V.
Grand Pacific Hotel,Chicago, April 8.Dear Cy:—Your two letters of the25th and 28th ult., forwarded from Denver, were received here only this morning on my return from Milwaukee, where I have been for the past week negotiating the sale of that Eagle Gulch mining property, in which I am interested. I think it will be a go, and if so, I shall be heeled—otherwise busted.It was very good of you, old boy, to take so much trouble to look Miss Parsons up and to “locate” that scamp Ketchum. I shall not be anxious, now that I know you will keep an eye on her. But you are clear off, Cy, as to her loving or hating me.No doubt she likes me a little bit, for I have long been a friend of the family; and they were always kind to me when they were rich, and I have carried pretty Polly around in my arms when she was a baby. I knew her father back in Virginia before they were married.Pretty? I should think she is pretty. That is why I felt so particularly anxious about her going to Creede. If she had been a ewe-necked old scrub of a typewriter, with a peaked nose and a pair of gooseberry eyes in her head, do you fancy I could have been solicitous about her not being able to take care of herself or have dreamt of interesting you in her?WomanCyrus, my princely buck, if there was any “peculiar light” in pretty Polly’s eyes, it was admiration for your manly figure. You are too modest to ever do yourself justice.I am glad you found Ketchum and the Sure Thing Mining Company. I had to laugh at the mystery you make of that back room into which you were not permitted to peep. No doubt he was working some pilgrim in there to whom he expected to sellstock, and did not want to be interrupted.I met a broker the other day who knew him well here. He is a scamp, as I thought; but not exactly the kind of scamp I thought. He has had a career on the Exchange here and was once a heavy operator and made big money, but his reputation was never first-class and it has become decidedly odorous of late years through his connection with snide stock schemes of one kind and another. But he has kept out of jail and isn’t a person a man can exactly refuse to speak to.He worked a Napoleonic confidence deal in grain here, some five or six years back, and came within an ace of cleaning up a million or more on it; but the fraud was discovered and the bubble exploded, leaving him beggared both in fortune and reputation. Hehad tangled a lot of respectable operators up in the scheme, so that it did not look so very bad for him personally, and he escaped prosecution. Since then he has figured as a promoter, keeping himself in the shade.Parsons, Polly’s father, was the man who discovered and defeated his fraud; and the story goes here, that in revenge, he set the trap into which Parsons fell and lost all except his honor. Parsons has a good name here still, I find, among the brokers, because he made an honest settlement, although it left him penniless and broken-spirited. It is strange that he hasn’t come to see me. I tried to find him when I first came; but he was always somewhere else, and when I went to Milwaukee, I left a note for him, but have heard nothing. I shall try to see him before I leave.I find Ketchum has a wife and some children here, and that he doesn’t figure as a Lothario at all as I suspected. On the contrary, he is quite a model in his domestic relations—takes his family to church and all that, and is a shining light in the Sunday-school and the Y. M. C. A. So I fancy our pretty Polly is in no great danger from him. It is singular though, why he should have engaged the daughter of a man whom he must hate, as his confidential clerk—and at such a preposterous salary, too. It is suspicious; but after all, it may be a freak of kindness, finding the man whose ruin he has planned so destitute. It is just as safe to take the charitable view as any, even of a scamp. Human motives are always mixed.I cannot say when I will be at home; but write often, directing toDenver, and keep a brotherly eye on our pretty Polly.Yours,Fitz-Mac.
Grand Pacific Hotel,Chicago, April 8.
Dear Cy:—Your two letters of the25th and 28th ult., forwarded from Denver, were received here only this morning on my return from Milwaukee, where I have been for the past week negotiating the sale of that Eagle Gulch mining property, in which I am interested. I think it will be a go, and if so, I shall be heeled—otherwise busted.
It was very good of you, old boy, to take so much trouble to look Miss Parsons up and to “locate” that scamp Ketchum. I shall not be anxious, now that I know you will keep an eye on her. But you are clear off, Cy, as to her loving or hating me.
No doubt she likes me a little bit, for I have long been a friend of the family; and they were always kind to me when they were rich, and I have carried pretty Polly around in my arms when she was a baby. I knew her father back in Virginia before they were married.
Pretty? I should think she is pretty. That is why I felt so particularly anxious about her going to Creede. If she had been a ewe-necked old scrub of a typewriter, with a peaked nose and a pair of gooseberry eyes in her head, do you fancy I could have been solicitous about her not being able to take care of herself or have dreamt of interesting you in her?
Woman
Cyrus, my princely buck, if there was any “peculiar light” in pretty Polly’s eyes, it was admiration for your manly figure. You are too modest to ever do yourself justice.
I am glad you found Ketchum and the Sure Thing Mining Company. I had to laugh at the mystery you make of that back room into which you were not permitted to peep. No doubt he was working some pilgrim in there to whom he expected to sellstock, and did not want to be interrupted.
I met a broker the other day who knew him well here. He is a scamp, as I thought; but not exactly the kind of scamp I thought. He has had a career on the Exchange here and was once a heavy operator and made big money, but his reputation was never first-class and it has become decidedly odorous of late years through his connection with snide stock schemes of one kind and another. But he has kept out of jail and isn’t a person a man can exactly refuse to speak to.
He worked a Napoleonic confidence deal in grain here, some five or six years back, and came within an ace of cleaning up a million or more on it; but the fraud was discovered and the bubble exploded, leaving him beggared both in fortune and reputation. Hehad tangled a lot of respectable operators up in the scheme, so that it did not look so very bad for him personally, and he escaped prosecution. Since then he has figured as a promoter, keeping himself in the shade.
Parsons, Polly’s father, was the man who discovered and defeated his fraud; and the story goes here, that in revenge, he set the trap into which Parsons fell and lost all except his honor. Parsons has a good name here still, I find, among the brokers, because he made an honest settlement, although it left him penniless and broken-spirited. It is strange that he hasn’t come to see me. I tried to find him when I first came; but he was always somewhere else, and when I went to Milwaukee, I left a note for him, but have heard nothing. I shall try to see him before I leave.
I find Ketchum has a wife and some children here, and that he doesn’t figure as a Lothario at all as I suspected. On the contrary, he is quite a model in his domestic relations—takes his family to church and all that, and is a shining light in the Sunday-school and the Y. M. C. A. So I fancy our pretty Polly is in no great danger from him. It is singular though, why he should have engaged the daughter of a man whom he must hate, as his confidential clerk—and at such a preposterous salary, too. It is suspicious; but after all, it may be a freak of kindness, finding the man whose ruin he has planned so destitute. It is just as safe to take the charitable view as any, even of a scamp. Human motives are always mixed.
I cannot say when I will be at home; but write often, directing toDenver, and keep a brotherly eye on our pretty Polly.
Yours,Fitz-Mac.