CHAPTER XV
EVAN BARTHOLOMEW PELL was thinking. He had been thinking for hours, and according to present rate of progress, it would be hours more before he arrived at a conclusion. He had found an interesting subject—one discovered rather later in life than by most people, but, perhaps, all the more interesting for that reason. The subject was himself.
It is a fact that never until to-night had he thought about himself as the ordinary run of human beings think. When he had given consideration to himself it had been a sort of aloof, impersonal consideration. He had often thought about Evan Pell’s mind—as one thinks of a warehouse—and much consideration had been given to filling it with intellectual merchandise. No consideration whatever had been given to moving away any of that merchandise out of the warehouse and distributing it.
His requirements had been of the simplest—food, shelter, and an opportunity to lay in intellectual goods, wares, and merchandise. With pleasure he had been unacquainted, and hence felt no desire to possess it. Sorrow was unknown to him. On the whole, he was rather like a chess-playing automaton, except that his range was somewhat wider and more complicated.
But now he had discovered himself as an individual. The discovery was wholly due to Carmel Lee. He had fallen in love with her, which was a monstrous thing, but potent to prepare the soil of his mind for undesired crops. Then she had spoken to him about himself with frankness and logic. He was not disturbed by the frankness, but his antecedents rendered him apt to perceive the logic. That had impressed him. What was the use of himself, anyhow? Such was the question he considered. His object was acquisition, not dissemination. Had he been mistaken in choosing that object? This led further. What were human beings for? Why had people to be born, and to live? He recognized the necessity of utility. Was he inutile?
It was ten minutes after midnight when he admitted he was inutile, or nearly so. What followed? There followed immediately a disagreeable sensation, a sense of humiliation. He, a representative, undoubtedly, of the highest order of human beings, was not useful. Members of much lower orders were useful. The ditch digger was useful; the man who collected the garbage was useful. In that event diggers and garbage men must be of more value to the world than himself.
This was intolerable. He could not allow such a state of affairs to persist, but the method of abolishing it was not manifest. Mentally he tabulated the attributes of such patently useful things as he could remember, looking for their lowest common denominator. It appeared to be something like whatCarmel Lee declared it to be—namely, improving some aspect of life upon this planet. If one could touch any phase of life and render it more efficient, he was useful. He wondered what aspect of life he could improve. And then he came to the most important and far-reaching discovery of his life. This discovery came at exactly ten minutes past one in the morning.... In order to find how one might be useful to life, one must know life! That was the discovery, and it quite overturned his conception of how he would live and die.
Inexorably his mind forced him to a corollary. In order to know life, one must know human beings. He elaborated on this. It meant mingling with human beings, taking part in their lives, watching and comprehending the significance of the ramifications of their actions and emotions. It was something one could not derive from books, unless, as he had heard vaguely, works of fiction depicted these things with some degree of verity. But he never read fiction.
All of this led to another alarming discovery. This came at two o’clock in the morning. It was this—that learning, simply as learning, was not worth a tinker’s dam. Of course this is not his phraseology, but it expresses his thought. Learning stored in the mind’s warehouse is like gold not taken from the mine. It is no good even to the possessor. You have to mine and smelt gold before it takes on a measurable value. It has to be put into circulation in some form. The same was true, necessarily, of knowledge.
This meant the overturning of his whole life, for Evan Pell, besides being logical, possessed another quality of greater value—when he perceived that any act was the act to be done, he set about doing it to the best of his ability. This was not courage; it was not resolution; it was natural reaction.
At three o’clock he retired. It was with a sense of humiliation he lay down on his bed. Instead of being, as he had fancied, a wonderful and superior being, he was negligible. His resolution, taken with characteristic finality, was that in the morning he would begin to be the thing he was not. This was very fine, but it possessed one defect: It was purely academic. It emanated wholly from the head, and not in any fraction whatever from the heart. Emotionally he did not give a hoot what became of humanity.
He awoke to a strange world in the morning—felt like a fresh arrival in a strange planet. His duty was to find out what the planet was about and, so to speak, make preparations to take out naturalization papers. How to begin?... Well, he must eat, and therefore it was essential to continue at his present employment. He thought about his present employment superciliously until he caught himself at it; then he considered his employment logically. Hitherto he had taken no interest in it, except as it offered a challenge to his intelligence. Carmel had doubted his ability to do the work, and, in irritation, he had essayed to prove he could do that as well as anything else. The thrashing he had taken from the fistsof Deputy Jenney had reached deep enough to touch his latent manhood—to blow upon the ember derived from some sturdy ancestor.... Now he considered briefly the business of news purveying, and was able to see how serviceable it was to mankind. The business of a newspaper, as he saw it, was to give to the community the agenda of the world, and, by editorial argument, to assist in the business of directing public opinion.... This was a worthy business.... More specifically he gave thought to theFree Pressand what it was trying to do. Carmel, rushing in where angels feared to tread, was endeavoring to cure a definite, visible sore on the public body. For the first time he viewed the activities of Gibeon’s liquor smugglers as a matter of right and wrong, and not as a problem set in a textbook. If he could help to abolish this malignant sore he would be performing real service.... That aspect of matters interested him. He found that the mere mental exercise of thinking about humanity gave one an emotional interest in humanity.... He was progressing.
One could not attain to results in a laboratory without intimate contact with specimens; one could not attain to results in the world without intimate contacts with human beings. Therefore Evan made up his mind to procure for himself a mantle of sociability.... He wore it to the office, and Tubal was the first human being to see it exhibited. Tubal was mystified.
“Good morning, Tubal,” said Evan, with painstaking courtesy. “How do you do this morning?Er—we must become better acquainted, Tubal.... I trust I make myself clear. Yes, yes. I wish, at your leisure, to converse with you—er—regarding—ah—many things. Yes, indeed.... I wish to obtain your viewpoint.”
Tubal stared, and reared back on his heels mentally.
“Don’t feel dizzy or nothin’, do ye?” he asked.
“I am perfectly well. Why do you ask?”
“Aw—nothin’.... Say!... Looky here. Viewpoint, is it? Aw....”
“What I wish to convey,” said Evan, and he unmasked a smile which was decidedly to his credit, “is—that I wish to be friends.”
Tubal regarded him suspiciously, but Tubal’s eyes were keen and his perceptions keener. He saw embarrassment in Evan’s smile, and sincerity, and something else which might have been called pitiful.
“I’m doggoned!” he exclaimed.
Evan sighed. This business of making human contacts was more difficult than he imagined. “I—you know—I fancy Ilikeyou,” he said.
Tubal waved his hands, a fluttering, distracted sort of waving. “’Tain’t licker,” he said to himself. “Must be suthin’ he et....”
“Er—we will resume the subject later,” said Evan, “when both of us have more leisure.... Ah, good morning, Simmy. I trust you slept well.... The weather is—ah—satisfactory. Do you not find it so?”
Tubal leaned against the press and swallowed threeseveral convulsive times. Then he turned upon Simmy fiercely. “Go wash your face,” he shouted.
Evan backed away a step and then beat a retreat. He sat down at his table and leaned his head on his hands. Obviously the thing had not been properly done. The results were quite other than he desired, but why? He had unbent. He had been friendly, made friendly overtures. What was wrong?
At this unsatisfactory juncture Carmel entered, looking very young and fresh and dainty. Evan forgot his disappointment for the moment in his delight at seeing her. He stared at her as a hungry child stares in a bakery window. The sensation was highly pleasurable. He detected this and took immediate measures to suppress it.
“Miss Lee,” he said, with some hesitation, “I gave careful consideration to your yesterday’s arraignment of myself.”
“I’m sorry. I had no intention to wound you, Mr. Pell. I—I hope you will forgive me.”
“You did not wound me. Er—quite the contrary.... As I say, I reflected upon what you said. I slept little. Unquestionably you were right.... I have lived in error. My estimate of myself was mistaken. I have, in short, been of negligible value to the world.”
“Mr. Pell!”
“If you please.... I have reached a determination to revolutionize my life. I shall no longer stand aloof. No. I shall participate in events.... Indeed, I have made a beginning—not altogether auspicious.I essayed to make friends with Tubal this morning, but he seemed not to comprehend my meaning. However, I shall persist.... As to yourself—we are not friends, you and I. You do not rate me highly.... I wish to correct this.” He paused. “As I have been compelled to inform you, I have fallen in love with you.... This moment, as you entered, I glowed with pleasure.... Yesterday I informed you you need expect nothing to come of it. To-day I am in doubt.... I desired to hold myself free from—er—such things as marriage. Doubtless that, also, was a mistake.... I am open-minded.”
“You—you—are open-minded!” Carmel gasped out the words.
“Exactly. I have determined to allow the emotion to follow its natural course, without interference by myself. Even if it results in marriage with you, I shall not interfere.”
“Of all things,” said Carmel.
“Meantime, while the more important matter is working itself out, let us endeavor to be friends.” As he said this there came into his voice a wistfulness, a humility which touched her. Her eyes filled. She held out her hand.
“Friends!... Of course we shall be friends! You must overlook my bad temper. I have so many faults.”
His eyes glowed, his face became animated. “You,” he said, eagerly, “are very lovely. You are—er—wonderful....” He stared at her as if she hadbeen an apparition. Carmel caught her breath and turned away abruptly.
So much for Evan Pell’s effort to break through his chrysalis shell.... The fates had not determined if he were to become a moth or a butterfly....
At that very hour Abner Fownes was opening his mail. His frame of mind was not of the pleasantest, though he had succeeded in tiding over the day before a situation financially threatening. The condition of his affairs was wearing upon him. Constant calls for money, demands upon his shiftiness to prevent adébâcle, never-failing watchfulness, bore heavily upon the man. It was not easy to maintain his attitude of high-spirited public citizen. It was not simple to keep beneath the surface the man who lurked under the skin of the fatuous cat’s-paw. It was difficult to maintain the pretense of being used by smaller men, when constantly he had to twist smaller men to his own ends.
Now he opened with trepidation a letter from a lumber concern with which his dealings had been extensive.
We have received yours of the 20th with respect to renewing your note for $18,750 which falls due two weeks from to-day. We regret that in present conditions this is impossible, and must ask you to take up this paper without fail.
We have received yours of the 20th with respect to renewing your note for $18,750 which falls due two weeks from to-day. We regret that in present conditions this is impossible, and must ask you to take up this paper without fail.
Fownes crumpled the letter in his hand and stared at the paneling of his office as if he hoped by the mere venom of his look to reduce it to ashes. His pudgy, beautifully tailored shoulders moved upward so thathis short neck disappeared and his ears rested upon his collar. Then he expelled his breath. He arose and went to the safe, which he opened—to which he alone possessed the combination—and took from its resting place the red leather book in which he kept the true record of his and his company’s condition. This he carried to his desk, and for many minutes he studied it, hoping against hope for some expedient to make itself apparent.... There was no expedient.
He returned the book to its place and locked the safe; then he twisted the handle of the telephone insistently, and gave Central the number of the Court House.
“Deputy Jenney,” he said, arrogantly.
The deputy answered.
“Come to my office immediately,” he said. “Never mind who sees. This is imperative.... At once.” Following that, he waited.
Deputy Jenney entered, breathless, and stood panting.
“Jenney,” said Fownes, “I’ve determined to make another investment.”
“Eh? Already.... Why, we hain’t hardly got the last off’n our hands. It’s takin’ a chance, says I, and crowdin’ the mourners.”
“I’m running this business, Jenney.... This next is to be no retail deal, either. It’s wholesale.”
“You—you want to go easy. By golly! Mr. Fownes, so much stuff comin’ in is goin’ to git somebody mighty curious.”
“If you’re sheriff, Jenney, what will the curiosity amount to?”
“Federal officers!”
Fownes shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll see to your appointment as sheriff. You attend to organizing everybody to receive the shipment. We’ll need all available space and all outlets. I’m going to fetch in enough this time to flood the county.”
“You know what you’re doin’,” Jenney said, sullenly, “but what with that damn paper a-peckin’ at us all the time——”
“Nobody reads it, Jenney. And you’ll be sheriff.”
“I’ll do my dumdest—but I don’t like it.”
“And I don’t care whether you like it or not. And that’s that. Better see Peewee first.”
“When’s it comin’?”
“Inside of ten days.... And, Jenney, I don’t believe the paper’s going to bother much longer.”
“Eh?”
“I’m going to—er—give that girl a hint of our plans.”
“What?”
“I’m going to give her a tip, as they say. She’ll investigate, and that professor will investigate.”
“Like Sheriff Churchill did?”
“The result,” said Fownes, “will be similar.”