"When the time comes that you want help, when you cannot go on alone—"
"When the time comes that you want help, when you cannot go on alone—"
It sounded like woman's sentiment, and I interrupted jokingly:—
"When I am in the last ditch, cable you?"
"Don't laugh at me! I am more earnest than you know. If that time comes—if you don't know which way to turn for help, if you have doneall, and still—"
We were standing beside a bandstand, and at that moment the music crashed out, flooding us with deafening sound.
She pressed my hand, smiled, and turned away. I thought no more of her words then. But some weeks later, before the Drounds sailed for Europe, there came in my mail an envelope addressed in a woman's hand. Inside there was only another envelope, marked:—
"For the last ditch!"
I tossed it into a drawer, rather annoyed by the silliness of it all. It was the first evidence of weakness I had ever detected in this intelligent woman.
NO GOSPEL GAME
Elementary lessons in finance—What is a panic?—The snake begins to show signs of life—An injunction of the court—Inquiries—Ed Hostetter knows our man—How to deal with a political judge—Slocum objects—My will prevails—The injunction is dissolved
Elementary lessons in finance—What is a panic?—The snake begins to show signs of life—An injunction of the court—Inquiries—Ed Hostetter knows our man—How to deal with a political judge—Slocum objects—My will prevails—The injunction is dissolved
Sarah and I were sitting over our coffee one morning, six months after the Fair had closed its gates for the last time. Our second child, a little girl, was but a few weeks old, and this was the first morning that Sarah had breakfasted with me for some weeks. She had been glancing at the morning paper, and suddenly she looked up from it with wonder on her face.
"The Tenth National Bank has failed. Isn't that Mr. Cross's bank?"
I nodded.
"Will the Crosses lose all their money?"
"It's likely enough—what's left of it—all his and her folks', too."
"Yesterday some one told me the Kentons were trying to sell their place at the lake. What does it mean? Why are people growing poor?"
"It's the panic," I answered briefly. "Business has been getting worse and worse ever since the Fair. Somethink it started with the Fair, but the trouble goes back of that."
She put aside the paper and looked at me seriously.
"Van, what is a panic?"
It seemed strange that she should ask such a question in a simple, childish way. But she had been shut away from people and things of late, and it was not her nature to explore what was not right in her path.
"A panic," I replied, finishing my coffee, "is hell! Now I must run and see what has happened to us."
She looked at me in round-mouthed astonishment, and when I bent over to kiss her good-by, she said reprovingly:
"You don't mean it could touch us, Van?"
"It might," I smiled, thinking of the troubled waters where I was swimming.
"We must trust Providence—"
"And me."
"Van!" she kissed me with a bit of reproof. "I wish you would be more religious."
My wife had been growing very serious of late. Under May's example she had taken to church work and attended religious classes. She and May had discovered lately a new preacher, who seemed a very earnest young man. The Bible class he had formed sometimes met at our house, and Sarah preferred to go to his church, which was a long way from our house, to the church near by where we had a pew. It made little difference where I was taken to church, and I was glad to have Sarah pleased with her young preacher. So I kissed my wife good-by and hurried off, half an hour late as it was.
There was trouble brewing. It had shown a hand some months back, darkly and mysteriously. One day, while I was East, a man had walked into Slocum's office, introduced himself as a Henry A. Frost, and said that he represented some minority bondholders of the defunct London and Chicago Company. We knew that there were a few scattered bonds outstanding, not more than forty thousand dollars all told, but we had never looked for trouble from them. Mr. Frost represented to Slocum that his "syndicate" did not wish to make us trouble, but that before the property of the London and Chicago concern was finally turned over to our corporation he wished to effect a settlement. Slocum asked him his figure for the bonds held by his "syndicate," believing at the worst that Frost would demand little more than the cash price of fifty. To his astonishment the man wanted par and interest, and when Slocum laughed at his proposal, he threw out hints of trouble that might come if his "syndicate" were not satisfied.
Slocum referred the matter to me, and advised me to seek some compromise with Frost. "For," he said, "our record is not altogether clear in that transaction," referring to the sum we had paid for services to the treasurer of the bankrupt corporation. This move on the part of Frost and his associates was blackmail, of course, but the lawyer advised compromise. It would have been the wise thing to do; but having succeeded so far, I felt my oats too much to be held up in this fashion. I refused peremptorily to deal with the man, and Slocum intimated to him, when he called for a reply, that we would notconsider giving him more than the other bondholders had received; namely, fifty per cent of the par value of the bonds he held in new bonds. Frost went off, and we had heard nothing more from him.
Meanwhile we had gone our way, making ready to turn over our properties, rounding up this matter and that, guarding against the tight money market, and quietly getting things in order for putting out our securities. Then one day had come, like a thunderbolt from an open sky, an injunction, restraining the American Meat Products Company from taking over the properties of the London and Chicago Company, the petitioners alleging that they held bonds of the latter concern, and that the sale of its properties to the representatives of the American Meat Products Company had been tainted with fraud. A Judge Garretson, of the Circuit Court, had granted the temporary injunction one night at his house, and the argument for the permanent decree was set for April 10, a fortnight later. The names of the petitioners, all but Frost's, were unknown to us.
"There is the trail of the snake!" Slocum muttered when he had read the injunction. "We had better find Lokes. This will be in the papers to-night, and in the Eastern papers to-morrow morning—you will hear from it all over."
Sure enough, the next noon I had a telegram from Farson in Boston:—
"Papers print injunction A.M.P. Co.; charge fraud. Wire explanation."
"Cousin John didn't let the grass grow under him,"Slocum grimly remarked when I handed him this telegram at luncheon. "You had better let me answer him. Now for Lokes: he denies all knowledge, and it's plain enough that he isn't interested in having this matter aired. But some one must have found out pretty accurately what has happened. Perhaps Lokes when he was drunk let out what he had got from us. Anyhow, it's blackmail, and the question is what are we going to do about it. It will cost us a pretty penny to settle now!"
The situation was alarming. Unless we could get that injunction dissolved, and speedily, our project faced serious danger. The banker Farson's telegram was only the first. The banks and our backers East and West would soon call us to account.
"Itisblackmail," I said to Slocum, "and if there is a way out we will not pay those rats. Find out what you can about them."
In a day or two he came over to me with the information he had obtained. The "syndicate" consisted of three or four cheap fellows, hangers-on of a broker's office. One of them happened to be a relative of Judge Garretson, who had issued the midnight injunction.
"I got that last from Ed Hostetter," Slocum explained. "I met him on the street as I was coming over here. Having heard that this Lucas Smith lived out Ed's way, in May Park, I asked him if he knew anything about the man. He said at once: 'You mean the jedge's brother-in-law? He's a political feller.' Of course this Smith is a bum like the rest."
So we had in Ed, who had come back to work for me,having failed in a market where I had started him after the sausage plant was sold.
"Ed," I said to him, "we want you to find out all you can about this brother-in-law of Judge Garretson's. See if you can learn how many of those London and Chicago bonds he holds."
The next morning Ed brought us the information that Lucas Smith was willing enough to talk, boasting that he and his friends were going "to tune up those packers in good style." Ed thought they had got their tip from one of Lokes's pals. It seems that Smith owned, nominally, only two of the bonds. And there we were! Slocum rubbed his chin, trying to see light in a dark place.
"What sort of a man is this Judge Garretson?" I asked the lawyer.
"Good enough for a political judge, I guess. He's up for reëlection this fall. There was some talk about his attitude in traction cases, but nothing positive against him."
"See here, Ed!"—I turned to Hostetter abruptly—"I want you to go straight out to this Lucas Smith's place and find him. Tell him you know where he can get twenty-five thousand dollars for those two bonds of his the day Judge Garretson dissolves that injunction."
"Hold on, Van!" Slocum interposed. "That is too strong! I stuck by you last time, but I won't stand for this!"
"Go on, Ed!" I called out to Hostetter peremptorily. "Tell him just that—the day the injunction is dissolved he gets twenty-five thousand dollars for his bonds, and the other rats don't get a cent!"
Slocum rose without a word and put on his hat. I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him back into his chair.
"You aren't going to quit like that, Sloco, after all these years! Think it over. What else is there for us to do? Can we have this business aired in court? What will Farson say to that story of Lokes's? Do you think we could buy the bonds from thoseratsfor any likely figure?—for any figure, if Carmichael is waiting around the corner to pick up our cake when we are forced to drop it?"
He sank into the chair rather limp, and we looked at each other for a minute or two.
"Well," he said slowly, "it might as well come out now as later."
"You have got to sit in the boat with me, Sloco! I need you." I leaned across the table and looked into his eyes. Slowly, after a time, he nodded, and gave himself up to me to do my will. In the heat of my trouble, I scarce realized what that acquiescence cost him: he never gave another sign. But it cost him, one way and another, more than I ever could repay,—and now I know it.
We walked out together, and as I turned in the direction of home I said cheerfully:—
"Once out of this mess, old man, we shall be on easy street, and you can buy a block of those old brick shanties back in Portland!"
The lawyer smiled at my speech, but turned away without another word.
Judge Garretson dissolved the injunction in due course. What is more, he roasted the petitioning parties who had entered his court "with flimsy and fraudulent pretexts." There was a righteous flavor to his eloquence that would have been worthy of a better cause. Nevertheless, that same evening Lucas Smith collected his price from Ed and delivered his bonds.
I turned to Slocum, who was with me in court when the decision was handed down, and said jubilantly:—
"That worked. They can't touch us now! I guess we've seen the end of this business."
Slocum demurred still.
"Maybe, but I doubt it. You don't think that Frost and his pals are going to sit quiet after such a roast? They will nose around to find out who sold them out."
But I did not pay much heed to the lawyer's fears.
THE STRIKE
The labor question from the inside—A talk with strikers—Tit for tat all round—A ticklish place for an argument—My anarchist—Bluff—It works—We call it square
The labor question from the inside—A talk with strikers—Tit for tat all round—A ticklish place for an argument—My anarchist—Bluff—It works—We call it square
Meantime, for a little entertainment, we had a strike in one of our Indiana plants. At first it didn't make much difference: all the packers had been shutting down here and there during the cold months, and we were ready to close that particular plant.
But as the severe winter of '94 passed, and the men saw that we were in no hurry to start work until better times, they began to get ugly, to set fire to the buildings, and do other injuries. There was no police protection to amount to anything in any of these country places, and it would cost too much to keep a sufficient force of hired detectives to guard the property.
It got on toward spring and we wanted to open the place for a short run, but I was determined not to give in to the union, especially since they had taken to hurting the property. There had been a number of strikes that year, notably the great one at Pullman, followed by the railroad trouble. It was a most senseless time for any man with a job to quit work, and the employers were feeling pretty set about not giving in.
I remember that about this time some of the preachers in the city, and among them the Reverend Mr. Hardman, Sarah's young man, got loose on the strike question and preached sermons that were printed in the newspapers. Hardman's ideas were called "Christian Socialism," and it all sounded pretty, but wouldn't work twenty-four hours in Chicago. I wanted Sarah to try a new minister, who had sense enough to stick to his Bible, but she was loyal to Hardman, and even thought there might be something in his ideas.
Well, it got along into July, and I concluded to run down to our Indiana plant and see what could be done with the situation. There was a committee of the union waiting for me in the superintendent's office. We talked back and forth a considerable time, and finally I said:—
"See here, boys, I want you to come over the plant with me and let me show you what some of you strikers have done, and what it will cost us before we can open up."
So I tramped over the place with the men, and I pointed out damages to the property that would cost the company over ten thousand dollars to repair.
"Now, go home and ask your union if they will stand for that bill?"
They thought it was my little joke. They could not understand that a union, if it is to have the power to force a rise in wages, must be responsible also for the damage done by its members. Nor could they see that if the company wasn't making money, they could not make more money out of the company.
At last, after talking with the lot of obstinate Poles for three hours, I turned them all away, with the suggestion that they might see a trainload of men coming in from the South in about a week if they didn't come back—for we were going to open on the first of the month. They trotted off to a saloon to talk it over. The superintendent shook his head and talked about a riot if we should try getting in new men. Then he and I went over the place together to see about improvements, and spent another hour looking into every corner of the building.
He left me up in the loft of the main building, while he went back for some plans that were in the office. I poked about here and there in the dusty, cobwebbed place. There was only rough scantling for a floor, and below my feet I could see the gaping mouths of the great vats, still filled with dirty, slimy water. Pretty soon I heard the tread of feet coming up the stairs. It didn't sound like the superintendent. He was a light man, and this was a heavy person. I called out to the man to take care, as the light was none too good, and a tumble to the floor below into one of those vats would be no joke. He did not reply, and I was bending over looking down between the boards and trying to make out who it was, when suddenly I felt myself grasped by the neck. I straightened up, and both of us came near tumbling over backward through the loose boarding.
"Quit your fooling!" I cried, wondering what had got into the fellow.
Then I threw him off a bit and could see that I had todo with one of those men who had been talking with me down below in the office.
"So you get some other help, you do, you do?" he began to spit at me. "I know you! I know you!"
There was very little light in that loft, for the day was pretty well over. All that could be seen by me was a stocky, short man, with a face covered by a heavy beard. I remembered that I had seen him in the office with the other men, though he had not done any talking.
"Well," I said, "what areyouafter, John?"
Considering my position, I thought it was as well to speak good-naturedly. It wasn't just the place for a wrestling match.
"I know you!" He came forward again and shook his fist in my face. "You are one of the men who murdered my friends. Yes, you did murder them!"
"You're drunk, John," I said as coolly as I could.
"Yes, you do know. Seven, eight year ago. At the trial!"
"So you are an anarchist! Those were your friends, were they?"
"And this time yust look out for yourself!"
He made a grab for me, and I jumped out of his reach. In doing so, I slipped on one of the boards, and went through part way. In the distance below me I could see those tough-looking vats.
It was only a question now of how soon the superintendent would come. I could not hear the sound of his steps below. Perhaps my anarchist had settled him first. In that case there was little help for me. If Ishould struggle, he could kick me over the edge as easily as you could brush off a fly from the side of a bowl. So, to gain time, I thought I would try to make the man talk. Then, at the last, I could grab him by the legs and fight it out in that way, or pull him down with me.
He undertook to give me a lesson then and there on the rights of the anarchist.
He undertook to give me a lesson then and there on the rights of the anarchist.
"So you think you'll get even by killing me! What is the good of that? You'll be caught the first thing, and you and your mates won't get one cent more for your day's work than you've had before. I don't count for so much. Some one else will take my place in this business, and you will have the same trick to play over again. He will boss you, and you will work for him."
My theory of life seemed to amuse my earnest friend, for he undertook to give me a lesson then and there on the rights of the anarchist.
"Maybe all the others like you will get killed some day," he concluded.
"Perhaps, John," I answered. "But you'll never kill us all. That's one sure thing. And if by any luck youshould do away with all my kind, your own men would take to robbing you on a big scale as they do now on a small one. Here, give me your hand and help me out."
Very likely his answer to my bluff would be my end. But I was tired out, holding my two hundred pounds there in the air with my elbows. Strangely enough, while I watched him, waiting for him to act, and expecting the last blow, I did not seem to care half as much as I should have expected to. I thought of Sarah and the children; I hated to leave the job I had set myself half-done, with a lot of loose ends for other folks to bungle over; and it didn't look inviting down there below. But the fall alone would probably do for me at once, and, personally, my life didn't seem to be of much consequence.
But my anarchist friend made no move. It seemed to trouble him, the way I took his attack. So I gave a great heave, raised myself half up to the girder where he stood, and held out my hand.
He took it! A moment more I found myself standing upright beside my anarchist. The next thing was to induce him to continue the discussion a few floors lower down, where there would be less likelihood of losing our balance in the course of a heated argument. But I sat down, friendly-like, on one of the cross-beams, and began to talk.
"So you are an anarchist? Yes, I helped to hang your friends. I had some doubts about the matter then. But just here, now, after my experience with you, I haven't any at all."
I gave him a good sermon—the gospel of man againstman, as I knew it, as I had learned it in my struggles for fortune. I showed him how I was more bound than he,—bound hand and foot, for he could run away, and I couldn't. At bottom he wasn't a bad sort of fellow, only easily excited and loose-minded. In conclusion I said:—
"Now we'll just step down. I am going home to get some supper."
I started, and he followed on meekly after me. It was a rather creepy feeling I had, going over those stairs! They were perfectly dark by this time, and steep.
"You'll try to fix me for this?" the fellow said, when we reached the first floor, and I had started toward the office.
"I guess we'll call this square," I replied, "and forget it. Good night."
He made a line for the gate, and that was the last I ever saw of him. I found the superintendent locked in the office. He had been spending his time telephoning to the nearest town for help.
Then I took the train for Chicago. That experience was the greatest bracer I had ever had in my life. Hanging there with the expectation every minute of dropping into the vats below had steadied my nerves for a good long haul. And I needed it, too.
DENOUNCED
The snake lifts its head—My picture gets into the newspaper—The Reverend Mr. Hardman in his church—The opinions of ministers—Mr. Hardman points his finger at me—I reply—A scene—The real blow—May has her say—Women, religion, and this earth
The snake lifts its head—My picture gets into the newspaper—The Reverend Mr. Hardman in his church—The opinions of ministers—Mr. Hardman points his finger at me—I reply—A scene—The real blow—May has her say—Women, religion, and this earth
It was the Saturday after my little adventure in Indiana. As I was riding downtown in a street car, my eye was caught by a coarse cut in the newspaper that the man opposite me was reading. The picture seemed in a general way familiar. Underneath it ran these flaring head-lines:—
BRIBERY OF A JUDGE!
OFFICIAL IN PACKING CONCERN IMPLICATED!
EXCLUSIVE STORY IN THENATIONALIST!
I bought a copy of the paper, and when I reached my office I read the article. It was sprung, plainly enough, to hit Garretson, who was up for reelection, and, in the main, they had a straight story,—Lokes, Frost, the judge's brother-in-law, and all. And the right figures, too! The reference to Slocum and me was vague, and Ed was left out altogether. My picture was put in alongside of the judge's and labelled "Vice-President andGeneral Manager of the American Meat Products Company." The inference was plain, and the paper wouldn't have dared to go so far, I judged, if they hadn't their facts where they could produce them. There was no word of the story in the other morning papers. I folded up the article and put it away in my desk, then telegraphed Slocum, who had gone to St. Louis on some railroad business for Farson and me.
Luckily, theNationalistwas not a sheet that ever found its way into my house, but that evening I looked apprehensively at Sarah. She was pale and quiet,—she had been downtown all day shopping,—but she said nothing to indicate that she was specially disturbed. The next day was Sunday, and though Mr. Hardman's preaching was not much to my liking, I drove over with Sarah to the little church on the North Side where he held forth. There was a pretty large congregation that morning, mostly women and poor people of the neighborhood, with a few North Side men whom I knew in a business way.
The Reverend Mr. Hardman never preached a good sermon that he had written out beforehand. He was one of those Episcopal preachers who come out in front of the chancel rail, cross their hands, look down on the floor, and meditate a few minutes to get their ideas in flow. Then they raise their eyes in a truly soulful manner and begin. But to-day, for some reason, Mr. Hardman didn't go through his trick. He marched out as if he had something on his mind to get rid of quick, and shot out his text:—
"What shall it profit a man if he gain all and lose his own soul?"
Then he began talking very distinctly, pausing every now and then after he had delivered a sentence. He said that we had fallen on evil days; that corruption was abroad in the land, polluting the springs of our national life. And the law breakers came and went boldly in our midst, the rich and powerful, the most envied and socially respected. Every one knows the style of his remarks from that introduction. Most preachers nowadays feel that they must say this sort of thing once or twice a year, or their people won't believe they read the papers. So long as he kept out in the open I had no objection to his volleys. I had heard it all before, and in the main I agreed with him—only he saw but a little way into the truth.
Suddenly his right arm, which had been hanging limp by his side, shot out, and as we were sitting pretty well up front on the main aisle itseemedto point at us. Sarah gave a little start, and her cheeks flushed red.
"And I say," the minister thundered, "that when such men come into our churches, when they have the effrontery to mingle with God-fearing people, and, unrepentant of their crimes, desecrate this sanctuary, yea, partake of the Holy Body, I say it is worse for them than if they were mere common thieves and robbers! I tell you, my people, that here in our very midst one of them comes—a man who has defied the laws of man and God, the most sacred; who has corrupted the source of justice; whohas bought that which the law denied him! This man has used...."
I had been getting angry, and was looking the minister in the eye pretty fiercely. At that moment Sarah gave a little groan. She was very white.
"Come!" I whispered to her, getting up. "Come. It's time you got out of this."
At first she shook her head, but as I refused to sit down she rose to follow me. I had stepped to the aisle and turned to give Sarah my arm when she fainted—just sank down with a groan in my arms.
"So this is the gospel you preach!" I called out to the minister, who had paused and now stepped forward to help me raise Sarah. "Let her alone! You have hit her hard enough already. Another time when you undertake this kind of business, you had better know what you are talking about."
He stepped back to his desk and kept silent, while I and one of the ushers who had come forward to help me lifted Sarah and carried her to the door. When we got to the end of the aisle Sarah opened her eyes and stood up.
"I have had enough ofyourgospel, my friend!" I called back. "I am going where I shall hear religion and not newspaper scandal."
Sarah groaned and pulled gently at my arm. Once in the carriage, she turned her face to the window and looked out as if she were still shocked and sick. I tried to say something to comfort, but I could only think of curses for that meddlesome Pharisee, who thought it was his duty to judge his flock.
"Don't talk about it!" Sarah exclaimed, as if my words gave her pain.
So we rode home in silence all the way. At the end she turned to me:—
"Just say it isn't true, Van!"
I began to say a few words of explanation.
"No, just say it isn't true!" she interrupted. "I can't understand all that you are saying. Just say that you haven't done anything wrong. That's all I want."
"Some people would think it was wrong, Sarah," I had to say after a while.
She gave a little groan and shut her lips tight. When we entered the house May was there, with her children.
"Why, my land!" she exclaimed on seeing us. "What brings you people back so soon? Sarah looks sick!"
Sarah was ready to faint again. May helped her up to her room, and I went into my study. Pretty soon May came down to me.
"What's the matter with Sarah, Van?" she asked sharply. "She seems all queer and out of her head."
Then I told her what had happened.
"Did you see the piece in the paper?" I asked at the end.
May shook her head. "But I shouldn't wonder if Sarah had seen it."
"Why do you think so?" I asked.
"Why, she seemed troubled about something yesterday when she came into the house after she had been downtown shopping. She asked me whether I generallybelieved the things I saw in the papers. I asked her what kind of things, and she said,—'Scandals about people in business.' I thought it was queer at the time."
"She won't talk to me about it," I said.
May didn't make any reply to this, and we sat there some time without talking. Then May asked in a queer little voice:—
"Tell me, Van, is there anything in that story? Is it true in the least way?"
"I'll tell you just how it was," I answered.
May was not the kind of person that could be put off with a general answer, and I was glad to give her the inside story. So I told her the circumstances of the case. "It was blackmail and robbery—the judge was waiting to be bought. These rats stood between us and what we had a perfect right to do. There's hardly a business man in this city who, under the circumstances, would not have done what we did!"
"I don't believe that!" May exclaimed in her sharp, decisive little way.
She sat looking at me rather sternly with the same look on her face that I had remembered for twenty years. And the next thing that she said was pretty much what I thought she was going to say:—
"Van, you are always a great hand to think what you want to believe is the only thing to believe! You know that!"
She smiled unconsciously, with the little ironical ripple which I knew so well, and I smiled, too. Icouldn't help myself. We both seemed to have gone back to the old boy and girl days. But I was angry, as well, and began to defend myself.
"No," she interrupted. "It isn't a mite of use for you to bluster and get angry, Van. I don't trust you! I haven't for some time. I have been worried for Will. Don't you let him mix himself up in your ways of doing things, Van Harrington!"
"If he is so terribly precious," I said hotly, "I guess you had better take him back to Jasonville."
"Maybe I shall," she answered quietly. "I'd take him to the meanest little place in creation rather than know he had done any such thing as you say you have done!"
We were both pretty angry by this time, and yet we both smiled. She was such a snappy, strong little woman—I admired her all the time she was making me angry! Somehow it brought back all that time long ago when I had thought the world began and ended with her. We had never been so near each other since. And I think she felt somewhat in the same way.
"Well," I said at last, "I am not going to fight this thing out with you, May, or with any other woman. I have too much else on hand. I am answerable for all I do or have done. If you and Will don't like my company, why, we have got to do without you."
I wished I hadn't been so small as to make that fling. She flashed a look at me out of her eyes that brought me to my senses in a moment. I took her by the shoulders. "See here, May, we mustn't quarrel. Let'sall hang together in this, as in other things. You women don't know what business means."
She smiled back into my eyes and retorted, "It seems to be just as well we don't!" In a moment more she added: "But you mustn't think that I can make up like this. You and I don't look at things in the same way."
"Never did!" I said dryly. "At any rate, you had better go up now and look after Sarah. She can't keep on this way. She's got to look at this more sensibly. She isn't like you, May!"
"No," May retorted, "she isn't! But this hurts her, too. Perhaps she cares more what folkssaythan I do. And she believes in her religion, Van."
"That's all right. Her religion tells her to forgive, and not to judge, and a few other sensible truths, which that minister seemed to forget to-day."
"I never expected to see you, Van Harrington, asking for quarter in that way!" she flashed.
Then she went back to Sarah. What my sister-in-law said set me to thinking queer thoughts. I admired the way she took the matter, though it made me pretty angry at the time. It seemed straight and courageous, like her. If we had married, down there at home in the years past, there would have been some pretty lively times between us. I could never have got her to look at things my way, and I don't see how I could have come to see things her way. For in spite of all the preacher and May had to say, my feeling was unchanged: women and clergy, they were both alike, made for some other kind of earth than this. I was made for just this earth, good and bad as it is,—and I must go my way to my end.
TREACHERY
Who was the traitor?—Slocum's logic—We send for our accomplice—One look is enough—The poison of envy—I see the last of an old friend—Slocum points the moral—What people know—Public opinion—Cousin Farson again—We lunch at a depot restaurant—I touch granite
Who was the traitor?—Slocum's logic—We send for our accomplice—One look is enough—The poison of envy—I see the last of an old friend—Slocum points the moral—What people know—Public opinion—Cousin Farson again—We lunch at a depot restaurant—I touch granite
The Monday morning after Mr. Hardman's outbreak, Slocum was waiting for me at my office. In reply to my telegram he had come back from St. Louis, where he had been attending to some business in connection with Farson's railroad.
"They got it pretty straight this time," was all he said as a greeting, with a care-worn sort of smile.
"They can't prove it! We'll bring suit for libel. I must put myself straight—for family reasons."
But the lawyer shook his head doubtfully.
"That wouldn't be safe, Van! It's too close a guess. I rather think they've got all the proof they want."
"Where did they get it, then? Not out of Lokes. He hasn't any reason to squeal. Nor the judge, nor his brother-in-law!"
"Of course not; but how about Frost? This is the way I figure it out: when those rats were euchred in their hold-up game by Garretson's dismissing his injunction, they were mad enough and determined to find out who sold them. It didn't take them long to see that the judge had been fixed in some way. They nosed around, and spotted the judge's brother-in-law as the one who made the trade. Then they started out to get proof."
"Well?"
Slocum looked at me shrewdly.
"I have been thinking about that all the way back from St. Louis. There is only one man left in the combination."
We stared at each other for a minute.
"You don't meanhim!" I gasped.
"Who else?"
"Not Hostetter—not Ed!"
"Send for him, and we'll find out," he answered shortly.
I telephoned out to our office in the Yards to send Hostetter to the city, and while we waited we discussed the story in all its bearings.
"We've got the trick," Slocum commented in reply to my desire for action. "And Marx, who managed this business for Carmichael, is shrewd enough to see it.Theywon't bother us."
There was some comfort in that reflection: no matter what the scandal might be, we had the London and Chicago properties in our possession, and nothing short of a long fight in court could wrest them from our control.
"The only thing to do," the lawyer continued, "is to keep quiet. The papers will bark while the election ison, and it looks mighty bad for Garretson. But out here most people forget easily."
It was queer to hear old Slocum talking in that cynical tone, as if, having accepted the side that was not to his taste, he took pleasure in pointing out its safety.
"Well," I grumbled, thinking of May and Sarah, "it's mighty uncomfortable to be held up by rats like Lokes, Frost, and company, and then be branded as a briber!"
"What do you care?" Slocum asked harshly. "It won't hurtyoumuch. You'll make money just the same, and there aren't many who would lay this up against you. Of course, there are always a few who are shrewd enough to guess just about what has happened, and remember,—yes, remember a story for years! But you don't care for their opinion!"
I knew that he was thinking of the honest men in his own profession, the honorable men at the head of the bar, who would mark him henceforth as my hired man.
Hostetter arrived soon, a shifty look in his eyes. He had changed a good deal since that time he had slept out on the lake front. He was a heavy man, now, with a fleshy face, and his dress showed a queer love for loud finery. He wore a heavy seal ring, and a paste diamond in his tie, which was none too clean. His sandy mustache dropped tight over his mouth. Yet in spite of his dress and his jewellery, he was plainly enough the countryman still.
"Ed," I said at once, "have you been talking to any one about that matter of the bonds—the deal with Lucas Smith?"
He glanced at Slocum and then at me. One look at his face was enough: the story was there.
"You low dog!" I broke out.
Slocum tried to hush me. Hostetter muttered something about not knowing what we were talking about.
"You're lying, Ed! Tell me the whole truth. Did you sell what you knew to theNationalist, or to Frost and his crowd?"
He became stubborn all at once, and refused to answer. I turned to the lawyer:—
"See that man! I picked him out of the bankruptcy court two years ago, after giving him his third start in business. Last winter I sent his wife South and kept her there six months so that she could get well."
I turned to Ed.
"Whose bread are you eating now, to-day?"
He picked up his hat and started for the door. But I called him back. It came over me all at once what we had been through together, and I couldn't let him leave that way, sneak out of my sight for good and all.
"Tell me, Ed," I asked, more miserable than he, "are you going over to Carmichael to get some more pay for this?"
"Maybe, if I did," he replied sullenly, "it'd be some better than it is working for you."
"I don't think so—not long. Folks like you aren't worth much. Come, Ed! Did I ever do a mean thing to you? Didn't I give fifteen cents when we hadn't but twenty between us? What were you thinking when you did this dirty piece of business? Just tell me youwere drunk when you did it. I would have given you ten times as much as you ever got from them to know you couldn't do it!"
"You have done something the taste of which will never get out of your mouth."
"You have done something the taste of which will never get out of your mouth."
Then he began to go to pieces and cry, and he told me all I wanted to know. It was a plain case of the poison of envy. I was rich and on top, and he was working for thirty dollars a week for me. His wife, who had always kept a grudge against me for not making up to her in the old days, had taunted him for taking his wages from me. She kept telling him that I did nothing for him, and when she found out about his dealing with Lucas Smithfor me, she saw her chance. Somehow Frost got on his track, and evidently they thought his information was worth paying something for. That was the whole story.
While we were talking, Slocum slipped out of the room. It was a pitiful scene.
"Ed," I said finally, "you must go back to the country. That is the only place for you. You'll grow worse in the city the longer you stay. Your belly's got bigger than your brain, and your heart is tainted at the core. I will start you on a ranch I've got in Texas. Think it over and get out of this place as soon as you can. I'm sorry for you, Ed. For you have done something the taste of which will never get out of your mouth."
He left my office without a word, and that was the last I ever saw of him. When he had gone Slocum came back and sat down.
"It was a pretty tough thing for Ed to do," he remarked calmly, looking out into the muddy street, where men were hurrying along the pavements. I made no remark, and he added in the same far-off tone of voice: "That's the worst of any piece of crooked business: it breaks up the man you work with. Ed is a rascal now—and he was never that before!"
"That's true enough," I assented gloomily.
Slocum advised me to leave the city for a while, because should theNationalistcharges be investigated by the Grand Jury, it might be awkward for me. But I refused to leave the city: no matter what happened, I was not the man to run and hide. The Democratic papers made all they could out of the affair, and thenafter the election it died away. Garretson was reëlected, and that was a kind of vindication for him.
But the insiders in the city knew that something had been wrong, and, as Slocum said, the scandal connected with quashing that injunction followed us for many years. It was of less importance to me than to Slocum; for the men with whom I dealt were used to stories like mine. They believed what they had a mind to, and did business. But for Slocum it was more serious.
The worst of it for me was at home. Sarah brooded over the newspaper talk until she was morbid, refusing to go almost anywhere she would be likely to meet people she knew. The Bible classes had been given up, and, naturally enough, we never went back to Mr. Hardman's church, nor returned to our old church. Sarah and I talked about it once or twice, but we got nowhere.
"I should think you would care for the children!" she would cry, persisting in considering me as a criminal.
"You'll see that it won't make the smallest difference to any one a year hence, if you'll only hold up your head!"
"Well, I don't understand business, but May thinks it pretty bad, I know, because she doesn't come to the house any more when you are at home."
"She has no reason to act that way. And I don't mean to have you or May or any other woman holding me up with your notions of what's right and wrong, just because the newspapers make a lot of talk."
That ended the matter between us; but for a long time Sarah avoided our old friends, and the house was unusually quiet.
What troubled me more than the racket in Chicago was the way that Dround and Farson and a few other of our backers might take the story. The Drounds were in Egypt, but they would hear the news quickly enough. Mr. Dround was the president of our corporation, and the most influential single stockholder. With his ideas, he might become a nuisance, or draw out altogether, which would be awkward in the present condition of the company.
As for Farson, I always counted a good deal on that crusty bit of rock, and he had never failed me yet. One thing after another had come up in the last four years, and he and his friends had backed me solidly. We were pretty deep in other enterprises than this packing business—railroads and land in that Southwest where I had set my eyes. While the scandal was the worst we never heard a word from Farson, and I was congratulating myself that he had overlooked the matter, when one morning I received a despatch: "Meet me Union Station twelve to-morrow.Farson." That was all.
When he got out of the sleeper that noon I missed his usual warm smile. He refused my invitation to lunch at the City Club, and led the way into the fly-specked, smelly restaurant at the station. We ate our miserable meal, and he said little while I talked to him about our affairs. It was like talking to a blank wall: he listened but said nothing. After a while he interrupted me in a kind of thin whisper, as if his mind had been absent all the time:—
"What about this Judge Garretson? It isn't true?"
"You mean what the papers say?"
The old gentleman didn't like newspapers. But he waived that aside with a frown.
"The facts!" he whispered across the table. "I should not have mentioned it had it not been for a conversation which I had the other day in New York with Judge Sloan, of the Chicago bar. He tells me that it is generally believed to be true that this Garretson was bribed, and that my old friend Jeff Slocum was mixed up in it. He says that Slocum has lost his reputation among the best men of the profession on account of his connection with this scandal. What are the facts?"
"This is hardly the place to go into all that," I replied somewhat tartly.
"I don't know but that the place is good enough," the banker observed dryly, "provided you have the right things to say." But he took the frost out of his severe tone by one of his most genial smiles, and added more gently:—
"Perhaps you young men don't realize how serious it is to have such rumors get around about your reputation. Why, my boy, it puts you in another class! You are no longer gentlemen, who can be trusted with honest people's money and confidence."
Farson would be a hard man to bring to my point of view! I said by way of allegory:—
"When a man comes out of the alley and puts a pistol in your face, and asks for all the money you have on you, you don't wait to see where you hit him, do you? We don'there in Chicago. The men who are making all this talk were the hold-ups, and they did not get our money." I laughed.