CHAPTER IV
The stranger in passing Enoch Crane on the street would have been likely to have turned and said: “There goes a crusty old gentleman”—he would not have omitted the word “gentleman,” for that he looked and was.
Fifty years had moulded his appearance to a nicety in accordance with his mode of life, which was, for the most part (when he was not up-town at his club, or down-town at his office) passed in solitary confinement in the top-floor suite.
He was a man of medium height, who carried his stubborn head low bent from his shoulders, like most thinkers, though the rapid upward glance out of his keen brown eyes was quick and piercing—even commanding at times.
What remained of his gray hairs were neatly parted on the side and as carefully smoothed over a cranium surmounting a broad, intelligent forehead, the bushy eyebrows denoting a man of shrewd perception, shadowing a grave face framed in a pair of cropped side-whiskers. These met with a mustache nearly white, and as stiff as a tooth-brush, that bristled over a mouth whose corners curved downward in repose; when he opened his lips, they revealed his even lower teeth, giving him the tenacious expression of a bulldog.When he smiled, which was rarely, two seams bordering the chop side-whiskers deepened in the effort. When he laughed, there radiated upon these still rarer occasions, tinier wrinkles from the corners of his eyes. Sham and affectation he despised. Noise made him grit his teeth, and any undue outburst of geniality he regarded in the light of a personal insult. No one would have dared slap Enoch Crane on the back.
Years ago he had looked in the glass, decided he was ugly and, with the wisdom of a philosopher, thought no more about it. He was punctilious, nevertheless, about his dress—his favorite trousers being of white-and-black check shepherd’s plaid, and his coat and waistcoat of dark-gray homespun. On special occasions these were replaced by decent black broadcloth, which, like the rest of his clothes, were kept conscientiously brushed by Moses and hung in the big closet off his bedroom—the one next to a small wash-closet, provided with a cracked basin, and two worn, nickeled faucets, out of which the water dribbled, droned, and grumbled, as if angry at being summoned as far up as the top floor.
As for the generous square living-room itself adjoining, its four windows commanding a view of both the back yard and Waverly Place, there remained barely an inch of wall space from floor to ceiling that did not hold a memory; old prints and older pictures in the tarnished gilt frames he had picked them up in, all these hung over three packed shelves of books. There was, too, a blackened fireplace, a mahogany desk, itscubby-holes choked with papers and old pipes, and opposite, a high cabinet of rosewood, its glass doors curtained in faded green silk, screening some excellent port, and the sermons of Spurgeon, two volumes of which lay among the heap of papers piled on the round centre-table directly back of Enoch’s favorite armchair.
Though the evening was mild, it did not prevent Enoch from having a cheery fire in his grate, or from settling himself before it, sunk in the generous leather arms of his favorite chair. He had, too, for company a short-stemmed, brier pipe purring contentedly between his teeth, and an early edition of “Vanity Fair” open upon his knees.
Mr. Enoch Crane’s door was closed as tight as his lips when the agent of The United Family Laundry Association rapped. Ebner Ford’s rap indicated that he was used to knocking at doors where he was not needed. His career as an agent had made him past master in intrusion and provided him with a gift of speech, both the result of long experience.
At Ford’s summons, Enoch started irritably, laid his pipe beside Mr. Thackeray’s masterpiece, rose with a scowl, shot an annoyed glance at his door, and striding over to it with a grunt, flung it open wide to the intruder with a curt nod of recognition.
“Couldn’t help paying my respects,” grinned Ford; “must be neighborly, you know,” and with that he advanced with a smile of assurance across the threshold.
Enoch had not opened his lips.
“Neighborly,” shouted Ford, fearing he was deaf.
“Yes,” said Enoch. “I recognize you perfectly—Mr.—Mr.—er——”
“Ford,” returned the other, the grin broadening, his outstretched hand seeking Enoch’s, the other fumbling in the pocket of his waistcoat for his business card. Both the card and the hand Enoch accepted in silence.
“Looks comfy and homelike enough here,” blurted out Ford, glancing around him. “I tell my wife, there’s nothin’ like——”
“Be seated,” intervened Enoch, waving his visitor to the armchair. “Well, Mr.—er—Ford, what can I do for you?” He snapped out an old gold watch attached to a chain of braided human hair, and stood regarding his visitor with an expression of haste and annoyance. “Forgive me if I am brief,” he added briskly, as Ford flung himself into the proffered chair, “but I was about to go out when you knocked—a club meeting which I must attend—an important meeting, sir.”
“Well, now, that’s too bad. Must go, eh? Thinks I, as I told my wife, you’d be in to-night, and we could have a good old talk together—seeing we was neighbors. Got to go, have you?” and Ford sank deeper into the armchair, stretching out his long legs before the fire. “Well, that’s right, never pays to be late—reminds me of that story about the feller who was runnin’ to catch the train for Chicago and met a red-headed girl and a white horse on the way—old manDegraw used to tell this up in Syracuse—I can hear him now.” Here he emitted a thin, reminiscent laugh—cut short by Enoch.
“You do not seem to comprehend, sir, that I am pressed for time,” interrupted Enoch testily, again snapping out his watch. This time he held its dial out for Ebner Ford’s inspection. “Eighteen minutes of nine now, Mr. Ford—our meeting is at nine.”
“Ain’t you a little fast?” remarked the latter, pulling out his own. “Funny how I got that watch,” Ford rattled on with an insistence that keyed Enoch’s nerves to the quick.
Enoch had been bothered with many of the inmates in his time, but Ford’s effrontery was new to him. The very ease with which he had settled himself in the proffered chair set the muscles of the bulldog jaw twitching. Forced as he had been to open his door to him, nothing but his innate sense of breeding had, he felt, allowed the man to cross his threshold. What he regretted most now was that he had asked him to be seated. Ford’s hail-fellow-well-met manner sent the hot blood in him tingling. Twice during the account of the remarkable history of the watch Enoch had tried to check him and failed; he might as well have tried to halt the street vender of a patent medicine, selling with both hands to a gullible crowd. Only when his visitor had changed the subject to a rapid-fire eulogy over the hospitality of the young men on the floor beneath, touching at length upon the party of the night before—the wisdom of Mrs. Ford—theprice of rent in other towns—and the care he had always observed in giving his daughter the best education money could buy, including French and piano lessons, did Enoch manage to dam the torrent of his volubility with:
“Mr. Ford, you must consider our interview at an end, sir—I am late and must be going,” and with that he strode over to the bedroom closet for his coat and hat.
Ebner Ford slowly rose to his feet.
“Want any help?” he ventured as he watched Enoch dig a closed fist into the sleeve of his night-coat.
“Thank you,” said Enoch curtly, wrenching himself into the rest of the ulster, “I’m not so old but that I can dress myself.”
“What I’d like to say,” continued Ford, as Enoch searched the corners of the closet for his night-stick, found it, and started to turn down the Argand burner on the centre-table, “is—that it makes an almighty big difference what kind of a house you’re in—don’t it?—as I told Mrs. Ford, we couldn’t have struck a better place—folks in it make a difference, too. Don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself more’n I did last night. Quite a party, Mr. Crane—you missed it. Big-hearted fellers, both of ’em. We certainly had a royal time. Sorry you couldn’t make it, friend—you were invited, of course——”
In reply, the Argand burner sank to a dull blue flame. Enoch led the way in the semidarkness to his door.
“Some day when you’ve got more time,” continued Ford, “I’d like to show you just about the slickest laundry plant this side of Broadway. What we done was to get the best machinery money can buy, and we’re not sorry. Take our flat work alone. Fourteen steam-mangles, and seven wringers—figure that out and you’ll see how much business we do a month. Stocks above par, Mr. Crane; no man could ask a better investment for his money. Now, there’s a hundred shares preferred that——”
“After you, sir,” said Enoch, as he slammed his door shut, turned the key in the lock, and hurried his unwelcome visitor before him down the creaky, carpeted stairs.
“At seven per cent,” rattled on Ford over his shoulder as he descended and halted at the Grimsby-Atwater door. “Think it over, neighbor.”
“I bid you good night, sir,” said Enoch, quickening his pace past him.
“Damn his impertinence!” he muttered to himself as he reached the front door, opened it, closed it with a click, and rushed for a horse-car en route to his club.