It is not the purpose of this narrative to dwell minutely upon the events of the next few months. Truth to say, they were devoid of incidents of sufficient moment in themselves to warrant chronicle. What they led up to was memorable enough.
As time went on John found himself on terms of growing intimacy with the Carling household, and eventually it came about that if there passed a day when their door did not open to him it wasdies non.
Mr. Carling was ostensibly more responsible than the ladies for the frequency of our friend's visits, and grew to look forward to them. In fact, he seemed to regard them as paid primarily to himself, and ignored an occasional suggestion on his wife's part that it might not be wholly the pleasure of a chat and a game at cards with him that brought the young man so often to the house. And when once she ventured to concern him with some stirrings of her mind on the subject, he rather testily (for him) pooh-poohed her misgivings, remarking that Mary was her own mistress, and, so far as he had ever seen, remarkably well qualified to regulate her own affairs. Had she ever seen anything to lead her to suppose that there was any particular sentiment existing between Lenox and her sister?
"No," said Mrs. Carling, "perhaps not exactly, but you know how those things go, and he always stays after we come up when she is at home." To which her husband vouchsafed no reply, but began a protracted wavering as to the advisability of leaving the steam on or turning it off for the night, which was a cold one—a dilemma which, involving his personal welfare or comfort at the moment, permitted no consideration of other matters to share his mind.
Mrs. Carling had not spoken to her sister upon the subject. She thought that that young woman, if she were not, as Mr. Carling said, "remarkably well qualified to regulate her own affairs," at least held the opinion that she was, very strongly.
The two were devotedly fond of each other, but Mrs. Carling was the elder by twenty years, and in her love was an element of maternal solicitude to which her sister, while giving love for love in fullest measure, did not fully respond. The elder would have liked to share every thought, but she was neither so strong nor so clever as the girl to whom she had been almost as a mother, and who, though perfectly truthful and frank when she was minded to express herself, gave, as a rule, little satisfaction to attempts to explore her mind, and on some subjects was capable of meeting such attempts with impatience, not to say resentment—a fact of which her sister was quite aware. But as time went on, and the frequency of John's visits and attentions grew into a settled habit, Mrs. Carling's uneasiness, with which perhaps was mingled a bit of curiosity, got the better of her reserve, and shedetermined to get what satisfaction could be obtained for it.
They were sitting in Mrs. Carling's room, which was over the drawing-room in the front of the house. A fire of cannel blazed in the grate.
A furious storm was whirling outside. Mrs. Carling was occupied with some sort of needlework, and her sister, with a writing pad on her lap, was composing a letter to a friend with whom she carried on a desultory and rather one-sided correspondence. Presently she yawned slightly, and, putting down her pad, went over to the window and looked out.
"What a day!" she exclaimed. "It seems to get worse and worse. Positively you can't see across the street. It's like a western blizzard."
"It is, really," said Mrs. Carling; and then, moved by the current of thought which had been passing in her mind of late, "I fancy we shall spend the evening by ourselves to-night."
"That would not be so unusual as to be extraordinary, would it?" said Mary.
"Wouldn't it?" suggested Mrs. Carling in a tone that was meant to be slightly quizzical.
"We are by ourselves most evenings, are we not?" responded her sister, without turning around. "Why do you particularize to-night?"
"I was thinking," answered Mrs. Carling, bending a little closer over her work, "that even Mr. Lenox would hardly venture out in such a storm unless it were absolutely necessary."
"Oh, yes, to be sure, Mr. Lenox; very likely not," was Miss Blake's comment, in a tone of indifferent recollection.
"He comes here very often, almost everynight, in fact," remarked Mrs. Carling, looking up sideways at her sister's back.
"Now that you mention it," said Mary dryly, "I have noticed something of the sort myself."
"Do you think he ought to?" asked her sister, after a moment of silence.
"Why not?" said the girl, turning to her questioner for the first time. "And why should I think he should or should not? Doesn't he come to see Julius, and on Julius's invitation? I have never asked him—but once," she said, flushing a little as she recalled the occasion and the wording of the invitation.
"Do you think," returned Mrs. Carling, "that his visits are wholly on Julius's account, and that he would come so often if there were no other inducement? You know," she continued, pressing her point timidly but persistently, "he always stays after we go upstairs if you are at home, and I have noticed that when you are out he always goes before our time for retiring."
"I should say," was the rejoinder, "that that was very much the proper thing. Whether or not he comes here too often is not for me to say—I have no opinion on the subject. But, to do him justice, he is about the last man to wait for a tacit dismissal, or to cause you and Julius to depart from what he knows to be your regular habit out of politeness to him. He is a person of too much delicacy and good breeding to stay when—if—that is to say—" She turned again to the window without completing her sentence, and, though Mrs. Carling thought she could complete it for her, she wisely forbore. After a moment of silence, Mary said in a voice devoid of any traces of confusion:
"You asked me if I thought Mr. Lenox would come so often if there were no object in his coming except to see Julius. I can only say that if Julius were out of the question I think he would come here but seldom; but," she added, as she left the window and resumed her seat, "I do not quite see the object of this discussion, and, indeed, I am not quite sure of what we are discussing. Do you object," she asked, looking curiously at her sister and smiling slightly, "to Mr. Lenox's coming here as he does, and if so, why?" This was apparently more direct than Mrs. Carling was quite prepared for. "And if you do," Mary proceeded, "what is to be done about it? Am I to make him understand that it is not considered the proper thing? or will you? or shall we leave it to Julius?"
Mrs. Carling looked up into her sister's face, in which was a smile of amused penetration, and looked down again in visible embarrassment.
The young woman laughed as she shook her finger at her.
"Oh, you transparent goose!" she cried. "What did he say?"
"What did who say?" was the evasive response.
"Julius," said Mary, putting her finger under her sister's chin and raising her face. "Tell me now. You've been talking with him, and I insist upon knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So there!"
"Well," she admitted hesitatingly, "I said to him something like what I have to you, that it seemed to me that Mr. Lenox came very often, and that I did not believe it was all on his account, and that he" (won't somebody please invent another pronoun?) "always stayed when you were at home—"
"—and," broke in her sister, "that you were afraid my young affections were being engaged, and that, after all, we didn't know much if anything about the young man, or, perhaps, that he was forming a hopeless attachment, and so on."
"No," said Mrs. Carling, "I didn't say that exactly. I—"
"Didn't you, really?" said Mary teasingly. "One ought to be explicit in such cases, don't you think? Well, what did Julius say? Was he very much concerned?" Mrs. Carling's face colored faintly under her sister's raillery, and she gave a little embarrassed laugh.
"Come, now," said the girl relentlessly, "what did he say?"
"Well," answered Mrs. Carling, "I must admit that he said 'Pooh!' for one thing, and that you were your own mistress, and, so far as he had seen, you were very well qualified to manage your own affairs."
Her sister clapped her hands. "Such discrimination have I not seen," she exclaimed, "no, not in Israel! What else did he say?" she demanded, with a dramatic gesture. "Let us know the worst."
Mrs. Carling laughed a little. "I don't remember," she admitted, "that he said anything more on the subject. He got into some perplexity about whether the steam should be off or on, and after that question was settled we went to bed." Mary laughed outright.
"So Julius doesn't think I need watching," she said.
"Mary," protested her sister in a hurt tone,"you don't think I ever did or could watch you? I don't want to pry into your secrets, dear," and she looked up with tears in her eyes. The girl dropped on her knees beside her sister and put her arms about her neck.
"You precious old lamb!" she cried, "I know you don't. You couldn't pry into anybody's secrets if you tried. You couldn't even try. But I haven't any, dear, and I'll tell you every one of them, and, rather than see a tear in your dear eyes, I would tell John Lenox that I never wanted to see him again; and I don't know what you have been thinking, but I haven't thought so at all" (which last assertion made even Mrs. Carling laugh), "and I know that I have been teasing and horrid, and if you won't put me in the closet I will be good and answer every question like a nice little girl." Whereupon she gave her sister a kiss and resumed her seat with an air of abject penitence which lasted for a minute. Then she laughed again, though there was a watery gleam in her own eyes. Mrs. Carling gave her a look of great love and admiration.
"I ought not to have brought up the subject," she said, "knowing as I do how you feel about such discussions, but I love you so much that sometimes I can't help—"
"Alice," exclaimed the girl, "please have the kindness to call me a selfish P—I—G. It will relieve my feelings."
"But I do not think you are," said Mrs. Carling literally.
"But I am at times," declared Mary, "and you deserve not only to have, but to be shown, all the love and confidence that I can give you. It's only this, that sometimes your solicitude makesyou imagine things that do not exist, and you think I am withholding my confidence; and then, again, I am enough like other people that I don't always know exactly what I do think. Now, about this matter—"
"Don't say a word about it, dear," her sister interrupted, "unless you would rather than not."
"I wish to," said Mary. "Of course I am not oblivious of the fact that Mr. Lenox comes here very often, nor that he seems to like to stay and talk with me, because, don't you know, if he didn't he could go when you do, and I don't mind admitting that, as a general thing, I like to have him stay; but, as I said to you, if it weren't for Julius he would not come here very often."
"Don't you think," said Mrs. Carling, now on an assured footing, "that if it were not for you he would not come so often?"
Perhaps Mary overestimated the attraction which her brother-in-law had for Mr. Lenox, and she smiled slightly as she thought that it was quite possible. "I suppose," she went on, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "that the proceeding is not strictly conventional, and that the absolutely correct thing would be for him to say good night when you and Julius do, and that there are those who would regard my permitting a young man in no way related to me to see me very often in the evening without the protection of a duenna as a very unbecoming thing."
"I never have had such a thought about it," declared Mrs. Carling.
"I never for a moment supposed you had, dear," said Mary, "nor have I. We are rather unconventional people, making very few claimsupon society, and upon whom 'society' makes very few."
"I am rather sorry for that on your account," said her sister.
"You needn't be," was the rejoinder. "I have no yearnings in that direction which are not satisfied with what I have." She sat for a minute or two with her hands clasped upon her knee, gazing reflectively into the fire, which, in the growing darkness of the winter afternoon, afforded almost the only light in the room. Presently she became conscious that her sister was regarding her with an air of expectation, and resumed: "Leaving the question of the conventions out of the discussion as settled," she said, "there is nothing, Alice, that you need have any concern about, either on Mr. Lenox's account or mine."
"You like him, don't you?" asked Mrs. Carling.
"Yes," said Mary frankly, "I like him very much. We have enough in common to be rather sympathetic, and we differ enough not to be dull, and so we get on very well. I never had a brother," she continued, after a momentary pause, "but I feel toward him as I fancy I should feel toward a brother of about my own age, though he is five or six years older than I am."
"You don't think, then," said Mrs. Carling timidly, "that you are getting to care for him at all?"
"In the sense that you use the word," was the reply, "not the least in the world. If there were to come a time when I really believed I should never see him again, I should be sorry; but if at any time it were a question of six months ora year, I do not think my equanimity would be particularly disturbed."
"And how about him?" suggested Mrs. Carling. There was no reply.
"Don't you think he may care for you, or be getting to?"
Mary frowned slightly, half closing her eyes and stirring a little uneasily in her chair.
"He hasn't said anything to me on the subject," she replied evasively.
"Would that be necessary?" asked her sister.
"Perhaps not," was the reply, "if the fact were very obvious."
"Isn't it?" persisted Mrs. Carling, with unusual tenacity.
"Well," said the girl, "to be quite frank with you, I have thought once or twice that he entertained some such idea—that is—no, I don't mean to put it just that way. I mean that once or twice something has occurred to give me that idea. That isn't very coherent, is it? But even if it be so," she went on after a moment, with a wave of her hands, "what of it? What does it signify? And if it does signify, what can I do about it?"
"You have thought about it, then?" said her sister.
"As much as I have told you," she answered. "I am not a very sentimental person, I think, and not very much on the lookout for such things, but I know there is such a thing as a man's taking a fancy to a young woman under circumstances which bring them often together, and I have been led to believe that it isn't necessarily fatal to the man even if nothing comes ofit. But be that as it may," she said with a shrug of her shoulders, "what can I do about it? I can't say to Mr. Lenox, 'I think you ought not to come here so much,' unless I give a reason for it, and I think we have come to the conclusion that there is no reason except the danger—to put it in so many words—of his falling in love with me. I couldn't quite say that to him, could I?"
"No, I suppose not," acquiesced Mrs. Carling faintly.
"No, I should say not," remarked the girl. "If he were to say anything to me in the way of—declaration is the word, isn't it?—it would be another matter. But there is no danger of that."
"Why not, if he is fond of you?" asked her sister.
"Because," said Mary, with an emphatic nod, "I won't let him," which assertion was rather weakened by her adding, "and he wouldn't, if I would."
"I don't understand," said her sister.
"Well," said Mary, "I don't pretend to know all that goes on in his mind; but allowing, or rather conjecturing, that he does care for me in the way you mean, I haven't the least fear of his telling me so, and one of the reasons is this, that he is wholly dependent upon his father, with no other prospect for years to come."
"I had the idea somehow," said Mrs. Carling, "that his father was very well-to-do. The young man gives one the impression of a person who has always had everything that he wanted."
"I think that is so," said Mary, "but he told me one day, coming over on the steamer, that he knew nothing whatever of his own prospectsor his father's affairs. I don't remember—at least, it doesn't matter—how he came to say as much, but he did, and afterward gave me a whimsical catalogue of his acquirements and accomplishments, remarking, I remember, that 'there was not a dollar in the whole list'; and lately, though you must not fancy that he discusses his own affairs with me, he has now and then said something to make me guess that he was somewhat troubled about them."
"Is he doing anything?" asked Mrs. Carling.
"He told me the first evening he called here," said Mary, "that he was studying law, at his father's suggestion; but I don't remember the name of the firm in whose office he is."
"Why doesn't he ask his father about his prospects?" said Mrs. Carling.
Mary laughed. "You seem to be so much more interested in the matter than I am," she said, "why don't you ask him yourself?" To which unjustifiable rejoinder her sister made no reply.
"I don't see why he shouldn't," she remarked.
"I think I understand," said Mary. "I fancy from what he has told me that his father is a singularly reticent man, but one in whom his son has always had the most implicit confidence. I imagine, too, that until recently, at any rate, he has taken it for granted that his father was wealthy. He has not confided any misgivings to me, but if he has any he is just the sort of person not to ask, and certainly not to press a question with his father."
"It would seem like carrying delicacy almost too far," remarked Mrs. Carling.
"Perhaps it would," said her sister, "but I think I can understand and sympathize with it."
Mrs. Carling broke the silence which followed for a moment or two as if she were thinking aloud. "You have plenty of money," she said, and colored at her inadvertence. Her sister looked at her for an instant with a humorous smile, and then, as she rose and touched the bell button, said, "That's another reason."
I think it should hardly be imputed to John as a fault or a shortcoming that he did not for a long time realize his father's failing powers. True, as has been stated, he had noted some changes in appearance on his return, but they were not great enough to be startling, and, though he thought at times that his father's manner was more subdued than he had ever known it to be, nothing really occurred to arouse his suspicion or anxiety. After a few days the two men appeared to drop into their accustomed relation and routine, meeting in the morning and at dinner; but as John picked up the threads of his acquaintance he usually went out after dinner, and even when he did not his father went early to his own apartment.
From John's childhood he had been much of the time away from home, and there had never, partly from that circumstance and partly from the older man's natural and habitual reserve, been very much intimacy between them. The father did not give his own confidence, and, while always kind and sympathetic when appealed to, did not ask his son's; and, loving his father well and loyally, and trusting him implicitly, it did not occur to John to feel that there was anything wanting in the relation. It was asit had always been. He was accustomed to accept what his father did or said without question, and, as is very often the case, had always regarded him as an old man. He had never felt that they could be in the same equation. In truth, save for their mutual affection, they had little in common; and if, as may have been the case, his father had any cravings for a closer and more intimate relation, he made no sign, acquiescing in his son's actions as the son did in his, without question or suggestion. They did not know each other, and such cases are not rare, more is the pity.
But as time went on even John's unwatchful eye could not fail to notice that all was not well with his father. Haggard lines were multiplying in the quiet face, and the silence at the dinner table was often unbroken except by John's unfruitful efforts to keep some sort of a conversation in motion. More and more frequently it occurred that his father would retire to his own room immediately after dinner was over, and the food on his plate would be almost untouched, while he took more wine than had ever been his habit. John, retiring late, would often hear him stirring uneasily in his room, and it would be plain in the morning that he had spent a wakeful, if not a sleepless, night. Once or twice on such a morning John had suggested to his father that he should not go down to the office, and the suggestion had been met with so irritable a negative as to excite his wonder.
It was a day in the latter part of March. The winter had been unusually severe, and lingered into spring with a heart-sickening tenacity, occasional hints of clemency and promise being followed by recurrences which were as irritating as a personal affront.
John had held to his work in the office, if not with positive enthusiasm, at least with industry, and thought that he had made some progress. On the day in question the managing clerk commented briefly but favorably on something of his which was satisfactory, and, such experiences being rare, he was conscious of a feeling of mild elation. He was also cherishing the anticipation of a call at Sixty-ninth Street, where, for reasons unnecessary to recount, he had not been for a week. At dinner that night his father seemed more inclined than for a long time to keep up a conversation which, though of no special import, was cheerful in comparison with the silence which had grown to be almost the rule, and the two men sat for a while over the coffee and cigars. Presently, however, the elder rose from the table, saying pleasantly, "I suppose you are going out to-night."
"Not if you'd like me to stay in," was the reply. "I have no definite engagement."
"Oh, no," said Mr. Lenox, "not at all, not at all," and as he passed his son on the way out of the room he put out his hand and taking John's, said, "Good night."
As John stood for a moment rather taken aback, he heard his father mount the stairs to his room. He was puzzled by the unexpected and unusual occurrence, but finally concluded that his father, realizing how taciturn they had become of late, wished to resume their former status, and this view was confirmed to his mind by the fact that they had been more companionable than usual that evening, albeit that nothing of any special significance had been said.
As has been stated, a longer interval than usual had elapsed since John's last visit to Sixty-ninth Street, a fact which had been commented on by Mr. Carling, but not mentioned between the ladies. When he found himself at that hospitable house on that evening, he was greeted by Miss Blake alone.
"Julius did not come down to-night, and my sister is with him," she said, "so you will have to put up with my society—unless you'd like me to send up for Alice. Julius is strictlyen retraite, I should say."
"Don't disturb her, I beg," protested John, laughing, and wondering a bit at the touch of coquetry in her speech, something unprecedented in his experience of her, "if you are willing to put up with my society. I hope Mr. Carling is not ill?"
They seated themselves as she replied: "No, nothing serious, I should say. A bit of a cold, I fancy; and for a fortnight he has been more nervous than usual. The changes in the weather have been so great and so abrupt that they have worn upon his nerves. He is getting very uneasy again. Now, after spending the winter, and when spring is almost at hand, I believe that if he could make up his mind where to go he would be for setting off to-morrow."
"Really?" said John, in a tone of dismay.
"Quite so," she replied with a nod.
"But," he objected, "it seems too late or too early. Spring may drop in upon us any day. Isn't this something very recent?"
"It has been developing for a week or tendays," she answered, "and symptoms have indicated a crisis for some time. In fact," she added, with a little vexed laugh, "we have talked of nothing for a week but the advantages and disadvantages of Florida, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia at large; besides St. Augustine, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Aiken, Asheville, Hot Springs, Old Point Comfort, Bermuda, and I don't know how many other places, not forgetting Atlantic City and Lakewood, and only not Barbadoes and the Sandwich Islands because nobody happened to think of them. Julius," remarked Miss Blake, "would have given a forenoon to the discussion of the two latter places as readily as to any of the others."
"Can't you talk him along into warm weather?" suggested John, with rather a mirthless laugh. "Don't you think that if the weather were to change for good, as it's likely to do almost any time now, he might put off going till the usual summer flitting?"
"The change in his mind will have to come pretty soon if I am to retain my mental faculties," she declared. "He might possibly, but I am afraid not," she said, shaking her head. "He has the idea fixed in his mind, and considerations of the weather here, while they got him started, are not now so much the question. He has the moving fever, and I am afraid it will have to run its course. I think," she said, after a moment, "that if I were to formulate a special anathema, it would be, 'May traveling seize you!'"
"Or restlessness," suggested John.
"Yes," she said, "that's more accurate, perhaps, but it doesn't sound quite so smart. Julius is in that state of mind when the only place that seems desirable is somewhere else."
"Of course you will have to go," said John mournfully.
"Oh, yes," she replied, with an air of compulsory resignation. "I shall not only have to go, of course, but I shall probably have to decide where in order to save my mind. But it will certainly be somewhere, so I might as well be packing my trunks."
"And you will be away indefinitely, I suppose?"
"Yes, I imagine so."
"Dear me!" John ejaculated in a dismal tone.
They were sitting as described on a former occasion, and the young woman was engaged upon the second (perhaps the third, or even the fourth) of the set of doilies to which she had committed herself. She took some stitches with a composed air, without responding to her companion's exclamation.
"I'm awfully sorry," he said presently, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging in an attitude of unmistakable dejection, and staring fixedly into the fire.
"I am very sorry myself," she said, bending her head a little closer over her work. "I think I like being in New York in the spring better than at any other time; and I don't at all fancy the idea of living in my trunks again for an indefinite period."
"I shall miss you horribly," he said, turning his face toward her.
Her eyes opened with a lift of the brows, butwhether the surprise so indicated was quite genuine is a matter for conjecture.
"Yes," he declared desperately, "I shall, indeed."
"I should fancy you must have plenty of other friends," she said, flushing a little, "and I have wondered sometimes whether Julius's demands upon you were not more confident than warrantable, and whether you wouldn't often rather have gone elsewhere than to come here to play cards with him." She actually said this as if she meant it.
"Do you suppose—" he exclaimed, and checked himself. "No," he said, "I have come because—well, I've been only too glad to come, and—I suppose it has got to be a habit," he added, rather lamely. "You see, I've never known any people in the way I have known you. It has seemed to me more like home life than anything I've ever known. There has never been any one but my father and I, and you can have no idea what it has been to me to be allowed to come here as I have, and—oh, you must know—" He hesitated, and instantly she advanced her point.
Her face was rather white, and the hand which lay upon the work in her lap trembled a little, while she clasped the arm of the chair with the other; but she broke in upon his hesitation with an even voice:
"It has been very pleasant for us all, I'm sure," she said, "and, frankly, I'm sorry that it must be interrupted for a while, but that is about all there is of it, isn't it? We shall probably be back not later than October, I should say, and then you can renew your contests with Julius and your controversies with me."
Her tone and what she said recalled to him their last night on board the ship, but there was no relenting on this occasion. He realized that for a moment he had been on the verge of telling the girl that he loved her, and he realized, too, that she had divined his impulse and prevented the disclosure; but he registered a vow that he would know before he saw her again whether he might consistently tell her his love, and win or lose upon the touch.
Miss Blake made several inaccurate efforts to introduce her needle at the exact point desired, and when that endeavor was accomplished broke the silence by saying, "Speaking of 'October,' have you read the novel? I think it is charming."
"Yes," said John, with his vow in his mind, but not sorry for the diversion, "and I enjoyed it very much. I thought it was immensely clever, but I confess that I didn't quite sympathize with the love affairs of a hero who was past forty, and I must also confess that I thought the girl was, well—to put it in plain English—a fool."
Mary laughed, with a little quaver in her voice. "Do you know," she said, "that sometimes it seems to me that I am older than you are?"
"I know you're awfully wise," said John with a laugh, and from that their talk drifted off into the safer channels of their usual intercourse until he rose to say good night.
"Of course, we shall see you again before we go," she said as she gave him her hand.
"Oh," he declared, "I intend regularly to haunt the place."
When John came down the next morning his father, who was, as a rule, the most punctual of men, had not appeared. He opened the paper and sat down to wait. Ten minutes passed, fifteen, twenty. He rang the bell. "Have you heard my father this morning?" he said to Jeffrey, remembering for the first time that he himself had not.
"No, sir," said the man. "He most generally coughs a little in the morning, but I don't think I heard him this morning, sir."
"Go up and see why he doesn't come down," said John, and a moment later he followed the servant upstairs, to find him standing at the chamber door with a frightened face.
"He must be very sound asleep, sir," said Jeffrey. "He hasn't answered to my knockin' or callin', sir." John tried the door. He found the chain bolt on, and it opened but a few inches. "Father!" he called, and then again, louder. He turned almost unconsciously to Jeffrey, and found his own apprehensions reflected in the man's face. "We must break in the door," he said. "Now, together!" and the bolt gave way.
His father lay as if asleep. "Go for the doctor at once! Bring him back with you. Run!" he cried to the servant. Custom and instinctsaid, "Send for the doctor," but he knew in his heart that no ministrations would ever reach the still figure on the bed, upon which, for the moment, he could not look. It was but a few minutes (how long such minutes are!) before the doctor came—Doctor Willis, who had brought John into the world, and had been a lifelong friend of both father and son. He went swiftly to the bed without speaking, and made a brief examination, while John watched him with fascinated eyes; and as the doctor finished, the son dropped on his knees by the bed, and buried his face in it. The doctor crossed the room to Jeffrey, who was standing in the door with an awe-stricken face, and in a low voice gave him some directions. Then, as the man departed, he first glanced at the kneeling figure and then looked searchingly about the room. Presently he went over to the grate in which were the ashes of an extinct fire, and, taking the poker, pressed down among them and covered over a three or four ounce vial. He had found what he was looking for.
There is no need to speak of the happenings of the next few days, nor is it necessary to touch at any length upon the history of some of the weeks and months which ensued upon this crisis in John Lenox's life, a time when it seemed to him that everything he had ever cared for had been taken. And yet, with that unreason which may perhaps be more easily understood than accounted for, the one thing upon which his mind most often dwelt was that he had had no answer to his note to Mary Blake. We know what happened to her missive. It turned up long afterwardin the pocket of Master Jacky Carling's overcoat; so long afterward that John, so far as Mary was concerned, had disappeared altogether. The discovery of Jacky's dereliction explained to her, in part at least, why she had never seen him or heard from him after that last evening at Sixty-ninth Street. The Carlings went away some ten days later, and she did, in fact, send another note to his house address, asking him to see them before their departure; but John had considered himself fortunate in getting the house off his hands to a tenant who would assume the lease if given possession at once, and had gone into the modest apartment which he occupied during the rest of his life in the city, and so the second communication failed to reach him. Perhaps it was as well. Some weeks later he walked up to the Carlings' house one Sunday afternoon, and saw that it was closed, as he had expected. By an impulse which was not part of his original intention—which was, indeed, pretty nearly aimless—he was moved to ring the doorbell; but the maid, a stranger to him, who opened the door could tell him nothing of the family's whereabouts, and Mr. Betts (the house man in charge) was "hout." So John retraced his steps with a feeling of disappointment wholly disproportionate to his hopes or expectations so far as he had defined them to himself, and never went back again.
He has never had much to say of the months that followed.
It came to be the last of October. An errand from the office had sent him to General Wolsey, of the Mutual Trust Company, of whom mention has been made by David Harum. The general was an old friend of the elder Lenox, and knew John well and kindly. When the latter had discharged his errand and was about to go, the general said: "Wait a minute. Are you in a hurry? If not, I want to have a little talk with you."
"Not specially," said John.
"Sit down," said the general, pointing to a chair. "What are your plans? I see you are still in the Careys' office, but from what you told me last summer I conclude that you are there because you have not found anything more satisfactory."
"That is the case, sir," John replied. "I can't be idle, but I don't see how I can keep on as I am going now, and I have been trying for months to find something by which I can earn a living. I am afraid," he added, "that it will be a longer time than I can afford to wait before I shall be able to do that out of the law."
"If you don't mind my asking," said the general, "what are your resources? I don't think you told me more than to give me to understand that your father's affairs were at a pretty low ebb. Of course, I do not wish to pry into your affairs—"
"Not at all," John interposed; "I am glad to tell you, and thank you for your interest. I have about two thousand dollars, and there is some silver and odds and ends of things stored. I don't know what their value might be—not very much, I fancy—and there were a lot of mining stocks and that sort of thing which have no value so far as I can find out—no available value, at any rate. There is also a tract of half-wild land somewhere in Pennsylvania. There is coal on it, I believe, and some timber; but Melig, my father's manager, told me that all the large timber had been cut. So far as available value is concerned, the property is about as much of an asset as the mining stock, with the disadvantage that I have to pay taxes on it."
"H'm," said the general, tapping the desk with his eyeglasses. "H'm—well, I should think if you lived very economically you would have about enough to carry you through till you can be admitted, provided you feel that the law is your vocation," he added, looking up.
"It was my father's idea," said John, "and if I were so situated that I could go on with it, I would. But I am so doubtful with regard to my aptitude that I don't feel as if I ought to use up what little capital I have, and some years of time, on a doubtful experiment, and so I have been looking for something else to do."
"Well," said the general, "if you were very much interested—that is, if you were anxious to proceed with your studies—I should advise you to go on, and at a pinch I should be willing to help you out; but, feeling as you do, I hardly know what to advise. I was thinking of you," he went on, "before you came in, and was intending to send for you to come in to see me." He took a letter from his desk.
"I got this yesterday," he said. "It is from an old acquaintance of mine by the name of Harum, who lives in Homeville, Freeland County. He is a sort of a banker there, and has written me to recommend some one to take the place of his manager or cashier whom he is sending away. It's rather a queer move, I think, butthen," said the general with a smile, "Harum is a queer customer in some ways of his own. There is his letter. Read it for yourself."
The letter stated that Mr. Harum had had some trouble with his cashier and wished to replace him, and that he would prefer some one from out of the village who wouldn't know every man, woman, and child in the whole region, and "blab everything right and left." "I should want," wrote Mr. Harum, "to have the young man know something about bookkeeping and so on, but I should not insist upon his having been through a trainer's hands. In fact, I would rather break him in myself, and if he's willing and sound and no vice, I can get him into shape. I will pay a thousand to start on, and if he draws and travels all right, may be better in the long run," etc. John handed back the letter with a slight smile, which was reflected in the face of the general. "What do you think of it?" asked the latter.
"I should think it might be very characteristic," remarked John.
"Yes," said the general, "it is, to an extent. You see he writes pretty fair English, and he can, on occasion, talk as he writes, but usually, either from habit or choice, he uses the most unmitigated dialect. But what I meant to ask you was, what do you think of the proposal?"
"You mean as an opportunity forme?" asked John.
"Yes," said General Wolsey, "I thought of you at once."
"Thank you very much," said John. "What would be your idea?"
"Well," was the reply, "I am inclined tothink I should write to him if I were you, and I will write to him about you if you so decide. You have had some office experience, you told me—enough, I should say, for a foundation, and I don't believe that Harum's books and accounts are very complicated."
John did not speak, and the general went on: "Of course, it will be a great change from almost everything you have been used to, and I dare say that you may find the life, at first at least, pretty dull and irksome. The stipend is not very large, but it is large for the country, where your expenses will be light. In fact, I'm rather surprised at his offering so much. At any rate, it is a living for the present, and may lead to something better. The place is a growing one, and, more than that, Harum is well off, and keeps more irons in the fire than one, and if you get on with him you may do well."
"I don't think I should mind the change so much," said John, rather sadly. "My present life is so different in almost every way from what it used to be, and I think I feel it in New York more even than I might in a country village; but the venture seems a little like burning my bridges."
"Well," replied the general, "if the experiment should turn out a failure for any reason, you won't be very much more at a loss than at present, it seems to me, and, of course, I will do anything I can should you wish me to be still on the lookout for you here."
"You are exceedingly kind, sir," said John earnestly, and then was silent for a moment or two. "I will make the venture," he said at length, "and thank you very much."
"You are under no special obligations to the Careys, are you?" asked the general.
"No, I think not," said John with a laugh. "I fancy that their business will go on without me, after a fashion," and he took his leave.
And so it came about that certain letters were written as mentioned in a previous chapter, and in the evening of a dripping day early in November John Lenox found himself, after a nine hours' journey, the only traveler who alighted upon the platform of the Homeville station, which was near the end of a small lake and about a mile from the village. As he stood with his bag and umbrella, at a loss what to do, he was accosted by a short and stubby individual with very black eyes and hair and a round face, which would have been smooth except that it had not been shaved for a day or two. "Goin' t' the village?" he said.
"Yes," said John, "that is my intention, but I don't see any way of getting there."
"Carry ye over fer ten cents," said the man. "Carryall's right back the deepo. Got 'ny baggidge?"
"Two trunks," said John.
"That'll make it thirty cents," said the native. "Where's your checks? All right; you c'n jest step 'round an' git in. Mine's the only rig that drew over to-night."
It was a long clumsy affair, with windows at each end and a door in the rear, but open at the sides except for enamel cloth curtains, whichwere buttoned to the supports that carried a railed roof extending as far forward as the dashboard. The driver's seat was on a level with those inside. John took a seat by one of the front windows, which was open but protected by the roof.
His luggage having been put on board, they began the journey at a walk, the first part of the road being rough and swampy in places, and undergoing at intervals the sort of repairs which often prevails in rural regions—namely, the deposit of a quantity of broken stone, which is left to be worn smooth by passing vehicles, and is for the most part carefully avoided by such whenever the roadway is broad enough to drive round the improvement. But the worst of the way having been accomplished, the driver took opportunity, speaking sideways over his shoulder, to allay the curiosity which burned within him, "Guess I never seen you before." John was tired and hungry, and generally low in his mind.
"Very likely not," was his answer. Mr. Robinson instantly arrived at the determination that the stranger was "stuck up," but was in no degree cast down thereby.
"I heard Chet Timson tellin' that the' was a feller comin' f'm N'York to work in Dave Harum's bank. Guess you're him, ain't ye?"
No answer this time: theory confirmed.
"My name's Robinson," imparted that individual. "I run the prince'ple liv'ry to Homeville."
"Ah!" responded the passenger.
"What d'you say your name was?" asked Mr. Robinson, after he had steered his team around one of the monuments to public spirit.
"It's Lenox," said John, thinking he might concede something to such deserving perseverance, "but I don't remember mentioning it."
"Now I think on't, I guess you didn't," admitted Mr. Robinson. "Don't think I ever knowed anybody of the name," he remarked. "Used to know some folks name o' Lynch, but they couldn't 'a' ben no relations o' your'n, I guess." This conjecture elicited no reply.
"Git up, goll darn ye!" he exclaimed, as one of the horses stumbled, and he gave it a jerk and a cut of the whip. "Bought that hoss of Dave Harum," he confided to his passenger. "Fact, I bought both on 'em of him, an' dum well stuck I was, too," he added.
"You know Mr. Harum, then," said John, with a glimmer of interest. "Does he deal in horses?"
"Wa'al, I guess I make eout to know him," asserted the "prince'ple liv'ryman," "an' he'll git up 'n the middle o' the night any time to git the best of a hoss trade. Be you goin' to work fer him?" he asked, encouraged to press the question. "Goin' to take Timson's place?"
"Really," said John, in a tone which advanced Mr. Robinson's opinion to a rooted conviction, "I have never heard of Mr. Timson."
"He's the feller that Dave's lettin' go," explained Mr. Robinson. "He's ben in the bank a matter o' five or six year, but Dave got down on him fer some little thing or other, an' he's got his walkin' papers. He says to me, says he, 'If any feller thinks he c'n come up here f'm N'York or anywheres else, he says, 'an' do Dave Harum's work to suit him, he'll find he's bit off adum sight more'n he c'n chaw. He'd better keep his gripsack packed the hull time,' Chet says."
"I thought I'd sock it to the cuss a little," remarked Mr. Robinson in recounting the conversation subsequently; and, in truth, it was not elevating to the spirits of our friend, who found himself speculating whether or no Timson might not be right.
"Where you goin' to put up?" asked Mr. Robinson after an interval, having failed to draw out any response to his last effort.
"Is there more than one hotel?" inquired the passenger.
"The's the Eagle, an' the Lake House, an' Smith's Hotel," replied Jehu.
"Which would you recommend?" asked John.
"Wa'al," said Robinson, "I don't gen'ally praise up one more'n another. You see, I have more or less dealin' with all on 'em."
"That's very diplomatic of you, I'm sure," remarked John, not at all diplomatically. "I think I will try the Eagle."
Mr. Robinson, in his account of the conversation, said in confidence—not wishing to be openly invidious—that "he was dum'd if he wa'n't almost sorry he hadn't recommended the Lake House."
It may be inferred from the foregoing that the first impression which our friend made on his arrival was not wholly in his favor, and Mr. Robinson's conviction that he was "stuck up," and a person bound to get himself "gen'ally disliked," was elevated to an article of faith by his retiring to the rear of the vehicle, and quite out of ordinary range. But they were nearly at theirjourney's end, and presently the carryall drew up at the Eagle Hotel.
It was a frame building of three stories, with a covered veranda running the length of the front, from which two doors gave entrance—one to the main hall, the other to the office and bar combined. This was rather a large room, and was also to be entered from the main hall.
John's luggage was deposited, Mr. Robinson was settled with, and took his departure without the amenities which might have prevailed under different conditions, and the new arrival made his way into the office.
Behind the bar counter, which faced the street, at one end of which was a small high desk and at the other a glazed case containing three or four partly full boxes of forlorn-looking cigars, but with most ambitious labels, stood the proprietor, manager, clerk, and what not of the hostelry, embodied in the single person of Mr. Amos Elright, who was leaning over the counter in conversation with three or four loungers who sat about the room with their chairs tipped back against the wall.
A sketch of Mr. Elright would have depicted a dull "complected" person of a tousled baldness, whose dispirited expression of countenance was enhanced by a chin whisker. His shirt and collar gave unmistakable evidence that pajamas or other night-gear were regarded as superfluities, and his most conspicuous garment as he appeared behind the counter was a cardigan jacket of a frowsiness beyond compare. A greasy neck scarf was embellished with a gem whose truthfulness was without pretence. The atmosphere of the room was accounted for by a remark which was made by one of the loungers as John came in. "Say, Ame," the fellow drawled, "I guess the' was more skunk cabbidge 'n pie plant 'n usual 'n that last lot o' cigars o' your'n, wa'n't the'?" to which insinuation "Ame" was spared the necessity of a rejoinder by our friend's advent.
"Wa'al, guess we c'n give ye a room. Oh, yes, you c'n register if you want to. Where is the dum thing? I seen it last week somewhere. Oh, yes," producing a thin book ruled for accounts from under the counter, "we don't alwus use it," he remarked—which was obvious, seeing that the last entry was a month old.
John concluded that it was a useless formality. "I should like something to eat," he said, "and desire to go to my room while it is being prepared; and can you send my luggage up now?"
"Wa'al," said Mr. Elright, looking at the clock, which showed the hour of half-past nine, and rubbing his chin perplexedly, "supper's ben cleared off some time ago."
"I don't want very much," said John; "just a bit of steak, and some stewed potatoes, and a couple of boiled eggs, and some coffee." He might have heard the sound of a slap in the direction of one of the sitters.
"I'm 'fraid I can't 'commodate ye fur's the steak an' things goes," confessed the landlord. "We don't do much cookin' after dinner, an' I reckon the fire's out anyway. P'r'aps," he added doubtfully, "I c'd hunt ye up a piece o' pie 'n some doughnuts, or somethin' like that."
He took a key, to which was attached a huge brass tag with serrated edges, from a hook on aboard behind the bar—on which were suspended a number of the like—lighted a small kerosene lamp, carrying a single wick, and, shuffling out from behind the counter, said, "Say, Bill, can't you an' Dick carry the gentleman's trunks up to 'thirteen?'" and, as they assented, he gave the lamp and key to one of them and left the room. The two men took a trunk at either end and mounted the stairs, John following, and when the second one came up he put his fingers into his waistcoat pocket suggestively.
"No," said the one addressed as Dick, "that's all right. We done it to oblige Ame."
"I'm very much obliged to you, though," said John.
"Oh, that's all right," remarked Dick as they turned away.
John surveyed the apartment. There were two small-paned windows overlooking the street, curtained with bright "Turkey-red" cotton; near to one of them a small wood stove and a wood box, containing some odds and ends of sticks and bits of bark; a small chest of drawers, serving as a washstand; a malicious little looking-glass; a basin and ewer, holding about two quarts; an earthenware mug and soap-dish, the latter containing a thin bit of red translucent soap scented with sassafras; an ordinary wooden chair and a rocking-chair with rockers of divergent aims; a yellow wooden bedstead furnished with a mattress of "excelsior" (calculated to induce early rising), a dingy white spread, a gray blanket of coarse wool, a pair of cotton sheets which had too obviously done duty since passing through the hands of the laundress, and a pair of flabby little pillows in thesame state, in respect to their cases, as the sheets. On the floor was a much used and faded ingrain carpet, in one place worn through by the edge of a loose board. A narrow strip of unpainted pine nailed to the wall carried six or seven wooden pegs to serve as wardrobe. Two diminutive towels with red borders hung on the rail of the washstand, and a battered tin slop jar, minus a cover, completed the inventory.
"Heavens, what a hole!" exclaimed John, and as he performed his ablutions (not with the sassafras soap) he promised himself a speedy flitting. There came a knock at the door, and his host appeared to announce that his "tea" was ready, and to conduct him to the dining-room—a good-sized apartment, but narrow, with a long table running near the center lengthwise, covered with a cloth which bore the marks of many a fray. Another table of like dimensions, but bare, was shoved up against the wall. Mr. Elright's ravagement of the larder had resulted in a triangle of cadaverous apple pie, three doughnuts, some chunks of soft white cheese, and a plate of what are known as oyster crackers.
"I couldn't git ye no tea," he said. "The hired girls both gone out, an' my wife's gone to bed, an' the' wa'n't no fire anyway."
"I suppose I could have some beer," suggested John, looking dubiously at the banquet.
"We don't keep no ale," said the proprietor of the Eagle, "an' I guess we're out o' lawger. I ben intendin' to git some more," he added.
"A glass of milk?" proposed the guest, but without confidence.
"Milkman didn't come to-night," said Mr.Elright, shuffling off in his carpet slippers, worn out in spirit with the importunities of the stranger. There was water on the table, for it had been left there from supper time. John managed to consume a doughnut and some crackers and cheese, and then went to his room, carrying the water pitcher with him, and, after a cigarette or two and a small potation from his flask, to bed. Before retiring, however, he stripped the bed with the intention of turning the sheets, but upon inspection thought better of it, and concluded to leave them as they were. So passed his first night in Homeville, and, as he fondly promised himself, his last at the Eagle Hotel.
When Bill and Dick returned to the office after "obligin' Ame," they stepped with one accord to the counter and looked at the register. "Why, darn it," exclaimed Bill, "he didn't sign his name, after all."
"No," said Dick, "but I c'n give a putty near guess who he is, all the same."
"Some drummer?" suggested Bill.
"Naw," said Richard scornfully. "What 'd a drummer be doin' here this time o' year? That's the feller that's ousted Chet Timson, an' I'll bet ye the drinks on't. Name's Linx or Lenx, or somethin' like that. Dave told me."
"So that's the feller, is it?" said Bill. "I guess he won't stay 'round here long. I guess you'll find he's a little too toney fer these parts, an' in pertic'ler fer Dave Harum. Dave'll make him feel 'bout as comf'table as a rooster in a pond. Lord," he exclaimed, slapping his leg with a guffaw, "'d you notice Ame's face when he said he didn't want much fer supper, onlybeefsteak, an' eggs, an' tea, an' coffee, an' a few little things like that? I thought I'd split."
"Yes," said Dick, laughing, "I guess the' ain't nothin' the matter with Ame's heart, or he'd 'a' fell down dead.—Hullo, Ame!" he said when the gentleman in question came back after ministering to his guest, "got the Prince o' Wales fixed up all right? Did ye cut that pickled el'phant that come last week?"
"Huh!" grunted Amos, whose sensibilities had been wounded by the events of the evening, "I didn't cut no el'phant ner no cow, ner rob no hen roost neither, but I guess he won't starve 'fore mornin'," and with that he proceeded to fill up the stove and shut the dampers.
"That means 'git,' I reckon," remarked Bill as he watched the operation.
"Wa'al," said Mr. Elright, "if you fellers think you've spent enough time droolin' 'round here swapping lies, I thinkI'llgo to bed," which inhospitable and injurious remark was by no means taken in bad part, for Dick said, with a laugh:
"Well, Ame, if you'll let me run my face for 'em, Bill 'n I'll take a little somethin' for the good o' the house before we shed the partin' tear." This proposition was not declined by Mr. Elright, but he felt bound on business principles not to yield with too great a show of readiness.
"Wa'al, I don't mind for this once," he said, going behind the bar and setting out a bottle and glasses, "but I've gen'ally noticed that it's a damn sight easier to git somethin'intoyou fellers 'n 't is to git anythin'outof ye."
The next morning at nine o'clock John presented himself at Mr. Harum's banking office, which occupied the first floor of a brick building some twenty or twenty-five feet in width. Besides the entrance to the bank, there was a door at the south corner opening upon a stairway leading to a suite of two rooms on the second floor.
The banking office consisted of two rooms—one in front, containing the desks and counters, and what may be designated as the "parlor" (as used to be the case in the provincial towns) in the rear, in which were Mr. Harum's private desk, a safe of medium size, the necessary assortment of chairs, and a lounge. There was also a large Franklin stove.
The parlor was separated from the front room by a partition, in which were two doors, one leading into the inclosed space behind the desks and counters, and the other into the passageway formed by the north wall and a length of high desk, topped by a railing. The teller's or cashier's counter faced the street opposite the entrance door. At the left of this counter (viewed from the front) was a high-standing desk, with a rail. At the right was a glass-inclosed space of counter of the same height as thatportion which was open, across which latter the business of paying and receiving was conducted.
As John entered he saw standing behind this open counter, framed, as it were, between the desk on the one hand, and the glass inclosure on the other, a person whom he conjectured to be the "Chet" (short for Chester) Timson of whom he had heard. This person nodded in response to our friend's "Good morning," and anticipated his inquiry by saying:
"You lookin' for Dave?"
"I am looking for Mr. Harum," said John. "Is he in the office?"
"He hain't come in yet," was the reply. "Up to the barn, I reckon, but he's liable to come in any minute, an' you c'n step into the back room an' wait fer him," indicating the direction with a wave of his hand.
Business had not begun to be engrossing, though the bank was open, and John had hardly seated himself when Timson came into the back room and, taking a chair where he could see the counter in the front office, proceeded to investigate the stranger, of whose identity he had not the smallest doubt. But it was not Mr. Timson's way to take things for granted in silence, and it must be admitted that his curiosity in this particular case was not without warrant. After a scrutiny of John's face and person, which was not brief enough to be unnoticeable, he said, with a directness which left nothing in that line to be desired, "I reckon you're the new man Dave's ben gettin' up from the city."
"I came up yesterday," admitted John.
"My name's Timson," said Chet.
"Happy to meet you," said John, rising andputting out his hand. "My name is Lenox," and they shook hands—that is, John grasped the ends of four limp fingers. After they had subsided into their seats, Chet's opaquely bluish eyes made another tour of inspection, in curiosity and wonder.
"You alwus lived in the city?" he said at last.
"It has always been my home," was the reply.
"What put it in your head to come up here?" with another stare.
"It was at Mr. Harum's suggestion," replied John, not with perfect candor; but he was not minded to be drawn out too far.
"D'ye know Dave?"
"I have never met him." Mr. Timson looked more puzzled than ever.
"Ever ben in the bankin' bus'nis?"
"I have had some experience of such accounts in a general way."
"Ever keep books?"
"Only as I have told you," said John, smiling at the little man.
"Got any idee what you'll have to do up here?" asked Chet.
"Only in a general way."
"Wa'al," said Mr. Timson, "I c'n tell ye; an', what'smore, I c'n tell ye, young man, 't you hain't no idee of what you're undertakin', an' ef you don't wish you was back in New York 'fore you git through I ain't no guesser."
"That is possible," said John readily, recalling his night and his breakfast that morning.
"Yes, sir," said the other. "Yes,sir; if you do what I've had to do, you'll do the hull darned thing, an' nobody to help you but Pele Hopkins,who don't count fer a row o' crooked pins. As fer's Dave's concerned," asserted the speaker with a wave of his hands, "he don't know no more about bankin' 'n a cat. He couldn't count a thousan' dollars in an hour, an', as for addin' up a row o' figures, he couldn't git it twice alike, I don't believe, if he was to be hung for't."
"He must understand the meaning of his own books and accounts, I should think," remarked John.
"Oh," said Chet scornfully, "anybody c'd do that. That's easy 'nough; but as fur 's the real bus'nis is concerned, he don't have nothin' to do with it. It's all ben left to me: chargin' an' creditin', postin', individule ledger, gen'ral ledger, bill-book, discount register, tickler, for'n register, checkin' off the N'York accounts, drawin' off statemunts f'm the ledgers an' bill-book, writin' letters—why, the' ain't an hour 'n the day in bus'nis hours some days that the's an hour 't I ain't busy 'bout somethin'. No, sir," continued Chet, "Dave don't give himself no trouble about the bus'nis. All he does is to look after lendin' the money, an' seein' that it gits paid when the time comes, an' keep track of how much money the' is here an' in N'York, an' what notes is comin' due—an' a few things like that, that don't put pen to paper, ner take an hour of his time. Why, a man'll come in an' want to git a note done, an' it'll be 'All right,' or, 'Can't spare the money to-day,' all in a minute. He don't give it no thought at all, an' he ain't 'round here half the time. Now," said Chet, "when I work fer a man I like to have him 'round so 't I c'n say to him: 'Shall I do it so? or shall I do itso? shall I? or sha'n't I?' an' then when I make a mistake—'s anybody's liable to—he's as much to blame 's I be."
"I suppose, then," said John, "that you must have to keep Mr. Harum's private accounts also, seeing that he knows so little of details. I have been told that he is interested in a good many matters besides this business."
"Wa'al," replied Timson, somewhat disconcerted, "I suppose he must keep 'em himself insomekind of a fashion, an' I don't know a thing about any outside matters of his'n, though I suspicion he has got quite a few. He's got some books in that safe" (pointing with his finger) "an' he's got a safe in the vault, but if you'll believeme"—and the speaker looked as if he hardly expected it—"I hain't never so much as seen the inside of either one on 'em. No, sir," he declared, "I hain't no more idee of what's in them safes 'n you have. He's close, Dave Harum is," said Chet with a convincing motion of the head; "on the hull, the clostest man I ever see. I believe," he averred, "that if he was to lay out to keep it shut that lightnin' might strike him square in the mouth an' it wouldn't go in an eighth of an inch. An' yet," he added, "he c'n talk by the rod when he takes a notion."
"Must be a difficult person to get on with," commented John dryly.
"I couldn't stan' it no longer," declared Mr. Timson with the air of one who had endured to the end of virtue, "an' I says to him the other day, 'Wa'al,' I says, 'if I can't suit ye, mebbe you'd better suit yourself.'"
"Ah!" said John politely, seeing that some response was expected of him; "and what did he say to that?"
"He ast me," replied Chet, "if I meant by that to throw up the situation. 'Wa'al,' I says 'I'm sick enough to throw up most anythin',' I says, 'along with bein' found fault with fer nothin'.'"
"And then?" queried John, who had received the impression that the motion to adjourn had come from the other side of the house.
"Wa'al," replied Chet, not quite so confidently, "he said somethin' about my requirin' a larger spear of action, an' that he thought I'd do better on a mile track—some o' his hoss talk. That's another thing," said Timson, changing the subject. "He's all fer hosses. He'd sooner make a ten-dollar note on a hoss trade than a hunderd right here 'n this office. Many's the time right in bus'nis hours, when I've wanted to ask him how he wanted somethin' done, he'd be busy talkin' hoss, an' wouldn't pay no attention to me more'n 's if I wa'n't there."
"I am glad to feel," said John, "that you can not possibly have any unpleasant feeling toward me, seeing that you resigned as you did."
"Cert'nly not, cert'nly not," declared Timson, a little uneasily. "If it hadn't 'a' ben you, it would 'a' had to ben somebody else, an' now I seen you an' had a talk with you—Wa'al, I guess I better git back into the other room. Dave's liable to come in any minute. But," he said in parting, "I will give ye piece of advice: You keep enough laid by to pay your gettin' back to N'York. You may want it in a hurry," and with this parting shot the rejected one took his leave.