Not long since I had a visit from Gwynne Peters' oldest boy. The little fellow is twelve, and, as I abstained from any embarrassing and inconvenient demonstrations of affection or even friendship, we became quite intimate, and I believe he enjoyed himself after a fashion. He is not like his father, neither so delicate in body, nor so gentle and winning as I remember the elder Gwynne—but, in truth, I do not know if I ever found the way to his heart, with all my diplomacy; the unconquerable barrier of age divided us; childhood looks with so solidly-rooted a suspicion on our efforts to approach it; it guards its quaint jungles, its enchanted gardens with so jealous a care that we may well despair of ever touching hands. And for that matter I sometimes think we are all strangers more or less to the end, and our nearest intimacy only a painful interchange of signals in a fog. Little Gwynne tolerated me, and I soon ceased to ask anything else. He approved of cookies and the works of Mr. Alger; as these latter immortal productions do not form a part of my library, we were obliged to call upon the Carnegie one a few squares distant, whence he requisitioned them at the rate of a new Alger volume about every twenty-four hours until the supply was exhausted, when we began on Mr. Henty. This fell out very luckily, as I had discovered him asleep in a corner over "Ivanhoe," and I should not have wished him to carry away so unfavourable an impression of my resources in the way of entertainment.But what I most observed in him was an indifference to, or ignorance of, his family history and traditions that seemed abnormal in a Gwynne, however remotely descended. I asked him if he had ever been to see his great-grandfather's portrait in the State-House? The moment was ill-chosen, as he was profoundly occupied with a new variety of top, but he absently answered: "Yep."
"What did you think of it?"
"Nothin'," said this renegade, with astounding callousness, bending himself to the top; it was warranted to spin five minutes at a stretch, and when he had got it started, and was timing it by my watch, he felt his mind released from cares enough to volunteer indulgently: "Father's got a big photograph of it in his office. It's all yellow and fly-specky, because it's so old, you know. I guess it's 'most as old as father—or maybeyou."
"Doesn't your father ever tell you about him—what a great man he was, and all?"
"Nope."
"What!" said I, then, unable to believe my ears. "Doesn't he ever talk to you about Governor Gwynne? Doesn't anybody ever tell you to remember that you're a Gwynne?" The top was reeling to its fall, and he was very busy, and, as I could see, justifiably annoyed at my persistence, but this question caused him to look up sharply with the quick suspicion of his twelve years.
"Aw, you're in fun!" he said, eying me shrewdly. "Father wouldn't talk guff like that! And anyway my name's Peters—Gwynne's just my given name—so it wouldn't be true, see?" Guff like that! These were his sacrilegious words. Nothing could have more stingingly brought home to me thelapse of years, or better illustrated the changes in men's minds. And I might here insert some valuable reflections on the vanity of human achievement, and the hollow and transitory character of fame, if I were not uneasily conscious that Governor Gwynne's renown, even in his heyday, was not of a kind to fill the four corners of the universe; it was only in the opinion of his family that it reached those magnificent proportions. Now he and his deeds are forgotten, even by them; the fires are all dead on that fantastic altar which the Gwynnes tended for so many years with so much misplaced zeal. It is not likely, I think, that little Gwynne will ever be troubled by the problems confronting his father in March of the year of Grace, 1883.
In fact, during this time, Gwynne might have been seen any day pondering gloomily before his empty desk, under his grandfather's grimly searching scrutiny, by the hour. The Pallinder business had reached a stage when he could no longer ignore it; yet he could not bring himself to any active measures. Gwynne knew as much as anybody about the colonel's affairs; he had heard certain subdued but very disagreeable rumours. Templeton himself had brought them to him months earlier with a countenance of fright and perplexity. It had not cleared much when he left the office; the little agent could not understand what ailed his patron. He had never known Gwynne to be so indifferent, so careless of the rights and feelings of the other heirs; it was clean out of his character, and Templeton felt with dismay that his surest prop had been removed. If Mr. Peters was becoming as queer as the rest of them, Templeton was almost ready to resign from the management of the Gwynne estate; single-handed, he could not "hold up his end," as he phrased it. In the yearsof their association he had conceived something like a real affection for the young man, and this change obscurely alarmed and distressed him. Gwynne, about everything else so open, so resourceful, so patient in the control of his difficult kindred, so genially shrewd, would not allow any discussion of the Pallinder delinquency; he shifted the subject, or turned upon Templeton with a manner of such forbidding reticence that the agent shrank discomfited. "Oh, well, Mr. Peters, I—I guess I'd better leave you alone to run your tenants and the family," he would say humbly, reaching for his hat in an apologetic confusion. "I—I ain't ever made such a success of it that I've any call to argue, or adviseyouhow to do," and so would shuffle meekly from the room, leaving the young man, had he known it, in a miserable humiliation. Time and again, Gwynne had made the resolve to have it out with the colonel; and time and again had turned aside from the act, like a hunter refusing the leap. He bargained with himself, loathing his own weakness; he would go and see Colonel Pallinder on such a day at such an hour; he would say to him thus and so. The day came and the hour—why was it that something invariably prevented him? Once he even got so far as the door of Colonel Pallinder's office—and it was locked. The office was closed for the day: it was late Saturday afternoon, and in his heart Gwynne knew the office would be closed—knew it before he left his own. He turned away in a flash of angry contempt of himself—of Pallinder—of the whole shabby business. Yet the colonel was safe for that day; you cannot scour the town for a man, like a bailiff; and Gwynne certainly was not going to follow him to the house, and dun him under the very roof where he himself had received so many hospitalities, such unfailingcourtesy and kindness, within hearing of the fellow's innocent wife and daughter! What had Mrs.—ahem!—what had those two poor women done? Very likely they knew nothing whatever about Pallinder's indebtedness; they were both of them touchingly ignorant of money matters. This was strictly an affair for men—he would see Pallinder Monday. And so Gwynne strode away home, to dinner and a change of dress, and thence, by the most natural sequence in the world, to the Lexington and Amherst cars, and out to the Pallinders'! In one of his spasms of conscience he had refused their urgent invitation to the house party—the irony of his position was apparent, even to him; but he balanced the scales by going out night after night to the rehearsals of "William Tell," wherein he bore his part with a feverish enthusiasm that surprised his friends.
It might have been noticed, but, as a matter of fact, I am sure hardly anybody did notice, that Gwynne was the only one of the family who figured in the theatricals, or, in the pungent everyday phrase, had anything to do with the Pallinders. Marian Lawrence had been asked to the house party, and had eagerly promised to come, but in a day or so Mrs. Pallinder received a charming, apologetic, and graceful little note from Mrs. Lawrence, declining on Marian's behalf, for some vague reason. The truth is, Mrs. Horace Gwynne, on hearing of the plan, had once again ordered out her barouche and driven over to the Lawrences', upright and stern, with the stark face of Doom. And after a heated conference with the mother, the note had been despatched; Mrs. Lawrence sat down and cried heartily with the disappointed girl when that dire act had been performed—but neither of them thought of disobeying Cousin Jennie. When they met Mrs. Pallinderface to face coming out of church next Sunday morning they were both a good deal flustered; they flinched before Mrs. Pallinder's steadily radiant smile, and were devoutly glad, I think, to escape from her neighbourhood into the crowd. Archie Lewis walked home with Marian, and raised his hat as a carriage spun by—"That was the Pallinders with Miss Baxter," said Archie, observing with a passing surprise that his companion made no sign of recognition. "Was it? I didn't see them," said Marian stoutly, looking straight in front of her with very red cheeks. Not so long before, Mazie had been one of her most intimate friends. Look on that picture, and now on this! What was the matter with all the Gwynnes? Little old Eleanor and little old Mollie, on seeing the colonel less than half a square off, advancing upon them, already uncovered, courtly, bland, with outstretched hand—the two old sisters, I say, fairly took to their heels up a side street, with scared and shrinking faces. They gathered up their virgin skirts and fled shudderingly as from contamination. Mrs. Horace Gwynne, alone of them all, possessed the courage of her convictions. Erect in her barouche, she encountered and returned Mrs. Pallinder's smile with a salute so casual, so perfunctory that it suggested the recognition she would have bestowed upon her cook in event of a public meeting with that functionary. Mrs. Pallinder bit her lips; she reddened through her rouge—and the next moment was gaily bowing to another acquaintance as if life meant nothing to her but this pleasant exchange of civilities. "Of course I never would deliberatelycutanybody," Mrs. Horace explained later; "that sort of behaviour is childish and ill-tempered. But I flatter myself I know as well as anyone how to put people in their proper place, and intimate my opinionof them, without talking or acting like a washerwoman. I wanted Mrs. Pallinder to understand that while I was absolutely indifferent to such a matter as the back-rent she owed me and every one of us, I did not approve of theprincipleof the thing. She knew perfectly well what I meant. And at receptions or wherever she happened to be in the same company with me afterwards, I simply didn't see her at all! I was always talking to someone else, or had my back turned. She understood—apersonlike that!" I dare say Mrs. Pallinder did understand; she was not without some previous experience, and it is likely deserved every snub and stab which Mrs. Horace, with the just severity of a good and upright woman, inflicted on her. So must we all lie upon the beds we make.
This was the secret of the Gwynnes' altered demeanour; it was, of course, not the failure to pay them their rent to which they objected, but the appallingprinciple, or lack of principle, it indicated. At least, that is what they all and severally declared afterwards. At the time, with characteristic Gwynne reticence, they kept their troubles to themselves; no set of conspiring revolutionists could have been more close-mouthed. Their behaviour in this instance was of a piece with the futile pride that prompted their efforts to distract the public mind from Caroline—from Steven—from Sam Peters. What! Drag their noble name through the mud and riot of a Common Pleas suit? Associate their house and the memory of Governor Gwynne with a debasing scandal about Money! I should not care to reveal the arts by which Gwynne put off the hour of retribution for the Pallinders, playing upon these familiar strings with a skill he himself despised. Even he, in the end, sounded the note once too often, as wehave seen in the case of old Steven, to whom the sum, small as it was, meant more than to the other members of the family. For Steven, once away from the blandishments of Mrs. Pallinder, naturally reverted in the shortest possible space of time to his previous mood of brooding indignation. He had parted from Doctor Vardaman with a confused notion that everything was going smoothly—that Gwynne would settle with the Pallinders in a few days—a week, perhaps, at furthest. It had not been stated in so many words; none the less Steven carried away these ideas planted within him either by Mrs. Pallinder's soothing flatteries, or by the doctor's well-meant efforts at comforting and diverting him. He waited a day or two, eagerly inspecting every mail; he spoke grandly of his expected remittances to his tolerant country neighbours, and alluded to Gwynne with a large air as his man of business. But as the days passed and his man of business made no sign, Steven's slender allowance of patience gave out once more. He wrote to Gwynne, and waited a fevered while for an answer. Wrote again, and with the letter, addressed and stamped, in his pocket, abandoned his design, and took the first train for town. It was with a fierce and resolute face that he stalked into the office that afternoon—and Gwynne had gone out! This delay, to speak in high metaphorical terms which would have delighted Steven's own taste, did not arrest the falling of the levin-brand; it only increased its momentum. In proportion as the moments lapsed, his wrath gathered head. As it happened, he found himself in appropriate company, with his grievance; when he entered the room there sat his cousins, the two Misses Gwynne, with their pale, furtive, startled faces framed in curls and satin rosettes, in their rigid bombazine skirts, MissGwynne tremblingly clasping an umbrella, Miss Mollie fingering a foolscap document whereon, if Steven had cared to look, he might have seen some arithmetical calculations similar to his own. They started up, fluttering and ejaculating at his appearance; then sank down disappointed, yet, probably, a little relieved. The two not only dressed, but thought and acted in couples; either one was helpless without the other; and both now wore an air of terrified resolution such as a pair of mice, a pair of pullets might have presented in some desperate crisis of the trap or butcher's knife. Even in their day, a day which recognised but one career for respectable women, which knew not women's colleges or bachelor-maids, or what we call the professional equality of the sexes, Eleanor and Mollie were caricatures of spinsterhood; we looked upon them with as much pity as amusement, I believe. This was a tremendous step for them to take; and horror laid a throttling hold on both at the idea (occurring to them simultaneously) that Cousin Steven might think them indiscreet or unladylike. But Steven was much too preoccupied to spare a thought to their confusion. "Huh, girls!" said he, sat down in Gwynne's revolving-chair, and glowered absently out of the window, beating a tattoo on the desk, and framing the sentences in which he would open his arraignment. "Waiting to see Gwynne?" he inquired, rousing himself with a momentary curiosity after a while.
The twins murmured inarticulately, looking at each other.
"So'm I," said Steven, scowling, and they might all three have proceeded to some explanations, but at that moment, upon this amiable family-group, strolled in Archie Lewis, on some errand from his father's office, debonair, whistling his song from "William Tell," and very much taken aback atsight of the company into which he had stumbled. "It was a perfect nest of Gwynnes," he said, graphically describing the episode. "I felt like Daniel in the lions' den."
"Oh—ah—Mr. Gwynne—er—Miss Gwynne——" said he, stopping short in embarrassment. "Ah—um—Gwynne's gone out, I see."
"He'll be back in a few minutes," stammered Miss Eleanor, after a moment of fearful indecision.
"The office-boy said so," added Miss Mollie faintly. "It's almost half-an-hour now."
"Well, I guess I won't wait—if you'll be so kind as to tell him I was here? And I'll just put this on his desk under the paperweight—he'll understand when he sees it," said Archie, depositing his bundle of papers on the desk as he spoke, and very ready to beat a retreat. But Steven, eying him, suddenly growled out, "You're Judge Lewis' son, ain't you?"
"Why, yes—you know my father, of course—I've often heard him speak of you," said Archie, conventionally, edging off.
"Sit down," said Steven, imperiously motioning. "Gwynne'll be along in a little. You ought to be a lawyer, young man—your father's a lawyer. I haven't seen him for years—I guess he's a good deal changed. Law kind of changes people; it's seldom a man takes it up and stays honest. Sit down; Gwynne'll be here presently."
("And so," said Archie, "I sat down. The fact is, the old fellow looked sort of queer, and though I never heard of hisdoinganything, I didn't much like to leave him alone with those two old ladies—you never can tell, you know.")
"I'd like to see the judge," said Steven.
"Why, I'm sure father'd be very pleased——"
Steven waved an impatient gesture. "I'm not particular about seeinghim," said he—and Archie used to repeat this part of the story in his father's presence with infinite relish—"But I'd like to have hisopinion, in a matter of—a matter ofdebt!"
The two sisters exchanged a horrified glance; they knew what Steven's errand was, now, and thought he was about to reveal the awful secret, and tarnish the name of Gwynne forever. But that was by no means Steven's intention; he was as tender of the family honour as they, but much more confident of his own knowledge of the world and diplomatic abilities. Archie, upon whose youthfully sharp wits none of this by-play was lost, sat wondering what was to come next.
"This debt—or—er—this indebtedness," said Steven elaborately, "is—er—it should be, in short, collected—that is—er—measures should be taken by which it—could be, in short, collected." He fixed a profound look on the young man, pausing while he considered in what other roundabout terms he could present the situation.
"Is the fellow that owes you responsible—solid, I mean, you know?" asked Archie, beginning to be interested. "If he's on a salary, or got a good business you might attach——"
"I—I—I'm not prepared to state," said Steven, appalled at the briskness of Archie's deductions. "I'm just supposing a case, you understand."
"Oh!" said Archie, suppressing a grin. "Well—ah—are you supposing it to be a large sum, Mr. Gwynne?"
"A debt's a debt," said Steven, with magnificent brevity; he could not resist a sidelong glance at Eleanor and Mollie, commanding their admiration.
"Yes, of course, Mr. Gwynne, but there's a difference between a debt of five dollars and one of five hundred," said Archie peaceably. "If you can come to some kind of compromise, it's generally a great deal better than going to law; you may get a little less than you're entitled to, but you save time and trouble and worry. I suppose I've heard my father say that to a hundred clients."
This view appeared to strike Eleanor and Mollie favourably; something in the half-a-loaf policy appeals with a subtle power to the feminine mind. But Steven's old face reddened; he darted a vengeful glance at this Laodicean councillor.
"Compromise—nothing!" he snarled. "I'll see him da—I'll see him farther before I'll compromise!"
"All right—all right, I was just saying that's one way of settling these things," said Archie hastily. "Of course you know what you want, Mr. Gwynne. Trouble is, you go into court with a case, and you never know how long it will take to wind it up—maybe two or three years—that's perfectly irrespective of the rights of the case. Whereas, if you accept some kind of settlement, you—well, in general, you come out ahead of the game," said Archie, falling back on the vernacular.
Oh, wise young judge! The two Misses Gwynne listened to Archie's exposition with respectful awe. I have heard him say with a laugh that at no time in his subsequent career—which has been one of considerable distinction—has he ever felt himself to be exerting so much influence, no, not in his most sustained and vigorous flights of oratory. "I might have been the Almighty, instead of a smart-Alecky boy, by the way those two poor old women were impressed—it wasfunny—funny and pitiful," he says, and shakes his grizzling head.
"It's—it's very awful to have someone in debt to you, Mr. Lewis," Miss Mollie took courage to say falteringly.
"Not so bad as being in debt to somebody yourself, though," said Archie genially. This well-intended levity was a serious mistake; they shrank—they withered before the dreadful suggestion.
"We—we aren'tthat, Mr. Lewis," cried both old maids in scared chorus. "It's not we that are in debt—it's somebody that owes us——"
"That owes the GWYNNE ESTATE," said Steven ponderously. He had forgot all about his supposititious case, and Archie, who, as he himself might have said, was not born yesterday, had already made a shrewd guess as to the identity of the debtor.
"A debt's a bad business, anyway you fix it," he said easily. "Reminds me of that story father tells of himself when he was a boy borrowing money of their old coloured man to go to the circus with. 'Chile,' says old Mose, 'you's got to 'member this; er debt that ain't paid stahts erroorback! You owe me, an' I owe Pete, an' Pete he owes that wall-eyed niggah oveh at the liv'ry-stable, an' lakly Mistah Walleye,heowes somebody else, an' 'twell one of us stahts the payin', nobuddy cyahn't pay—an' thar's yourroorback!'" Archie laughed. He laughed alone, for this sprightly tale, although he had recited it in a careful imitation of Judge Lewis' best manner, apparently failed to amuse anybody but himself. Perhaps it went too near the truth to be wholly agreeable. "I never realised until that moment," he used to say with a certain naïveté, "what an awful job poor GwynnePeters had for years with those people. I'll bet nobody knows or ever will know what he put up with!"
His new sympathy put a greater warmth into his greeting when Gwynne at last came in, a few minutes later. Archie, as he explained his errand, noted inwardly that his friend's face was drawn and tired; nor did he wonder much at the grim look Gwynne cast around the waiting family-circle.
"You're late, Gwynne," said old Steven, fierce-eyed under his shaggy brows.
"I know it," said Gwynne, in a harsh voice. "I had to go out to the country this morning, and that put me back with everything."
"You mean to the house? You've been out to the house?" Steven asked eagerly. "You've talked to Pall——?"
Gwynne looked at him steadily. "No, I haven't. I've been out to see Sam. Will you please let me have my chair, Cousin Steven? I want to make a note of this for Judge Lewis."
"It's no matter," said Archie hurriedly, anxious to escape as much on the Gwynnes' account as on his own. ("I was afraid they were in for a regular family-row and I wanted to get out," he said. "Why, you might have known something was wrong with Gwynne, by his coming out about Sam that way. That was the first time I ever knew him to do anything like that!") "Never mind, Gwynne—father said you could keep them as long as you wanted. I'll stop in some other time. You're—you're busy now."
"I wish you'd stay, Arch," said Gwynne desperately. The others sat in a ghastly silence, even the old man. He got up and surrendered the chair to Gwynne without a word. The sisters hardly dared look at each other, in the trepidation produced by the mere mention of Sam's name. Thuscarelessly or rashly to flaunt Sam in the public view, and invite attention to him seemed to them nothing less than a profane assault on the temple of the Gwynne reputation—that edifice propped and shored through so many years by what profitless sacrifices, what wrong-headed devotion, what pitiful and heroic subterfuge! At this rate Gwynne might say something about his Aunt Caroline, they thought in quaking panic. The veil of the sanctum was rent in twain—what would he do or say next?
He did nothing; and after Archie had taken his leave, it was Eleanor who quavered, frightened, yet with a real sympathy for him stirring at her elderly maiden heart: "Is anything the matter, Gwynne? With—with Sam, I mean?"
"Yes, Dr. Sheckard sent for me. They think he'll have to be taken away—sent to some other place. He's—well, restless, you know."
"That'll take money, Gwynne," said Steven abruptly. Now that Archie's restraining presence had been removed, he was eager to get to the business in hand, and designed by one or two tactful remarks of this nature to lead up to it. Eleanor and Mollie shrank a little; they were genuinely and self-forgetfully interested in their unfortunate kinsman.
"I'll manage it, somehow," said Gwynne briefly. He put aside his domestic tragedy without much effort; to the observant mind the facility with which we get used to our lives is the one great everyday miracle. Let them visit us with what trials they will, we defeat the gods by our submission. Gwynne addressed himself to the task of the moment with no further thought of Sam. "You wanted to see me about something, Cousin Eleanor?" he asked, foreseeing drearily what the answer would be. But in spite of all their preparation,the direct question startled them; the neat and perfectly ladylike speeches in which Eleanor and Mollie had coached each other for days vanished from their minds—from their one mind, I might almost say. They looked at him with stricken faces. "There is something you wanted to see me about, Cousin Mollie?" repeated Gwynne—and could have cried "For shame!" at the forbidding coldness of his own voice.
"Oh, Gwynne," said Miss Mollie, trembling a good deal, and thrusting her paper at him. "I—we—Eleanor and I don't want you to think that we are unappreciative, or—or that we've any fault to find with the way you've managed our property—you've done everything you could, weknowthat, Gwynne, and you're always so good to us." Her voice broke, but she went on resolutely. "But I—we don't know whether you've noticed anything lately, or whether any of the others have told you—you're so busy—and we know a woman oughtn't to interfere, or ask questions about her money, Gwynne—and—and we oughtn't to come to your office, weknowthat—it's no place for a lady—but we're—we're so worried, we couldn't help it. You don't mind our being here, do you? We thought at first we'd write, only it takes so much longer——" here poor Miss Mollie broke down completely and began to cry in a noiseless and unimpeachably ladylike manner into her black-bordered handkerchief. Miss Eleanor took up the thread, having conquered her own tears:
"We thought perhaps you didn't know, Gwynne, if Mr. Templeton hadn't told you, but the Pallinders—that is, Colonel Pallinder, you know, they haven't paid us any rent for our house for over a year—it's on the paper, we added it up—I know it's right, because we did it by long division, and then multiplied to make sure—and it's a hundred and twentydollars they're owing us, Gwynne, and—and we thought you'd do something, if you knew——"
"Well, you needn't worry—hewon't!" said Steven, savagely satirical. Both handkerchiefs were going now; but the two old maids scarcely heard Steven; they regarded Gwynne with a heart-breaking confidence.
"Why—yes—I knew about this, Cousin Eleanor," the young man began, with a wretched feeling of humbug. "The only thing about commencing proceedings to recover—bringing suit, you know—is the—the publicity—you might have to appear in court and testify—and it would all be in the papers, like a—a scandal——"
"Oh, scandal—bosh!" cried Steven wrathfully. Eleanor and Mollie were looking at Gwynne with affrighted eyes over their handkerchiefs; but Steven's masculine mind, even if none of the strongest, could not in nature be always wrought upon so easily. These arguments were old to him and their effect was dulled. "Scandal! There's no scandal about going to law to get your money!" he said impatiently, and with justice. "And as for publicity, you could fix all that, if you wanted to, Gwynne, you know it. They could—they could make oath before a notary, couldn't they?"
"We—we wouldn't have to do anything, if he could just get us alittleof it—the—the way Mr. Lewis said, you know, Mollie," Eleanor faltered.
"Arch? Did you tell him about this?" Gwynne asked, disturbed.
"No harm if we had," said Steven, contentiously. But Mollie looked at Gwynne in dread. "No, no—we didn't say a thing—we didn't say a word, Gwynne—but he just happened to say that debts were sometimes compromised—youtook some, not all, you know, but you didn't have any lawsuit——"
"If we could get a little——" said Eleanor anxiously.
"Alittle! That's like a woman!" said Steven in strong disgust. "Alittle! Don't you pay any attention to 'em, Gwynne!"
"Do you need money, Cousin Eleanor?" asked Gwynne gently.
Mollie began to cry hysterically again.
"We don't want you to advance any, Gwynne," said old Eleanor, trembling and turning very pale. "You've done that before, and—and now you will need all your money for poor Sam. And—and besides, Gwynne, I—I—we're not fit to be trusted with money—I—I was going to tell you, only it's so hard—but we're—we're—we've been very wicked women!" She burst out sobbing. Gwynne might have smiled at this lurid statement from two such timid, plaintive and abjectly respectable old maiden ladies if the circumstances had left him any heart for smiling.
"Why, what's the matter, Cousin Eleanor?—don't cry that way!" he said, distressed. "It's not your fault, you know. Now I promise you I'll see about it—I'll get your money for you—these things are bound to take a little time, you know——"
"Huh! You said that before—you've said it a dozen times!" said Steven. He looked at Gwynne with open suspicion. "Will you come with me over to Pallinder's office now?"
"No, no, don't do that; wait till I've told him everything, Steven—wait a minute Gwynne!" cried Eleanor, laying her damp hands and handkerchief on the young man's arm."Gwynne!" she said tragically, "it's quite true—we're wicked, wicked women! We took—Mollie and I took all our money—it was that thousand dollars that we got when Cousin Lucien died, you know, that we'd always put away to use if we were sick—or, or got married—or anything, and some besides that we'd saved up—it was last year—and we thought the rent would be coming in all the time, and we counted on that—you know we were quite sure, Gwynne, or we wouldn't have done it—and—and—we'd heard about so many people making money in stocks—Caleb Spicer—that's the vegetable-man we've taken from for ever so long, and IknowCaleb's honest—he told us about his brother-in-law—only Caleb didn't tell us aboutthisstock, Gwynne, it wasn't Caleb's fault at all, I wouldn't have you think that—his brother-in-law's stock was some other kind, I don't remember what now. And we—we bought some stock, Gwynne—it was 'Phosphate'—a mine, or was it a well, Sister Mollie? We—we've never had any money, Gwynne, I mean much, you know—and we—we've had to save so, and go without a girl and all—and make our own clothes—and we did so want to have a little more—and we thought it would get to be worth double or treble in the least little while, the way those things do—the way Caleb's brother-in-law's did—and besides Colonel Pallinder said it would——"
"What!" said Gwynne. He got up. His face blanched; the likeness to old Samuel Gwynne leaped out upon his features so strong, so lowering, that Eleanor and Mollie involuntarily drew back, appalled. They supposed the confession had angered him. "We didn't know anything about it, Gwynne," they both began. "We didn't know—we didn't mean to do anything wrong!"
"You didn't do anything wrong," said Gwynne, with an effort. "Go on. What has happened?"
"It was all my fault, Gwynne," said Eleanor, generously. "I put it into Mollie's head—it was my fault, all of it."
"It doesn't make any difference about that, Nellie," said Mollie. "I was just as much to blame—you couldn't have done it without me. We—we've found out a terrible thing about 'Phosphate,' Gwynne—it's—it's not going to double at all. We thought we'd get some money right away, and we didn't—and then we waited—and we didn't get any—and we were afraid to ask Colonel Pallinder, for fear it would look as if—as if—we didn't believe in him—don't, Gwynne, don't look that way! And then at last we went down to the Third National where our money used to be; we got Mary to go with us, because we were afraid to go by ourselves, and besides it's not ladylike; she knows your friend, Mr. Taylor, that great big tall young man that's in there back in the brass-wired-off place, you know, Gwynne. And Mary wasn't a bit afraid; she just asked for him, and he came out and took the paper—it's a certificate, isn't it?—and looked at it, and then went back into the president's room, and we heard some men laughing, Gwynne. And then Mr. McAlpine himself came out after a while, and he came up and said he knew we'd believe him, because of his being president, and he was sorry to have to tell us, but that stock wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, and he wanted to know whose advice we had acted on in buying it. So he and Mary and Mr. Taylor and you are the only people that know anything about it, Gwynne, and—and—if it don't go any farther than that, it won't—it won't be a disgrace to you or the family," said poor old Mollie with tears.
Gwynne looked at them helplessly. That these two shy, fearsome, frugal, penny-wise old gentlewomen could have ventured their all upon one reckless stake like the worst and wildest gambler that ever tossed his last dollar on the cloth, was well-nigh inconceivable—but the thing had happened! It was not merely unexpected, it was impossible—and it had happened! If he had been asked to name the members of his family who might most safely be trusted to hoard and watch over their lean inheritance, he would have pitched upon Eleanor and Mollie; he would have supposed them impregnable behind their barrier of timorous ignorance, entrenched forever in the habit of grinding economy—and lo, that very childish inexperience, that thriftless parsimony, had been their undoing!
"Well, but whose advicedidyou take?" he asked. "You surely askedsomebodybesides Caleb What's-his-name? Why didn't you come to me—or Cousin Jennie?"
"But Jennie wouldn't have let us do it, you know," said Eleanor, with entire simplicity. "There wouldn't have been any use askingher. And we were sosure—we thought Colonel Pallinder's advice was enough—we knew you wouldn't go to the house so much if you didn't think he was to be trusted—you wouldn't go where anybody was dishonourable. But I don't believe heishonourable, Gwynne; of course, he's had misfortunes with 'Phosphate' like ourselves, but if he were really honourable, he'd pay our rent."
The young man was silenced; anger and shame surged together within him. The most expert of fencers could not have pricked him closer home than Eleanor with her simple earnestness of belief. Their faith blackened him in his owneyes; their affection stung; their tremulous apologies scourged.
"Never mind, Cousin Mollie—don't cry—I'll take care of you," he said, huskily, at last. "Now let me get a carriage and send you home—and don't worry about your money, nor the rent—I'll get it back for you some way or another——"
Mollie and Eleanor cried harder than ever; mingled with their ghastly visions of ultimate destitution, and much more concretely awful, had been the fear of what Gwynne would say, of what he would think when he heard the shameful news. Their tears comforted them; and I dare say that many a real sinner has touched thus the utter depth, and found there a like unexpected peace.
"Oh, Gwynne, you're so good to us—and with poor Sam on your mind all the time, too—but you never think about yourself at all!"
Gwynne almost smiled. Sam? What care had he given to Sam or Sam's interests of late? And of whom had he been thinking, if not solely of himself?
"Now promise me you won't worry," he said, urgently kind. "I'll fix it all right——"
"You've been saying that a good while tome, and nothing's come of it so far," said Steven distrustfully. "Hope you ain't forgetting that it's Sam's money, too, you've been letting go all this year and a half?"
"I'm not forgetting it, Cousin Steven," said Gwynne, turning his haggard eyes on the other. "I won't forget Sam."
After they had gone, Gwynne went back to the office and sat a long while with his set face staring at that other face on the wall, under whose shadow he had lived his whole life,without, as it would seem, profiting much by the association. There he sat—and I think we may very well refrain from spying on him. Doubtless he did full justice upon Gwynne Peters that spring afternoon, alone with his condemning thoughts; doubtless every selfish lie, every mean evasion rose up and confronted him; doubtless he took himself to task more sternly than he deserved, and fancied he sat, a broken man, amongst the ruins of a dishonoured life. Hardly, I am sure, at his present age, can Gwynne look back upon that hour with an equal mind; when it recurs to him, the taste of his folly must yet be bitter on his tongue. He is to-day a successful man, greatly liked, greatly respected. Mrs. Gwynne Peters, I believe, is a very happy wife and mother, not at all jealous, and having no cause to be. But has Gwynne ever mentioned Mrs. Pallinder to her? He might do so without a blush, but he probably feels that it would be an unprofitable business; let the old ashes lie, and let the lost corners grow up with weeds and be forgot. Wives and husbands, if they be wise, will not go prospecting in the remote places of each other's hearts, lest they chance upon some of these disquieting ruins—ugly little cairns, decrepit old tombstones. The days were lengthening, yet it was twilight as Gwynne walked home; street-lamps burned dimly through the foggy spring air, and the newsboys were crying the last edition.
Doctor Vardaman was not a wealthy man; he occupied what he considered the golden mean, the "neither poverty nor riches" of the Preacher; enough to live in a simple, uncalculating ease. His chief pastime, as he used to describe it with some amusement, was the practising of certain small economies whereby he accumulated enough to indulge himself once in a while with an expensive new edition, or rare and equally high-priced old one. Like most professional men, he had no turn for affairs, and no temptation ever assailed him to "take a flyer in Phosphate," or anything else. It was, therefore, without any idea of investment that he scaled the stairs leading to Colonel Pallinder's office a few days after the Misses Gwynne had visited Gwynne's to explain their operations in finance. He was, in fact, bent on an errand that took him past the colonel's door, and into the rear of the Turner Building, where the City Superintendent of Parks and Gardens had a retiring, little, unfrequented room. The doctor wanted to file objections against the setting up of several monumental bill-boards and advertising signs on the vacant lots along the west side of Richmond Avenue, facing number 201. "As a physician in good standing, sir," he expounded vigorously, yet not without a smile, to the City Superintendent, who was an old acquaintance and ex-patient. "I dislike to be confronted every time I open my front door with 'Geary's Purple Pills' for various disorders notcommonly referred to in polite society. And as a patriotic citizen, I don't want to see our town disfigured by any such monstrosities!"
Coming away with his point half gained, he once more passed Colonel Pallinder's office door. At that time the Turner Building was at the very core of our business district. There was a bank on the ground floor, the old Third National—J. B. had some position in it, assistant bookkeeper, perhaps. One used to catch fleeting glimpses of the young fellow's big shoulders in shirt-sleeves, and sleek, dark head on an altitudinous stool behind gilt wire screens, through the plate-glass windows on the Market Street side. On his last visit he told me that he had gone down Market Street and walked past those old windows in a sentimental mood, recalling the brave days when he was twenty-one. "I got sixty a month," he said, "and thought I was doing first-rate! It's hard to believe that that old rookery was the best office building in town. We hadn't the beginnings of an idea about fire-proof construction; but there was an elevator, and the bank had a floor of black and red tiles, remember? The passages were so dim the gas had to be kept burning at noon-day. The steam-heating apparatus must have been one of the first put in; anyway it never did very well, and was forever breaking down. I've worked in my overcoat many a time, with a blue nose, figuring away with my stiff fingers. Harvey Smith—you know, Jim's brother—had a law-office with some other young chap, I've forgot who, now, on the third floor, and they set up a sheet-iron cannon-stove to keep from freezing to death. There wasn't much business coming Harvey's way in those days—we used to wonder how he made out."
That part of town is now given over to warehouses and junk-shops. The dirty, draughty hallways of the Turner Building are very empty and melancholy. They used to be handsomely carpeted with cocoa-matting, and in the odd corners one came upon little pyramids of tin spittoons piled up handily by the janitor, either just washed or in need of washing. The place was as busy as an anthill that morning when Doctor Vardaman paced along the cocoa-paths on his way out. Near the top of the stairs—which were generally preferred to the elevator—he encountered Colonel Pallinder ushering from his office somebody with a shawl and bonnet and fat black umbrella, whose outlines in the semi-obscurity appeared vaguely familiar to the old gentleman's casual glance.
"Is that you, Doctor? Come in, come in, sir," said the colonel, promptly relinquishing his client ("In point of fact, he dropped her like a hot potato," the doctor said afterwards), when he saw who was approaching. And, overriding the doctor's demurrer, "Oh, nonsense, I say comein, sir! Why, we've got a little business together, forgot that, hey?" He smote Doctor Vardaman a light, humorous, affectionate blow on the shoulder and pushed him into the office. "I don't want to interrupt you——" the doctor began, accepting at last the handsome leather chair his host pulled forward. He glanced about curiously, rolling the colonel's excellent Havana between his fingers. The Pallinders possessed the secret of a delightful spontaneous and whole-souled hospitality; the stranger within their gates was unaffectedly welcome to the best they had—and the best they had was very good indeed; self-denial was a virtue they never needed to practise, apparently. The atmosphere of their house was alwayskind, gay, care-free, and they themselves highly ornamental. Colonel Pallinder bustled about the doctor with a dozen pleasant little attentions, yet contrived somehow never to be officious. It is a strange thing, and a depressing instance of the inborn tendency to evil of the human race, that it has been within the experience of everyone of us, I think, to lodge with and suffer the kindnesses of many virtuous families to whom the name and the habits of the Pallinders would be anathema—and we shrink from remembering how incredibly we were bored thereby!
The office was a rich, comfortable place. Everything was new; the colonel's mahogany roll-top desk, the leather lounge, which, Doctor Vardaman noted inwardly, had the air of being pretty constantly in use, the brilliantly glazed maps of "Phosphate" territory gleaming on the walls. A great accumulation of mail loaded the desk; the colonel's correspondence was evidently something colossal. There were numberless pamphlets, circulars, prospectuses, and newspaper clippings with rows of figures accompanied by at least half-a-dozen ciphers printed conspicuously at the top. "The ARKANSAS CONSOLIDATED PHOSPHATE, COAL, AND IRON COMPANY, CAPITAL AND SURPLUS $4,455,000.00." "EL PASO & RIO GRANDE EXTENSIONis theBEST ZINC STOCKon the market at the price.EL PASO MINEShave paid over $172,000,000.00 in dividends. We strongly recommend thisSTOCK for INVESTMENT. Ballard & Co., Wall St., N. Y. William Pallinder, Agt." Doctor Vardaman surveyed these and like documents with a kind of satirical interest. "Of course," he used to explain, "I had had more than a suspicion for a good while that 'Phosphate' and 'Zinc' and the colonel'scapitalist friends were all more or less mythical. You can't be as intimate as I was with a man like that for two years and not 'get a line on him,' as the boys say. And then there was Steven and that terrific flare-up he had with Gwynne about the rent in my own library. Latterly I had begun to have a pretty well-defined notion that Pallinder was in a tight place—getting near the end of his rope in our town, at least. Along in the fall sometime he had borrowed fifty dollars of me on some pretext; and I not unnaturally supposed that he wanted to corner me into lending him another fifty, or maybe thought that with my hazy ideas about business he might make a sale of 'Phosphate.' I was a good deal interested to see how he would go about it; I'd quite made up my mind not to do either, you know—lend him the fifty, or buy any stock, I mean."
What then was the doctor's astonishment when Colonel Pallinder impressively brought out an elegant dark green Russia-leather purse and card-case combined, with "W. B. P." intertwined in a gold monogram on one side, and from a thick layer of greenbacked bills therein selected a fifty-dollar one and laid it on the old gentleman's knee! Doctor Vardaman stared at it as if it had been a specimen from the flora of another planet.
"Now, now, now, no objections! Iinsist," said the colonel, rather unnecessarily in view of the doctor's dumb surprise. "It's a matter of principle with me, even about such paltry sums as this, that short settlements make long friends," he continued, conveniently oblivious of the fact that he had been in the other's debt for this particular paltry sum more than six months. "Never could understand, sir, how a man can go on owing and owing people simply because heknows they're his friends and won't dun him. That's a queer idea of honesty, seems to me," said the colonel, looking Doctor Vardaman in the eye with a frank and open smile. "You don't come down this way very often, Doctor. I suppose you think all this—" he waved his hand around—"market-place—beasts at Ephesus, hey?"
"I'm a—I'm a little out of place, I fear," the doctor stammered, still in a confusion. "I hope I didn't drive your client away."
Colonel Pallinder threw back his head in hearty amusement. "Oh, Lord, that wasn't a client, Doctor, that old creature—what was her name now, MacGonigal, MacGilligan, MacSomething? No, I was trying to get rid of her as gently as might be without hurting her feelings. For after all people like that have feelings, you know; they are worthy of some consideration; hang it, a gentleman has only one kind of manners. I'm glad she came in while my clerks were all out, and saw me instead of any of them—you know what Jack-in-office is. Why, sir, you have no conception of how we are bothered by that kind of person. They watch the stock market for a while, or get to talking with their friends, and then the first thing you know they come in here all agog with their savings—a hundred, two hundred, perhaps three hundred dollars, wanting toinvest! It's the hardest thing in the world to make them understand that we can't handle little dabs like that; they're twice as much trouble as other people's tens of thousands. Your small investor is eternally writing and making inquiries about this stock and that stock, wanting to change, wanting to transfer, wanting to sell, wanting to buy, wanting to be reassured perpetually at the slightest fluctuationof the market. 'Do you think my stock is all right? Will it go any higher? Will it go any lower?' Like as not he sees some perfectly worthless stuff advertised broadcast and promptly sit down and writes me, all on fire: 'William Pallinder, Esq., Dear Sir: Would like your opinion about the enclosed clipping relating to Timbuctoo and South Pole Railway shares. Hadn't I better take my dime's worth of Phosphate Preferred and put it into T. &. S. P.? Yours truly, Jack Ass.' Oh, you may laugh, Doctor, but it's no joke. And then, Doctor Vardaman, there's another side to it that I never lose sight of," said the colonel, leaning forward and tapping the old gentleman on the hand with a grave look. "That, sir, is the question ofmoral obligation. Take the case of that old woman. 'Why, Mrs. Mac-What's-your-name,' says I, 'if I understand you, this is all the money you have'—it was four hundred and odd, I believe—'and you want to put it into Lone Star common. Now,' says I, 'of course that's a perfectly safe investment, solid as United States bonds, non-taxable, pays nine per cent., and will double in value in the natural course of events before another six months; and what you say is quite true, that you will never have another opportunity of getting it as low as forty-five'—she was really a shrewd and intelligent woman for her class, and for a minute I was almost tempted to let her have her way, for, of course, there wasn't the slightest risk. 'Now,' said I, 'if you had two or three thousand or even one thousand to spare, mind you, I sayto spare, I should say to you, go ahead, by all means. But,' says I, 'I can't take the responsibility of letting you invest your last cent this way, just on my say-so. I've got my own money in it, but my money and your money are two very different propositions.Go and consult your lawyer, get the advice of your friends, go to another broker for that matter, if you choose. All I would urge is,do it soon, or you may lose a great chance, such as don't come along every day.' She was very reluctant, but I finally persuaded her; she was just going as you came along. Oh, of course, I know very well, nobody better after all my experience, that she may have gone straight off to some other broker as I suggested, andhe'llget the commission, not being so—well, so squeamish as I am, but William Pallinder isn't that—kind, Doctor; we can't help the way we're made, and I'm—not—that—kind!"
He spaced the last words out, emphasising them by a gentle blow with a ruler on the palm of his hand, and leaned back, surveying his companion through a haze of cigar smoke, with the expression of one who might have added, were it necessary: "Behold in me a monument of integrity!"
Doctor Vardaman gazed at the El Paso and Rio Grande circulars with a new respect. Was it possible, he asked himself, that he ought to revise his opinion of Pallinder? To be sure, Huddesley had hinted—but what does a servant's chatter amount to? And then there was that business of the unpaid rent—but Gwynne had not seemed to take that very seriously, and surely he should know. As to that flourishing manner of the colonel's, we are prone to associate it with—well, with buncombe, in plain words; yet it was, in fact, entirely natural, the direct result of certain traditions, early environment, and upbringing. He had reached this point in his reflections, smoking silently, when the colonel was most unfortunately inspired to remark:
"I see you're looking at that map of Phosphate territory in Arkansas. It's a wonderful thing the way the Southwestis opening up, wonderful! All due to Northern enterprise and vigour, sir, every bit of it. We'd be nowhere without you. You'll find few men from my section of the country that will acknowledge it, but it'sso. I never did believe in keeping up that spirit of mutual distrust and jealousy—waving the bloody shirt and all that; let bygones be bygones, I say; let's all work together for the common good, and give honour where honour is due. Why, sir, it was a Northern man—Lewis Sheister, from some little town up in New York State, that discovered and worked the first phosphate vein in Arkansas. The people down there in the Ozarks were ready to run him and his men out of there with shotguns when he started in—and now I guess they bless the day Sheister turned up. He's worth five hundred thousand dollars to-day, and he's been a factor in enriching that whole State. Yes, sir, there's millions right here." He rose, and, drawing a pencil from his waistcoat pocket, defined a small circle on the shining brittle surface of the map. "Right in that little zone, sir, millions for anyone, even with a very limited capital—ten for one, sir, ten for one is what dozens of my clients are drawing at this moment," said the colonel, pointing with his pencil, like a teacher of mathematics demonstrating at the blackboard, and eying the doctor profoundly. "Ever think of investing, Doctor?" he added, indifferently, resuming his seat, and picking a thread from his coatsleeve as he spoke.
Alas, the gentleman had protested too much! "You'd find me one of your troublesome small investors, I am afraid," said the doctor, wishing uncomfortably that he could believe in Pallinder. "It's rarely a professional man lays up any money, you know."
"Oh, you'd be a different pair of shoes," said Colonel Pallinder genially. "I'd rather handle a couple of hundred for a man like you than a couple of thousand for some others I could mention. Now I always contend that stocks such as I deal in are a Heaven-sent boon to the man of moderate means. Say you only have a hundred or so. You put it into Ozark Field or—well—yes, youcouldget half-a-dozen shares of Lone Star. I know a man, a banker in New York, a personal friend, you understand, that I think I could persuade into parting with a little block like that, although they hate to like the devil—but I believe he'd do it for me. Now these things advance so rapidly that in a month or six weeks you could sell out to great advantage—if you didn't want to wait for your dividends, or found the speculation kept you lying awake o' nights," he interpolated, with jovial sarcasm. "Of course, Doctor, I hardly need to tell a man of your intelligence and breadth of view that—um—ah—'there's a tide in the affairs of men,' you know—the time is coming when nobody but the kings of finance will be able to buy and control these shares, they're going up so fast; but if you were alreadyinthering, as I may say——"
"I doubt if the kings of finance and I would hit it off very well," said the doctor soberly. Colonel Pallinder laughed uproariously. He slapped his knees and laughed, and wiped his eyes and laughed again. Never had the doctor's dry humour received such appreciation; and not being acutely conscious of having been humorous, he observed the colonel's manifestations of delight with a good deal of interest.
"You talk in a rather disparaging vein about the business ability of professional men, Doctor," he said, when his mirth had somewhat subsided. "But the fact is, I've met with justas much shrewdness among them as anywhere else. A successful lawyer, a widely-known and successful physician like yourself—why, he'sgotto be very much above the average in intellect and education both. A man like you can take hold of anything, no matter whether he's had any previous experience or not—he can take up anything and do well at it. Now, look at you! I suppose you've hardly ever been in a broker's office before in your life, and you come in here, and with scarcely a word of explanation from me, grasp the whole subject at once! I tell you what, I'd like you to meet Sheister, and just hear him talk Phosphate once. He's a self-made man, Doctor, no gentleman-of-the-old-school such as you, but for that very reason I think you'd find it an interesting experience. He'll talk by the hour about his early trials and struggles—it sounds like a romance. He has the whole history of Phosphate at his finger-ends. Of courseIcan't talk about the stuff except in a business way—I only know that it's been a gold mine for Sheister and the men he got to go in with him. Sir, I knew that fellow when he hadn't but one shirt in the world, and he didn't know where his next meal was to come from—and now he's travelling round in his private car with a valet and a cook! I've done pretty well in Phosphate myself," said the colonel, with becoming restraint; "but I'm not a patch on Sheister. Really, I'd like you to see Mrs. Sheister's diamonds, just for a curiosity. My wife can't bear her—thinks she'scommon, and all that—you know how women are—but I tell her she's down on Mrs. Sheister just because she's jealous of her diamonds."
"Mrs. Pallinder has no cause to be jealous of anybody's diamonds, I think," said the doctor smoothly. "Our youngpeople will be giving their entertainment in a few days now," he added, thinking it high time to change the subject. And the colonel glided away on the new tack as gracefully as if the manœuvre had been of his own suggestion.
"Yes, and what do you think that daughter of mine said to me the other day? It seems they have to make a great show of jewelry in the second play—what's the name of it—'Mrs. Tinkleton'? Mazie's 'Mrs. Tinkleton,' and she's going to pile on all her own and her mother's too. So she comes to me: 'Oh, papa, wouldn't it be nice if we could have a real tiara? We've got to fix ma's necklace to look like one, but I think those little coronets they have at Tiffany's are just too utterly sweet.' That's the way the girls and boys talk nowadays, Doctor, 'too utterly too,' 'too intensely all but,'—can't understand half the gibberish they're saying; but I grasped the meaning ofthat! 'Why, good heavens, my child,' I said, 'do you think I'mmadeof money? There's your mother's necklace cost me thirty-five hundred—the papers made it five thousand, but you know, Doctor, they always blow around and talk big—not so very long ago, not more than two years, I believe, and nowyouwant a tiara.' 'Well, papa, you know you said ma's necklace was just bought out of that rise in Phosphate, and it was like getting it for nothing, and you'd never miss the money because the dividends were so much more than you had expected. Won't something else take a rise?' And in fact, Doctor," continued Colonel Pallinder, pulling at his goatee with a ruefully comic grin, "she rather had me there. It was just as she said, the stock having gone up beyond my wildest expectations. I realised treble what I'd been looking for, and I always like to make my wife some little gift when anything ofthat sort happens. But a tiara at Tiffany's! I couldn't quite gothat. Must you be going? Well, good-bye. When you feel like looking into Phosphate a little farther, drop in. I've some figures I think would interest you."
Doctor Vardaman took his way from the Turner Building, walking fast in a brown study; such was his preoccupation that twenty steps from the entrance he collided with a young man carrying a green cloth bag, weighted with books or papers, heading for the stairs.
"Hello, Doctor!" he began to apologise. "I didn't know it was you. Why, it's great to see you down here. Come up and take a look at my office."
"I've just been up in the building, Harvey," said the old gentleman, recognising him. "I ought to be home sitting down to my luncheon this minute. Huddesley would discharge me if I were not on time. I went up to see Ogden about those signboards on Richmond Avenue." He paused and then some indefinable feeling prompted him to add: "Fine office Colonel Pallinder has, hasn't he? The building is certainly very complete and well-equipped; you ought to have seen the two-story frame shanty where I first hung out my shingle. It was over a grocery with an outside stairs leading up to it."
Young Smith eyed him with a certain apprehension in his keen boyish face. "Oh, yes, the Turner Building is said to be one of the finest in the West; but I understand they are going to put up some in Chicago that'll beat us all hollow. Pallinder's a great friend of yours, isn't he, Doctor?"
"We are neighbours, you know," said Doctor Vardaman, diplomatically, and smiled, meeting the other's eye. "Don't be uneasy. I haven't been investing."
"Why—I—I——" Harvey stammered, crimsoning in his confusion, yet plainly a little relieved. "I just couldn't help wondering if you had, you know. The Colonel's a great old blatherskite, isn't he? Of course, I don't mean—that is, I mean——"
"Harvey, Harvey," said Doctor Vardaman, wagging his head solemnly, "I'm afraid that's not the way counsel for the defence should open his remarks."
"Well, it'sso, you know, anyhow," said the young fellow ingenuously. "Jim sees a lot of them; he goes out there all the time. He's in that shindy they're going to give on the twelfth. Say, have you heard that about Gwynne Peters?"
"No, what was it—Oh, here's my car—never mind, Harvey. I don't need any help."