demanded Henriette. "It is quite evident that you don't understand me.
Do you suppose for an instant that I am robbing these people here in
Newport merely for the vulgar purpose of acquiring money? If you do you
have a woful misconception of the purposes which actuate an artist."
"You certainly are an artist, Henriette," I answered, desirous of
placating her.
"Then you should know better than to intimate that I am in this business
for the sordid dollars and cents there are to be got out of it," pouted
my mistress. "Mr. Vauxhall Bean doesn't chase the aniseseed bag because
he loves to shed the aniseseed or hungers for bags as an article of
food. He does it for the excitement of the hunt; because he loves to
feel the movement of the hunter that he sits so well between his knees;
because he is enamoured of the baying of the hounds, the winding of the
horn, and welcomes the element of personal danger that enters into the
sport when he and his charger have to take an unusual fence or an extra
broad watercourse. So with me. In separating these people here from
their money and their jewels, it is not the money and the jewels that I
care for so much as the delicious risks I incur in getting them. What
the high fence is to the hunter, the barriers separating me from Mrs.
Gaster's jewel-case are to me; what the watchful farmer armed with a
shot-gun for the protection of his crops is to the master of the hounds,
the police are to me. The game of circumventing the latter and
surmounting the former are the joy of my life, and while my eyes flash
and sparkle with appetite every time I see a necklace or a tiara or a
roll of hundred-dollar bills in the course of my social duties, it is
not avarice that makes them glitter, but the call to action which they
sound."
I felt like saying that if that were the case I should esteem it a
privilege to be made permanent custodian of the balance in hand, but it
was quite evident from Henriette's manner that she was in no mood for
badinage, so I held my peace.
"To prove to you that I am not out for the money, Bunny, I'll give you
a check this morning for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to pay
you for those steel bonds you picked up on the train when you came up
here from New York. That's two-and-a-half times what they are worth,"
said Henriette. "Is it a bargain?"
"Certainly, ma'am," I replied, delighted with the proposition. "But what
are you going to do with the bonds?"
"Borrow a million and a half on 'em," said Henriette.
"What!" I cried. "A million and a half on a hundred thousand security?"
"Certainly," replied Henriette, "only it will require a little
manipulation. For the past six months I have been depositing the moneys
I have received in seventeen national banks in Ohio, each account being
opened in a different name. The balances in each bank have averaged
about three hundred thousand dollars, thanks to a circular system of
checks in an endless chain that I have devised. Naturally the size of
these accounts has hugely interested the bank officials, and they all
regard me as a most desirable customer, and I think I can manage matters
so that two or three of them, anyhow, will lend me all the money I want
on those bonds and this certificate of trust which I shall ask you to
sign."
"Me?" I laughed. "Surely you are joking. What value will my signature
have?"
"It will be good as gold after you have deposited that check for two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in your New York bank," said
Henriette. "I shall go to the president of the Ohoolihan National Bank
at Oshkosh, Ohio, where I have at present three hundred and sixty-eight
thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars and eighteen cents on
deposit and tell him that the Hon. John Warrington Bunny, of New York,
is my trustee for an estate of thirteen million dollars in funds set
apart for me by a famous relative of mine who is not proud of the
connection. He will communicate with you and ask you if this is true.
You will respond by sending him a certified copy of the trust
certificate, and refer him as to your own responsibility to the New York
bank where our two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is on deposit. I
will then swap checks with you for three hundred thousand dollars, mine
to you going into your New York account and yours to me as trustee going
into my account with the Ohoolihan National. The New York bank will
naturally speak well of your balance, and the Ohoolihan people, finding
the three-hundred-thousand-dollar check good, will never think of
questioning your credit. This arranged, we will start in to wash those
steel bonds up to the limit."
"That's a very simple little plan of yours, Henriette," said I, "and the
first part of it will work easily I have no doubt; but how the deuce are
you going to wash those bonds up to fifteen times their value?"
"Easiest thing in the world, Bunny," laughed Henriette. "There will be
two million dollars of the bonds before I get through."
"Heavens--no counterfeiting, I hope?" I cried.
"Nothing so vulgar," said Henriette. "Just a little management--that's
all. And, by-the-way, Bunny, when you get a chance, please hire twenty
safe-deposit boxes for me in as many different trust companies here and
in New York--and don't have 'em too near together. That's all for the
present."
Three weeks later, having followed out Henriette's instructions to the
letter, I received at my New York office a communication from the
president of the Ohoolihan National Bank, of Oshkosh, Ohio, inquiring as
to the Van Raffles trust fund. I replied with a certified copy of the
original which Henriette had already placed in the president's hands. I
incidentally referred the inquirer as to my own standing to the Delancy
Trust Company, of New York. The three-hundred-thousand-dollar checks
were exchanged by Henriette and myself--hers, by-the-way, was on the
Seventy-Sixth National Bank, of Brookline, Massachusetts, and was signed
by a fictitious male name, which shows how carefully she had covered her
tracks. Both went through without question, and then the steel bonds
came into play. Henriette applied for a loan of one million five hundred
thousand dollars, offering the trust certificate for security. The
president of the Ohoolihan National wished to see some of her other
securities, if she had any, to which Henriette cordially replied that if
he would come to New York she would gladly show them to him, and
intimated that if the loan went through she wouldn't mind paying the
bank a bonus of one hundred thousand dollars for the accommodation. The
response was immediate. Mr. Bolivar would come on at once, and he did.
[Illustration: "'AFTER WHICH HE WILL COME TO NEWPORT'"]
"Now, Bunny," said Mrs. Van Raffles on the morning of his arrival, "all
you have to do is to put the one hundred bonds first in the vault of the
Amalgamated Trust Company, of West Virginia, on Wall Street. Mr. Bolivar
and I will go there and I will show them to him. We will then depart.
Immediately after our departure you will get the bonds and take them to
the vaults of the Trans-Missouri and Continental Trust Company, of New
Jersey, on Broadway. You will go on foot, we in a hansom, so that you
will get there first. I will take Mr. Bolivar in and show him the bonds
again. Then you will take them to the vaults of the Riverside Coal Trust
Company, of Pennsylvania, on Broad Street, where five minutes later I
will show them for the third time to Mr. Bolivar--and so on. We will
repeat this operation eighteen times in New York so that our visitor
will fancy he has seen one million eight hundred thousand dollars' worth
of bonds in all, after which he will come to Newport, where I will show
them to him twice more--making a two-million-dollar show-down. See?"
I toppled back into a chair in sheer amazement.
"By Jingo! but you are a wonder," I cried. "If it only works."
* * * * *
[Illustration: "MR. BOLIVAR WAS DULY IMPRESSED WITH THE EXTENT OF
HENRIETTE'S FORTUNE'"]
It worked. Mr. Bolivar was duly impressed with the extent of Henriette's
fortune in tangible assets, not to mention her evident standing in the
community of her residence. He was charmingly entertained and never for
an instant guessed when at dinner where Henriette had no less personages
than the Rockerbilts, Mrs. Gaster, Mrs. Gushington-Andrews, Tommy Dare,
and various other social lights to meet him, that the butler who passed
him his soup and helped him liberally to wine was the Hon. John
Warrington Bunny, trustee.
"Well," said Henriette, as she gazed delightedly at the president's
certified check for one million four hundred thousand dollars--the
amount of the loan less the bonus--"that was the best sport yet. Even
aside from the size of the check, Bunny, it was great chasing the old
man to cover. What do you think he said to me when he left, the poor,
dear old innocent?"
"Give it up--what?"
"He said that I ought to be very careful in my dealings with men, who
might impose upon my simplicity," laughed Henriette.
"Simplicity?" I roared. "What ever gave him the idea that you were
simple?"
"Oh--I don't know," said Henriette, demurely. "I guess it was because I
told him I kept those bonds in twenty safe-deposit vaults instead of in
one, to protect myself in case of loss by fire--I didn't want to have
too many eggs in one basket."
"H'm!" said I. "What did he say to that?"
Henriette laughed long and loud at the recollection of the aged bank
president's reply.
"He squeezed my hand and answered, 'What a child it is, indeed!'" said
Henriette.
VI
THE ADVENTURE OF THE FRESH-AIR FUND
It was a bright, sunny morning in the early summer when Henriette,
gazing out of the dining-room windows across the lawns adjoining the
Rockerbilt place, caught sight of a number of ragamuffins at play there.
"Who are those little tatterdemalions, Bunny?" she asked, with a
suggestion of a frown upon her brow. "They have been playing on the
lawns since seven o'clock this morning, and I've lost quite two hours'
sleep because of their chatter."
"They are children from Mrs. Rockerbilt's Fresh-Air Society," I
explained, for I, too, had been annoyed by the loud pranks of the
youngsters and had made inquiries as to their identity. "Every summer,
Digby, Mr. de Pelt's valet, tells me, Mrs. Rockerbilt gives a tea for
the benefit of the Fresh-Air Fund, and she always has a dozen of the
children from town for a week beforehand so as to get them in shape for
the function."
"Get them in shape for the function, Bunny?" asked Henriette.
"Yes; one of the features of the tea is the presence of the youngsters,
and they have to be pretty well rehearsed before Mrs. Rockerbilt dares
let them loose among her guests," said I, for Digby had explained the
scheme in detail to me. "You see, their ideas of fun are rather
primitive, and if they were suddenly introduced into polite society
without any previous training the results might prove unpleasant."
"Ah!" said Henriette, gazing abstractedly out of the window in the
manner of one suddenly seized with an idea.
"Yes," I went on. "You see, the street gamin loves nothing better in the
way of diversion than throwing things at somebody, particularly if that
somebody is what is known to his vernacular as a Willie-boy. As between
eating an over-ripe peach and throwing it at the pot-hat of a
Willie-boy, the ragamuffin would deny even the cravings of his stomach
for that tender morsel. It is his delight, too, to heave tin cans,
wash-boilers, flat-irons, pies--anything he can lay his hands on--at the
automobilly-boys, if I may use the term, of all of which, before he is
turned loose in the highest social circles of the land, it is desirable
that he shall be cured."
"I see," said Henriette. "And so Mrs. Rockerbilt has them here on a ten
days' probation during which time they acquire that degree of
savoir-faire and veneer of etiquette which alone makes it possible for
her to exhibit them at her tea."
"Precisely," said I. "She lets them sleep in the big box-stalls of her
stable where the extra coach-horses were kept before the motor-car craze
came in. They receive four square meals a day, are rubbed down and
curry-combed before each meal, and are bathed night and morning in
violet water until the fateful occasion, after which they are returned
to New York cleaner if not wiser children."
"It is a great charity," said Henrietta dreamily. "Does Mrs. Rockerbilt
make any charge for admission to these teas--you say they are for the
benefit of the Fresh-Air Fund?"
"Oh no, indeed," said I. "It is purely a private charity. The youngsters
get their ten days in the country, learn good manners, and Newport
society has a pleasant afternoon--all at Mrs. Rockerbilt's expense."
"H'm!" said Henriette, pensively. "H'm! I think there is a better
method. Ah-- I want you to run down to New York for a few days shortly,
Bunny. I have a letter I wish you to mail."
Nothing more was said on the subject until the following Tuesday,
when I was despatched to New York with instructions to organize myself
into a Winter Fresh-Air Society, to have letter-heads printed, with
the names of some of the most prominent ladies in society as
patronesses--Henriette had secured permission from Mrs. Gaster, Mrs.
Sloyd-Jinks, Mrs. Rockerbilt, Mrs. Gushington-Andrews, Mrs. R. U.
Innitt, the duchess of Snarleyow, Mrs. Willie K. Van Pelt, and numerous
others to use their names in connection with the new enterprise--and to
write her a letter asking if she would not interest herself and her
friends in the needs of the new society.
"It is quite as important," the letter ran, "that there should be a
fund to take the little sufferers of our dreadful winters away from the
sleet and snow-burdened streets of the freezing city as it is to give
them their summer outing. This society is in great need of twenty-five
thousand dollars properly to prosecute its work during the coming
winter, and we appeal to you for aid."
Henriette's personal response to this request was a check for ten
thousand dollars, which as secretary and treasurer of the fund I
acknowledged, and then, of course, returned to her, whereupon her
campaign began in earnest. Her own enthusiasm for the project, backed up
by her most generous contribution, proved contagious, and inside of two
weeks, not counting Henriette's check, we were in possession of over
seventeen thousand dollars, one lady going so far as to give us all her
bridge winnings for a week.
"And now for the grand coup, Bunny," said Mrs. Van Raffles, when I had
returned with the spoil.
"Great Scot!" I cried. "Haven't you got enough?"
"No, Bunny. Not a quarter enough," she replied. "These winter resorts
are very expensive places, and while seventeen thousand dollars would do
very nicely for running a farm in summer, we shall need quite a hundred
thousand to send our beneficiaries to Palm Beach in proper style."
"Phe-e-w!" I whistled, in amazement. "Palm Beach, eh?"
"Yes," said Henriette. "Palm Beach. I have always wanted to go there."
"And the one hundred thousand dollars--how do you propose to get that?"
I demanded.
"I shall give a lawn-fete and bazaar for the benefit of the fund. It
will differ from Mrs. Rockerbilt's tea in that I shall charge ten
dollars admission, ten dollars to get out, and we shall sell things
besides. I have already spoken to Mrs. Gaster about it and she is
delighted with the idea. She has promised to stock the flower table with
the cream of her conservatories. Mrs. Rockerbilt has volunteered to take
charge of the refreshments. The duchess of Snarleyow is dressing a doll
that is to be named by Senator Defew and raffled at five dollars a
guess. Mrs. Gushington-Andrews is to take entire control of the fancy
knick-knack table, where we shall sell gold match-boxes, solid silver
automobile head-lights, cigar-cutters, cocktail-shakers, and other
necessities of life among the select. I don't see how the thing can
fail, do you?"
"Not so far," said I.
"Each of the twelve lady patronesses has promised to be responsible for
the sale of a hundred tickets of admission at ten dollars apiece--that
makes twelve thousand dollars in admissions. It will cost each person
ten dollars more to get out, which, if only half of the tickets are
used, will be six thousand dollars--or eighteen thousand dollars in
entrance and exit fees alone."
"Henriette!" I cried, enthusiastically, "Madam Humbert was an amateur
alongside of you."
Mrs. Van Raffles smiled. "Thank you, Bunny," said she. "If I'd only been
a man--"
"Gad!" I ejaculated. "Wall Street would have been an infant in your
hands."
Well, the fateful day came. Henriette, to do her justice, had herself
spared no pains or expense to make the thing a success. I doubt if the
gardens of the Constant-Scrappes ever looked so beautiful. There were
flowers everywhere, and hanging from tree to tree from one end of their
twenty acres to the other were long and graceful garlands of
multicolored electric lights that when night came down upon the fete
made the scene appear like a veritable glimpse of fairyland. Everybody
that is anybody was there, with a multitude of others who may always be
counted upon to pay well to see their names in print or to get a view of
society at close range. Of course there was music of an entrancing sort,
the numbers being especially designed to touch the flintiest of hearts,
and Henriette was everywhere. No one, great or small, in that vast
gathering but received one of her gracious smiles, and it is no
exaggeration to say that half of the flowers purchased at rates that
would make a Fifth Avenue tailor hang his head in shame, were bought by
the gallant gentlemen of Newport for presentation to the hostess of the
day. These were immediately placed on sale again so that on the flower
account the receipts were perceptibly swelled.
A more festal occasion has never been known even in this festal
environment. The richest of the land vied with one another in making the
affair a vast financial success. The ever gallant Tommy Dare left the
scene twenty times for the mere privilege of paying his way in and out
that many times over at ten dollars each way. The doll which Senator
Defew had named was also the cause of much merriment, since when all was
over and some thirteen thousand five hundred dollars had been taken in
for guesses, it was found that the senator had forgotten the name he had
given it. When the laughter over this incident had subsided, Henriette
suggested that it be put up at auction, which plan was immediately
followed out, with the result that the handiwork of the duchess of
Snarleyow was knocked down for eight thousand six hundred and
seventy-five dollars to a Cincinnati brewer who had been trying for
eight years to get his name into the Social Register.
* * * * *
"Thank goodness, that's over," said Henriette when the last guest had
gone and the lights were out. "It has been a very delightful affair, but
towards the end it began to get on my nerves. I am really appalled,
Bunny, at the amount of money we have taken in."
"Did you get the full one hundred thousand dollars?" I asked.
"Full hundred thousand?" she cried, hysterically. "Listen to this." And
she read the following memorandum of the day's receipts:
Flower Table $36,000.00
Doll 22,175.00
Admissions 19,260.00
Exits 17,500.00
Candy Table 12,350.00
Supper Table 43,060.00
Knick-Knacks 17,380.00
Book Table 123.30
Coat Checks 3,340.00
-----------
Total $171,188.30
"Great Heavens, what a haul!" I cried. "But how much did you spend
yourself?"
"Oh--about twenty thousand dollars, Bunny--I really felt I could afford
it. We'll net not less than one hundred and fifty thousand."
I was suddenly seized with a chill.
"The thing scares me, Henriette," I murmured. "Suppose these people ask
you next winter for a report?"
"Oh," laughed Henriette, "I shall immediately turn the money over to the
fund. You can send me a receipt and that will let us out. Later on you
can return the money to me."
"Even then--" I began.
"Tush, Bunny," said she. "There isn't going to be any even then. Six
months from now these people will have forgotten all about it. It's a
little way they have. Their memory for faces and the money they spend is
shorter than the purse of a bankrupt. Have no fear."
And, as usual, Henriette was right, for the next February when the
beneficiaries of the Winter Fresh-Air Fund spent a month at Palm Beach,
enjoying the best that favored spot afforded in the way of entertainment
and diversion, not a word of criticism was advanced by anybody, although
the party consisted solely of Mrs. Van Raffles, her maid, and Bunny, her
butler. In fact, the contrary was the truth. The people we met while
there, many of whom had contributed most largely to the fund, welcomed
us with open arms, little suspecting how intimately connected they were
with our sources of supply.
Mrs. Gaster, it is true, did ask Henriette how the Winter Fresh-Air Fund
was doing and was told the truth--that it was doing very well.
"The beneficiaries did very well here," said Henriette.
"I have seen nothing of them," observed Mrs. Gaster.
"Well--no," said Henriette. "The managers thought it was better to send
them here before the season was at its height. The moral influences of
Palm Beach at the top of the season are--well--a trifle strong for the
young--don't you think?" she explained.
The tin-type I hand you will give you some idea of how much one of the
beneficiaries enjoyed himself. There is nothing finer in the world than
surf bathing in winter.
VII
THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. ROCKERBILT'S TIARA
Henriette had been unwontedly reserved for a whole week, a fact which
was beginning to get sadly on my nerves when she broke an almost
Sphinxlike silence with the extraordinary remark:
"Bunny, I am sorry, but I don't see any other way out of it. You must
get married."
To say that I was shocked by the observation is putting it mildly. As
you must by this time have realized yourself, there was only one woman
in the world that I could possibly bring myself to think fondly of, and
that woman was none other than Henriette herself. I could not believe,
however, that this was at all the notion she had in mind, and what
little poise I had was completely shattered by the suggestion.
I drew myself up with dignity, however, in a moment and answered her.
"Very well, dear," I said. "Whenever you are ready I am. You must have
banked enough by this time to be able to support me in the style to
which I am accustomed."
"That is not what I meant, Bunny," she retorted, coldly, frowning at me.
"Well, it's what _I_ mean," said I. "You are the only woman I ever
loved--"
"But, Bunny dear, that can come later," said she, with a charming little
blush. "What I meant, my dear boy, was not a permanent affair but one of
these Newport marriages. Not necessarily for publication, but as a
guarantee of good faith," she explained.
"I don't understand," said I, affecting denseness, for I understood only
too well.
"Stupid!" cried Henriette. "I need a confidential maid, Bunny, to help
us in our business, and I don't want to take a third party in at random.
If you had a wife I could trust her. You could stay married as long as
we needed her, and then, following the Newport plan, you could get rid
of her and marry me later--that is--er--provided I was willing to marry
you at all, and I am not so sure that I shall not be some day, when I am
old and toothless."
"I fail to see the necessity for a maid of that kind," said I.
"That's because you are a man, Bunny," said Henriette. "There are
splendid opportunities for acquiring the gems these Newport ladies wear
by one who may be stationed in the dressing-room. There is Mrs.
Rockerbilt's tiara, for instance. It is at present the finest thing of
its kind in existence and of priceless value. When she isn't wearing it
it is kept in the vaults of the Tiverton Trust Company, and how on earth
we are to get it without the assistance of a maid we can trust I don't
see--except in the vulgar, commonplace way of sandbagging the lady and
brutally stealing it, and Newport society hasn't quite got to the point
where you can do a thing like that to a woman without causing talk,
unless you are married to her."
"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Henriette," I returned, with more
positiveness than I commonly show, "I will not marry a lady's maid, and
that's all there is about it. You forget that I am a gentleman."