividend, on the theory of building new factories—anyhow, consult with the fellows about it: that money will be handy to have in the treasury before the year is out, unless I am mistaken. Sorry I can’t be at these meetings. Will be back for those of Rapid Transit and Belt Line Companies.
“Yours,”Jim.
“P. S.—Coming in, I saw a group of children dancing on a bridge, close to a schoolhouse, down near the Mississippi. I guess no one but myself knew what they were doing; but I recognized our old ‘Weevilly Wheat’ dance. I could imagine the ancient Scotch air, which the noise of the train kept me from hearing, and the old words you and I used to sing, dancing on the Elk Creek bridge:
“‘We want no more of your weevilly wheat,We want no more your barley;But we want some of your good old wheat,To make a cake for Charley!’
“You remember it all! How we used to swing the little girls around, and when we remembered it afterwards, how we would float off into realms of blissful companionship with freckled, short-skirted, bare-legged angels! Things were simpler then, Al, weren’t they? And to emphasize that fact, my mind ran along the trail of the ‘Weevilly Wheat’ into the domain of tickers, margins, puts and calls, and all the cussedness of the Board of Trade, and came bump against poor Bill’s bucket-shop deals, and settled down to the chronic wonder as to just how badly crippled he was when he died. If Will gets it figured out soon, at all accurately, wire me.
“J.”
The wedding tour came to an end, and the bride and groom returned long before Mr. Elkins did. Giddings dropped into my office the day after their return, and, quite in his old way, began to discuss affairs in general.
“I’m going to close out theHeraldAddition,” said he. “Real estate and newspaper work don’t mix, and I shall unload the real estate. What do you say to an auction?”
“How can you be sure of anything like an adequate scale of prices?” said I; “and won’t you demoralize things?”
“It’ll strengthen prices,” he replied, “the wayI’ll manage it. This is the age of the sensational—the yellow—and you people haven’t been yellow enough in your methods of selling dirt. If you say sensationalism is immoral, I won’t dispute it, but just simply ask how the fact happens to be material?”
I saw that he was going out of his way to say this, and avoided discussion by asking him to particularize as to his methods.
“We shall pursue a progressively startling course of advertising, to the end that the interest shall just miss acute mania. I’ll have the best auctioneer in the world. On the day of the auction we’ll have a series of doings which will leave the people absolutely no way out of buying. We’ll have a scale of upset prices which will prevent loss. Why, I’ll make such a killing as never was known outside of the Fifteen Decisive Battles. I sha’n’t seem to do all this personally. I shall turn the work over to Tolliver; but I’ll be the power behind the movement. The gestures and stage business will be those of Esau, but the word-painting will be that of Jacob.”
“Well,” said I, “I see nothing wrong about your plan; and it may be practicable.”
“There being nothing wrong about it is no objection from my standpoint,” said he. “In fact, I think I prefer to have it morally right rather than otherwise, other things being equal, you know. As for its practicability, you watch the Captain, and you’ll see!”
This talk with Giddings convinced me that he was entirely himself again; and also that the boom was going on apace. It had now long reached thestage where the efforts of our syndicate were reinforced by those of hundreds of men, who, following the lines of their own interests, were powerfully and effectively striving to accomplish the same ends. I pointed this out in a letter to Mr. Elkins in New York.
“I am glad to note,” said he in reply, “that affairs are going on so cheerfully at home. Don’t imagine, however, that because a horde of volunteers (most of them nine-spots) have taken hold, our old guard is of any less importance. Do you remember what a Prince Rupert’s drop is? I absolutely know you don’t, and to save you the trouble of looking it up, I’ll explain that it is a glass pollywog which holds together all right until you snap off the tip of its tail. Then a job lot of molecular stresses are thrown out of balance, and the thing develops the surprising faculty of flying into innumerable fragments, with a very pleasing explosion. Whether the name is a tribute of Prince Rupert’s propensity to fly off the handle, or whether he discovered the drop, or first noted its peculiarities, I leave for the historian of the Cromwellian epoch to decide. The point I make is this. Our syndicate is the tail of the Lattimore Rupert’s drop; and the Grain Belt Trust Co. is the very slenderest and thinnest tip of the pollywog’s propeller. Hence the writer’s tendency to count the strokes of the clock these nights.”
Dating from the night of Trescott’s death, and therefore covering the period of Jim’s absence, I could not fail to notice the renewed ardor withwhich Cornish devoted himself to the Trescott family. Alice and I, on our frequent visits, found him at their home so much that I was forced to the conclusion that he must have had some encouragement. During this period of their mourning his treatment of both mother and daughter was at once so solicitously friendly, and so delicate, that no one in their place could have failed to feel a sense of obligation. He sent flowers to Mrs. Trescott, and found interesting things in books and magazines for Josie. Having known him as a somewhat cold and formal man, Mrs. Trescott was greatly pleased with this new view of his character. He diverted her mind, and relieved the monotony of her grief. Cornish was a diplomat (otherwise Jim would have had no use for him in the first place), and he skilfully chose this sad and tender moment to bring about a closer intimacy than had existed between him and the afflicted family. It was clearly no affair of mine. Nevertheless, after several experiences in finding Cornish talking with Josie by the Trescott grate, I considered Jim’s interests menaced.
“Well,” said Alice, when I mentioned this feeling, “Mr. Cornish is certainly a desirable match, and it can scarcely be expected that Josie will remain permanently unattached.”
There was a little resentment in her voice, for which I could see no reason, and therefore protested that, under all circumstances, it was scarcely fair to blame me for the lady’s unappropriated state.
“Under other conditions,” said I, “I assure youthat I should not permit such an anomaly to exist—if I could help it.”
The incident was then declared closed.
During this absence of Jim’s, which, I think, was the real cause of Alice’s displeasure, theHeraldAddition sale went forward, with all the “yellow” features which the minds of Giddings and Tolliver could invent. It began with flaring advertisements in both papers. Then, on a certain day, the sale was declared open, and every bill-board and fence bore posters puffing it. A great screen was built on a vacant lot on Main Street, and across the street was placed, every night, the biggest magic lantern procurable, from which pictures of all sorts were projected on the screen, interlarded with which were statements of theHeraldAddition sales for the day, and quotations showing the advance in prices since yesterday. And at all times the coming auction was cried abroad, until the interest grew to something wonderful. Every farmer and country merchant within a hundred miles of the city was talking of it. Tolliver was in his highest feather. On the day of the auction he secured excursion rates on all of the railroads, and made it a holiday. Porter’s great military band, then touring the country, was secured for the afternoon and evening. Thousands of people came in on the excursions and it seemed like a carnival. Out at the piece of land platted as theHeraldAddition, whither people were conveyed in street-cars and carriages during the long afternoon the great band played about the stands erected for the auctioneer, who went from stand to stand,crying off the lots, the precise location of the particular parcel at any moment under the hammer being indicated by the display of a flag, held high by two strong fellows, who lowered the banner and walked to another site in obedience to signals wigwagged by the enthusiastic Captain. The throng bid excitedly, and the clerks who made out the papers worked desperately to keep up with the demands for deeds. It was clear that the sale was a success. As the sun sank, handbills were scattered informing the crowd that in the evening Tolliver & Company, as a slight evidence of their appreciation of the splendid business of the day, would throw open to their friends the new Cornish Opera House, where Porter’s celebrated band would give its regular high-class concert. Tolliver & Company, the bill went on, took pleasure in further informing the public that, in view of the great success of the day’s sale, and the very small amount to which their holdings in theHeraldAddition were reduced, the remainder of this choice piece of property would be sold from the stage to the highest bidder, absolutely without any reservation or restriction as to the price!
I had received a telegram from Jim saying that he would return on a train arriving that evening, and asking that Cornish, Hinckley, and Lattimore be at the office to meet him. I was on the street early in the evening, looking with wonder at the crowds making merry after the dizzy day of speculative delirium. At the opera house, filled to overflowing with men admitted on tickets, the great band was discoursing its music, in alternation with the insinuatingoratory of the auctioneer, under whose skilful management the odds and ends of theHeraldAddition were changing owners at a rate which was simply bewildering.
“Don’t you see,” said Giddings delightedly, “that this is the only way to sell town lots?”
Jim came into the office, fresh and buoyant after his long trip, his laugh as hearty and mirth-provoking as ever. After shaking hands with all, he threw himself into his own chair.
“Boys,” said he, “I feel like a mouse just returning from a visit to a cat convention. But what’s this crowd for? It’s nearly as bad as Broadway.”
We explained what Giddings and Tolliver had been doing.
“But,” said he, “do you mean to tell me that he’s sold that Addition to this crowd of reubs?”
“He most certainly has,” said Cornish.
“Well, fellows,” replied Jim, “put away the accounts of this as curiosities! You’ll have some difficulty in making posterity believe that there was ever a time or place where town lots were sold with magic lanterns and a brass band! And don’t advertise it too much with Dorr, Wickersham and those fellows. They think us a little crazy now. But a brass band! That comes pretty near being the limit.”
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Lattimore, “I shall have to leave you soon; and will you kindly make use of me as soon as you conveniently can, and let me go?”
“Have you got the condition of the Trescott estate figured out?” said Mr. Elkins.
“Yes,” said the lawyer.
We all leaned forward in absorbed interest; for this was news.
“Have you told these gentlemen?” Jim went on.
“I have told no one.”
“Please give us your conclusions.”
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Lattimore, “I am sorry to report that the Trescott estate is absolutely insolvent! It lacks a hundred thousand dollars of being worth anything!”
There was a silence for some moments.
“My God!” said Hinckley, “and our trust company is on all that paper of Trescott’s scattered over the East!”
“What’s become of the money he got on all his sales?” asked Jim.
“From the looks of the check-stubs, and other indications,” said Mr. Lattimore, “I should say the most of it went into Board of Trade deals.”
Cornish was swearing in a repressed way, and above his black beard his face was pale. Elkins sat drumming idly on the desk with his fingers.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “I take it to be conceded that unless the Trescott paper is cared for, things will go to pieces here. That’s the same as saying that it must be taken up at all hazards.”
“Not exactly,” said Cornish, “atallhazards.”
“Well,” said Jim, “it amounts to that. Has any one any suggestions as to the course to be followed?”
Mr. Cornish asked whether it would not be best to take time, allow the probate proceedings to drag along, and see what would turn up.
“But the Trust Company’s guaranties,” said Mr. Hinckley, with a banker’s scent for the complications of commercial paper, “must be made good on presentation, or it may as well close its doors.”
“The thing won’t ‘drag along’ successfully,” said Jim. “Have you a schedule of the assets?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Lattimore. “The life-insurance money and the home are exempt from liability for debts, and I’ve left them out; but the other properties you’ll find listed here.”
And he threw down on the desk a folded document in a legal wrapper.
“The family,” said Jim gravely, “must be told of the condition of things. It is a hard thing to do, but it must be done. Then conveyances must be obtained of all the property, subject to debts; and we must take the property and pay the debts. That also will be a hard thing to do—in several ways; but it must be done. It must be done—do you all agree?”
“Let me first ask,” said Mr. Cornish, turning to Mr. Hinckley, “how long would it be before there would have to be trouble on this paper?”
“It couldn’t possibly be postponed more than sixty days,” was the answer.
“Is there any prospect,” Cornish went on, addressing Mr. Elkins, “of closing out the railway properties within sixty days?”
“A prospect, yes,” said Jim.
“Anything like a certainty?”
“No, not in sixty days.”
“Then,” said Cornish reluctantly, “there seemsto be no way out of it, and I agree. But I feel as if I were being held up, and I assent on this ground only: that Halliday and Pendleton will never deal on equal terms with a set of financial cripples, and that any trouble here will seal the fate of the railway transaction. But, lest this be taken as a precedent, I wish it to be understood that I’m not jeopardizing my fortune, or any part of it, out of any sentimental consideration for these supposed claims of any one who holds Lattimore paper, in the East or elsewhere!”
Jim sat drumming on the desk.
“As we are all agreed on what to do,” said he drawlingly, “we can skip the question why we do it. Prepare the necessary papers, Mr. Lattimore. And perhaps you are the proper person to apprise the family as to the true condition of things. We’ll have to get together to-morrow and begin to dig for the funds. I think we can do no more to-night.”
We walked down the street and dropped into the opera house in time to hear the grand finale of the last piece by the band. As the great outburst of music died away, Captain Tolliver radiantly stepped to the footlights, dividing the applause with the musicians.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said he, “puhmit me to say, in bidding you-all good-night, that I congratulate the republic on the possession of a citizenship so awake to theiah true interests as you have shown you’selves to-day! I congratulate the puhchasers of propahty in theHeraldAddition upon the bahgains they have secuahed. Only five minutes’walk from the cyahs, and well within the three-mile limit, the time must soon come when these lots will be covahed with the mansions of ouah richah citizens. Even since the sales of this afternoon, I am infawmed that many of the pieces have been resold at an advance, netting the puhchasers a nice profit without putting up a cent. Upon all this I congratulate you. Lattimore, ladies and gentlemen, has nevah been cuhsed by a boom, and I pray God she nevah may! This rathah brisk growth of ouahs, based as it is on crying needs of ouah trade territory, is really unaccountably slow, all things considered. But I may say right hyah that things ah known to be in sto’ foh us which will soon give ouah city an impetus which will cyahy us fo’ward by leaps and bounds—by leaps and bounds, ladies and gentlemen—to that highah and still mo’ commandin’ place in the galaxy of American cities which is ouahs by right! And now as you-all take youah leave, I propose that we rise and give three cheers fo’ Lattimore and prosperity.”
The cheers were given thunderously, and the crowd bustled out, filling the street.
“Well, wouldn’t that jar you!” said Jim. “This is a case of ‘Gaze first upon this picture, then on that’ sure enough, isn’t it, Al?”
Captain Tolliver joined us, so full of excitement of the evening that he forgot to give Mr. Elkins the greeting his return otherwise would have evoked.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “it was glorious! Nevah until this moment have I felt true fawgiveness inmy breast faw the crime of Appomattox! But to-night we ah truly a reunited people!”
“Glad to know it,” said Jim, “mighty glad, Captain. The news’ll send stocks up a-whooping, if it gets to New York!”
CHAPTER XX.I Twice Explain the Condition of the Trescott Estate.
CHAPTER XX.
I Twice Explain the Condition of the Trescott Estate.
Nothing had remained unchanged in Lattimore, and our old offices in the First National Bank edifice had long since been vacated by us. The very building had been demolished, and another and many-storied structure stood in its place. Now we were in the big Grain Belt Trust Company’s building, the ground-floor of which was shared between the Trust Company and the general offices of the Lattimore and Great Western. In one corner, and next to the private room of President Elkins, was the office of Barslow & Elkins, where I commanded. Into which entered Mrs. Trescott and her daughter one day, soon after Mr. Lattimore had been given his instructions concerning the offer of our syndicate to pay the debts of their estate and take over its properties.
“Josie and I have called,” said the widow, “to talk with you about the estate matters. Mr. Lattimore came to see us last night and—told us.”
She seemed a little agitated, but in nowise so much cast down as might be expected of one who, considering herself rich, learns that she is poor. She had in her manner that mixture of dignity and constraintwhich marks the bearing of people whose relations with their friends have been affected by some great grief. A calamity not only changes our own feelings, but it makes us uncertain as to what our friends expect of us.
“What we wish explained,” said Josie, “is just how it comes that our property must be deeded away.”
“I can see,” said I, “that that is a matter which demands investigation on your part. Your request is a natural and a proper one.”
“It is not that,” said she, evidently objecting to the word investigation; “we are not so very much surprised, and we have no doubt as to the necessity of doing it. But we want to know as much as possible about it before we act.”
“Quite right,” said I. “Mr. Elkins is in the next office; let us call him in. He sees and can explain these things as clearly as any one.”
Jim came in response to a summons by one of his clerks. He shook hands gravely with my visitors.
“We are told,” said Mrs. Trescott, “that our debts are a good deal more than we can pay—that we really have nothing.”
“Not quite that,” said Jim; “the law gives to the widow the home and the life insurance. That is a good deal more than nothing.”
“As to whether we can keep that,” said Josie, “we are not discussing now; but there are some other things we should like cleared up.”
“We don’t understand Mr. Cornish’s offer to take the property and pay the debts,” said Mrs. Trescott.
Jim’s glance sought mine in a momentary and questioning astonishment; then he calmly returned the widow’s look. Josie’s eyes were turned toward the carpet, and a slight blush tinged her cheeks.
“Ah,” said Jim, “yes; Mr. Cornish’s offer. How did you learn of it?”
“I got my understanding of it from Mr. Lattimore,” said Mrs. Trescott, “and told Josie about it.”
“Before we consent to carry out this plan,” said Josie, “we ... I want to know all about the motives and considerations back of it. I want to know whether it is based on purely business considerations, or on some fancied obligation ... or ... or ... on merely friendly sentiments.”
“As to motives,” said Mr. Elkins, “if the purely business requirements of the situation fully account for the proposition, we may waive the discussion of motives, can’t we, Josie?”
“I imagine,” said Mrs. Trescott, finding that Jim’s question remained unanswered, “that none of us will claim to be able to judge Mr. Cornish’s motives.”
“Certainly not,” acquiesced Mr. Elkins. “None of us.”
“This is not what we came to ask about,” said Josie. “Please tell us whether our house and the insurance money would be mamma’s if this plan were not adopted—if the courts went on and settled the estate in the usual way?”
“Yes,” said I, “the law gives her that, and justly. For the creditors knew all about the law when theytook those bonds. So you need have no qualms of conscience on that.”
“As none of it belongs to me,” said Josie, “I shall leave all that to mamma. I avoid the necessity of settling it by ceasing to be ‘the richest heiress in this part of the West’—one of the uses of adversity. But to proceed. Mamma says that there is a corporation, or something, forming to pay our debts and take our property, and that it will take a hundred thousand dollars more to pay the debts than the estate is worth. I must understand why this corporation should do this. I can see that it will save pa’s good name in the business world, and save us from public bankruptcy; but ought we to be saved these things at such a cost? And can we permit—a corporation—or any one, to do this for us?”
Mr. Elkins nodded to me to speak.
“My dear,” said I, “it’s another illustration of the truth that no man liveth unto himself alone—”
She shrank, as if she feared some fresh hurt was about to be touched, and I saw that it was the second part of the text the anticipation of which gave her pain. Quotation is sometimes ill for a green wound.
“The fact is,” I went on, “that things in Lattimore are not in condition to bear a shock—general money conditions, I mean, you know.”
“I know,” she said, nodding assent; “I can see that.”
“Your father did a very large business for a time,” I continued; “and when he sold lands he took somecash in payment, and for the balance notes of the various purchasers, secured by mortgages on the properties. Many of these persons are mere adventurers, who bought on speculation, and when their first notes came due failed to pay. Now if you had these notes, you could hold them, or foreclose the mortgages, and, beyond being disappointed in getting the money, no harm would be done.”
“I understand,” said Josie. “I knew something of this before.”
“But if we haven’t the notes,” inquired her mother, “where are they?”
“Well,” I went on, “you know how we have all handled these matters here. Mr. Trescott did as we all did: he negotiated them. The Grain Belt Trust Company placed them for him, and his are the only securities it has handled except those of our syndicate. He took them to the Trust Company and signed them on the back, and thus promised to pay them if the first signer failed. Then the trust company attached its guaranty to them, and they were resold all over the East, wherever people had money to put out at interest.”
“I see,” said Josie; “we have already had the money on these notes.”
“Yes,” said I, “and now we find that a great many of these notes, which are being sent on for payment, will not be paid. Your father’s estate is not able to pay them, and our trust company must either take them up or fail. If it fails, everyone will think that values in Lattimore are unstable and fictitious, and so many people will try to sell out that we shallhave a smashing of values, and possibly a panic. Prices will drop, so that none of our mortgages will be good for their face. Thousands of people will be broken, the city will be ruined, and there will be hard and distressful times, both here and where our paper is held. But if we can keep things as they are until we can do some large things we have in view, we are not afraid of anything serious happening. So we form this new corporation, and have it advance the funds on the notes, so as not to weaken the trust company—and because we can’t afford to do it otherwise—and we know you would not permit it anyhow; and we ask you to give to the new corporation all the property which the creditors could reach, which will be held, and sold as opportunity offers, so as to make the loss as small as possible. But we must keep off this panic to save ourselves.”
“I must think about this,” said Josie. “I don’t see any way out of it; but to have one’s affairs so wrapped up in such a great tangle that one loses control of them seems wrong, somehow. And so far as I am concerned, I think I should prefer to turn everything over to the creditors—house and all—than to have even so good friends as yourself take on such a load for us. It seems as if we were saying to you, ‘Pay our debts or we’ll ruin you!’ I must think about it.”
“You understand it now?” said Jim.
“Yes, in a way.”
“Let me come over this evening,” said he, “and I think I can remove this feeling from your mind. And by the way, the new corporation is not going tohave the ranch out on the Cheyenne Range. The syndicate says it isn’t worth anything. And I’m going to take it. I still believe in the headwaters of Bitter Creek as an art country.”
“Thank you,” said she vaguely.
Somehow, the explanation of the estate affairs seemed to hurt her. Her color was still high, but her eyes were suffused, her voice grew choked at times, and she showed the distress of her recent trials, in something like a loss of self-control. Her pretty head and slender figure, the flexile white hands clasped together in nervous strain to discuss these so vital matters, and, more than all, the departure from her habitual cool and self-possessed manner, was touching, and appealed powerfully to Jim. He walked up to her, as she stood ready to leave, and laid his hand lightly on her arm.
“The way Barslow puts these property matters,” said he, “you are called upon to think that all arrangements have been made upon a cold cash basis; and, actually, that’s the fact. But you mustn’t either of you think that in dealing with you we have forgotten that you are dear to us—friends. We should have had to act in the same way if you had been enemies, perhaps, but if there had been any way in which our—regard could have shown itself, that way would have been followed.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Trescott, “we understand that. Mr. Lattimore said almost the same thing, and we know that in what he did Mr. Cornish—”
“We must go now, mamma,” said Josie. “Thank you both very much. It won’t do any harm for meto take a day or so for considering this in all its phases; but I know now what I shall do. The thought of the distress that might come to people here and elsewhere as a result of these mistakes here is a new one, and a little big for me, at first.”
Jim sat by the desk, after they went away, folding insurance blotters and savagely tearing them in pieces.
“I wish to God,” said he, “that I could throw my hand into the deck and quit!”
“What’s the matter?” said I.
“Oh—nothing,” he returned. “Only, look at the situation. She comes in, filled with the idea that it was Cornish who proposed this plan, and that he did it for her sake. I couldn’t very well say, like a boy, ‘’Twasn’t Cornish; ’twas me!’, could I? And in showing her the purely mercenary character of the deal, I’m put in the position of backcapping Cornish, and she goes away with that impression! Oh, Al, what’s the good of being able to convince and control every one else, if you are always further off than Kamschatka with the only one for whose feelings you really care?”
“I don’t think it struck her in that way at all,” said I. “She could see how it was, and did, whatever her mother may think. But what possessed Lattimore to tell Mrs. Trescott that Cornish story?”
“Oh, Lattimore never said anything like that!” he returned disgustedly. “He told her that it was proposed by a friend, or one of the syndicate, or something like that; and they are so saturated with the Cornish idea up there lately, that they filled upthe blank out of their own minds. Another mighty encouraging symptom, isn’t it?”
Not more than a day or two after this, and after the news of the “purchase” of the Trescott estate was being whispered about, my telephone rang, just before my time for leaving the office, and, on answering, I found that Antonia was at the other end of the wire.
“Is this Mr. Barslow?” said she. “How do you do? Alice is with us this afternoon, and she and mamma have given me authority to bring you home to dinner with us. Do you surrender?”
“Always,” said I, “at such a summons.”
“Then I’ll come for you in ten minutes, if you’ll wait for me. It’s ever so good of you.”
From her way of finishing the conversation, I knew she was coming to the office. So I waited in pleasurable anticipation of her coming, thinking of the perversity of the scheme of things which turned the eyes of both Jim and Cornish to Josie, while this girl coming to fetch me yearned so strongly toward one of them that her sorrow—borne lightly and cheerfully as it was—was an open secret. When she came she made her way past the clerks in the first room and into my private den. Not until the door closed behind her, and we were alone, did I see that she was not in her usual spirits. Then I saw that unmistakable quiver in her lips, so like a smile, so far from mirth, which my acquaintance with the girl, so sensitive and free from secretiveness, had made me familiar with.
“I want to know about some things,” said she, “that papa hints about in a blind sort of a way,but doesn’t tell clearly. Is it true that Josie and her mother are poor?”
“That is something which ought not to be known yet,” said I, “but it is true.”
“Oh,” said she tearfully, “I am so sorry, so sorry!”
“Antonia,” said I, as she hastily brushed her eyes, “these tears do your kind heart credit!”
“Oh, don’t, don’t talk to me like that!” she exclaimed passionately. “My kind heart! Why, sometimes I hate her; and I would be glad if she was out of the world! Don’t look like that at me! And don’t pretend to be surprised, or say you don’t understand me. I think every one understands me, and has for a long time. I think everybody on the street says, after I pass, ‘Poor Antonia!’ Imusttalk to somebody! And I’d rather talk to you because, even though you are a man and can’t possibly know how I feel, you understandhimbetter than any one else I know—andyoulove him too!”
I started to say something, but the situation did not lend itself to words. Neither could I pat her on the shoulders, or press her hand, as I might have done with a man. Pale and beautiful, her jaunty hat a little awry, her blonde ringlets in some disorder, she sat unapproachable in her grief.
“You look at me,” said she, with a little gasping laugh, “as if I were a drowning girl, and you chained to the bank. If you haven’t pitied me in the past, Albert, don’t pity me now; for the mere saying openly to some human being that I love him seems almost to make me happy!”
I lamely murmured some inanity, of which she took not the slightest notice.
“Is it true,” she asked, “that Mr. Elkins is to pay their debts, and that they are to be—married?”
“No,” said I, glad, for some reason which is not very clear, to find something to deny. “Nothing of the sort, I assure you.”
And again, this time something wearily, for it was the second time over it in so short a time, I explained the disposition of the Trescott estate.
“But he urged it?” she said. “He insisted upon it?”
“Yes.”
She arose, buttoned her jacket about her, and stood quietly as if to test her mastery of herself, once or twice moving as if to speak, but stopping short, with a long, quivering sigh. I longed to take her in my arms and comfort her; for, in a way, she attracted me strongly.
“Mr. Barslow,” said she at last, “I have no apology to make to you; for you are my friend. And I have no feeling toward Mr. Elkins of which, in my secret heart, and so long as he knows nothing of it, I am not proud. To know him ... and love him may be death ... but it is honor!... I am sorry Josie is poor, because it is a hard thing for her; but more because I know he will be drawn to her in a stronger way by her poverty. Shake hands with me, Albert, and be jolly, I’m jollier, away down deep, than I’ve been for a long, long time; and I thank you for that!”
We shook hands warmly, like comrades, andpassed down to her carriage together. At dinner she was vivacious as ever; but I was downcast. So much so that Mrs. Hinckley devoted herself to me, cheering me with a dissertation on “Sex in Mind.” I asked myself if the atmosphere in which she had been reared had not in some degree contributed to the attitude of Antonia toward the expression to me of her regard for Jim.
So the Trescott estate matter was arranged. In a few days the boom was strengthened by newspaper stories of the purchase, by heavy financial interests, of the entire list of assets in the hands of the administrator.
“This immense deal,” said theHerald, “is new proof of the desirability of Lattimore property. The Acme Investment Company, which will handle the properties, has bought for investment, and will hold for increased prices. It may be taken as certain that in no other city in the country could so large and varied a list of holdings be so quickly and advantageously realized upon.”
This was cheering—to the masses. But to us it was like praise for the high color of a fever patient. Even while the rehabilitated Giddings thus lifted his voice in pæans of rejoicing, the lurid signals of danger appeared in our sky.