decent college, irrespective of whether his father was a rotter or not,
had imbibed something of a sense of honor. Struggle as he would against
it, the shadow of Sadie Burch kept creeping athwart his mind. There were
so many possibilities! Suppose she was in desperate straits? Hadn't he
better look her up, anyhow? No, he most definitely didn't want to know
anything about her! Supposing she really had rendered some service to
his father for which she ought to be repaid as he had sought to repay
her? These thoughts obtruded themselves upon Payson's attention when he
least desired it, but they did not cause him to alter his intention to
get his hooks into his father's whole residuary estate and keep it for
himself. He had, you observe, a conscience, but it couldn't stand up
against twenty-five thousand dollars reinforced by perfectly sound legal
arguments.
No, he had a good excuse for not being a gentleman and a sportsman and
he did not purpose to look for any reasons for doing differently. Then
unexpectedly he was invited to dinner by Mr. Ephraim Tutt in a funny
old ramshackle house on West Twenty-third Street with ornamented iron
piazza railings all covered with the withered stalks of long dead
wistarias, and something happened to him. "Payson Clifford's Twenty-five
Thousand Dollar Dinner." He had no suspicion, of course, what was coming
to him when he went there,--went, merely because Mr. Tutt was one of the
very few friends of his father that he knew. And he held towards the old
lawyer rather the same sort of patronizing attitude that he had had
towards the old man. It would be a rotten dinner probably followed by a
deadly dull evening with a snuffy old fossil who would tell him
long-winded, rambling anecdotes of what New York had been like when
there were wild goats in Central Park.
The snuffy old fossil, however, made no reference whatever to either old
New York or wild goats,--the nearest he came to it being wild oats.
Instead he began the dreary evening by opening a cupboard on his library
wall and disclosing three long bottles, from which he partially filled a
shining silver receptacle containing cracked ice. This he shook with
astonishing skill and vigor, meantime uttering loud outcries of
"Miranda! Fetch up the mint!" Then a buxom colored lady in calico--with
a grin like that which made Aunt Sallie famous--having appeared,
panting, with two large glasses and a bundle of green herbage upon a
silver salver, the old fossil poured out a seething decoction--of which
like only the memory remains--performed an incantation over each glass
with the odoriferous greens, smiled fondly upon the work of his hands
and remarked with amiable hospitality, "Well, my son! Glad to see
you!--Here's how!"
Almost immediately a benign animal magnetism pervaded the bosom of
Payson Clifford, and from his bosom reached out through his arteries and
veins, his arterioles and venioles, to the uttermost ends of his being.
He perceived in an instant that Mr. Tutt was no ordinary man and his
house no ordinary house; and this impression was intensified when,
seated at his host's shining mahogany table with its heavy cut glass and
queer old silver, he discovered that Miranda was no ordinary cook. He
began to be inflated over having discovered this Mr. Tutt, who pressed
succulent oysters and terrapin stew upon him, accompanied by a foaming
bottle of Krug '98. He found himself possessed of an astounding appetite
and a prodigious thirst. The gas lights in the old bronze chandelier
shone like a galaxy of radiant suns above his head and warmed him
through and through. And after the terrapin Miranda brought in a smoking
wild turkey with two quail roasted inside of it, and served with currant
jelly, rice cakes, and sweet potatoes fried in melted sugar. Then, as in
a dream, he heard a soul-satisfying pop and Miranda placed a tall, amber
glass at his wrist and filled it with the creaming redrose wine of
ancient Burgundy. He heard himself telling Mr. Tutt all about
himself,--the most intimate secrets of his heart,--and saw Mr. Tutt
listening attentively, almost reverently. He perceived that he was
making an astonishing impression upon Mr. Tutt who obviously thought him
a great man; and after keeping him in reasonable doubt about it for
awhile he modestly admitted to Mr. Tutt that this was so. Then he drank
several more glasses of Burgundy and ate an enormous pile of waffles
covered with maple syrup. "I'se in town, honey!" Mr. Tutt had grown
several sizes larger--the whole room was full of him. Lastly he had
black coffee and some port. It was an occasion, he asserted,--er--always
goo' weather,--or somethin'--when goo' fellows got together! He declared
with an emphasis which was quite unnecessary, but which, however, did
not disturb him, that there were too few men like themselves in the
world,--men with the advantage of education,--men of ideals. He told Mr.
Tutt that he loved him. He no longer had a father, and, evidently
relying on further similar entertainments, he wanted Mr. Tutt for one.
Mr. Tutt generously assented to act in that capacity and as the first
step assisted his guest upstairs to the library where he opened the
window a few inches.
Presently, Payson did not know how exactly, they got talking all about
life,--and Mr. Tutt said ruminatively that after all the only things
that really counted were loyalty and courage and kindness,--and that a
little human sympathy extended even in what sometimes seemed at first
glance the wrong direction often did more good--made more for real
happiness--than the most efficient organized charity. He spoke of the
loneliness of age--the inevitable loneliness of the human soul,--the
thirst for daily affection. And then they drifted off to college, and
Mr. Tutt inquired casually if Payson had seen much of his father, who,
he took occasion to remark, had been a good type of straightforward,
honest, hard-working business man.
Payson, smoking his third cigar, and taking now and then a dash of
cognac, began to think better of his old dad. He really hadn't paid him
quite the proper attention. He admitted it to Mr. Tutt--with the first
genuine tears in his eyes since he had left Cambridge;--perhaps, if he
had been more to him--. But Mr. Tutt veered off again--this time on
university education; the invaluable function of the university being,
he said, to preserve intact and untarnished in a materialistic age the
spiritual ideals inherited from the past.
In this rather commonplace sentiment Payson agreed with him
passionately. He further agreed with equal enthusiasm when his host
advanced the doctrine that after all to preserve one's honor stainless
was the only thing that much mattered. Absolutely! declared Payson, as
he allowed Mr. Tutt to press another glass of port upon him.
Payson, in spite of the slight beading of his forehead and the blurr
about the gas jets, began to feel very much the man of the world,--not a
"six bottle man" perhaps, but--and he laughed complacently--a "two
bottle man." If he'd lived back in the good old sporting days very
likely he could have done better. But he's taken care of two full
bottles, hadn't he? Mr. Tutt replied that he'd taken care of them very
well indeed. And with this opening the old lawyer launched into his
favorite topic,--to wit, that there were only two sorts of men in the
world--gentlemen, and those who were not. What made a man a gentleman
was gallantry and loyalty,--the readiness to sacrifice everything--even
life--to an ideal. The hero was the chap who never counted the cost to
himself. That was why people revered the saints, acclaimed the cavalier,
and admired the big-hearted gambler who was ready to stake his fortune
on the turn of a card. There was even, he averred, an element of
spirituality in the gambler's carelessness about money.
This theory greatly interested Payson, who held strongly with it, having
always had a secret, sneaking fondness for gamblers. On the strength of
it he mentioned Charles James Fox--there was a true gentleman and
sportsman for you! No mollycoddle--but a roaring, six bottle
fellow--with a big brain and a scrupulous sense of honor. Yes, sir!
Charley Fox was the right sort! He managed to intimate successfully that
Charley and he were very much the same breed of pup. At this point Mr.
Tutt, having carefully committed his guest to an ethical standard as far
removed as possible from one based upon self-interest, opened the window
a few more inches, sauntered over to the mantel, lit a fresh stogy and
spread his long legs in front of the sea-coal fire like an elongated
Colossus of Rhodes. He commenced his dastardly countermining of his
partner's advice by complimenting Payson on being a man whose words,
manner and appearance proclaimed him to the world a true sport and a
regular fellow. From which flattering prologue he slid naturally into
said regular fellow's prospects and aims in life. He trusted that Payson
Clifford, Senior, had left a sufficient estate to enable Payson, Junior,
to complete his education at Harvard?--He forgot, he confessed just what
the residue amounted to. Then he turned to the fire, kicked it, knocked
the ash off the end of his stogy and waited--in order to give his guest
a chance to come to himself,--for Mr. Payson Clifford had suddenly
turned a curious color, due to the fact that he was unexpectedly
confronted with the necessity of definitely deciding then and there
whether he was going to line up with the regular fellows or the second
raters, the gentlemen or the cads, the C.J. Foxes or the Benedict
Arnolds of mankind. He wasn't wholly the real thing, a conceited young
ass, if you choose, but on the other hand he wasn't by any means a bad
sort. In short, he was very much like all the rest of us. And he wasn't
ready to sign the pledge just yet. He realized that he had put himself
at a disadvantage, but he wasn't going to commit himself until he had
had a good chance to think it all over carefully. In thirty seconds he
was sober as a judge--and a sober judge at that.
"Mr. Tutt," he said in quite a different tone of voice. "I've been
talking pretty big, I guess,--bigger than I really am. The fact is I've
got a problem of my own that's bothering me a lot."
Mr. Tutt nodded understandingly.
"You mean Sadie Burch."
"Yes."
"Well, what's the problem? Your father wanted you to give her the money,
didn't he?"
Payson hesitated. What he was about to say seemed so disingenuous, even
though it had originated with Tutt & Tutt.
"How do I know really what he wanted? He may have changed his mind a
dozen times since he put it with his will."
"If he had he wouldn't have left it there, would he?" asked Mr. Tutt
with a smile.
"But perhaps he forgot all about it,--didn't remember that it was
there," persisted the youth, still clinging desperately to the lesser
Tutt. "And, if he hadn't would have torn it up."
"That might be equally true of the provisions of his will, might it
not?" countered the lawyer.
"But," squirmed Payson, struggling to recall Tutt's arguments,
previously so convincing, "he knew how a will ought to be executed and
as he deliberately neglected to execute the paper in a legal fashion,
isn't it fair to presume that he did not intend it to have any legal
force?"
"Yes," replied Mr. Tutt with entire equanimity, "I agree with you that
it is fair to assume that he did not intend it to have any legal
effect."
"Well, then!" exclaimed Payson exultantly.
"But," continued the lawyer, "that does not prove that he did not intend
it to have a moral effect,--and expect you to honor and respect his
wishes, just as if he had whispered them to you with his dying breath."
There was something in his demeanor which, while courteous, had a touch
of severity, that made Payson feel abashed. He perceived that he could
not afford to let Mr. Tutt think him a cad,--when he was really a C.J.
Fox. And in his mental floundering his brain came into contact with the
only logical straw in the entire controversy.
"Ah!" he said with an assumption of candor. "In that case I should know
positively that they were in fact my father's wishes."
"Exactly!" replied Mr. Tutt. "And you'd carry them out without a
moment's hesitation."
"Of course!" yielded Payson.
"Then the whole question is whether or not this paper does express a
wish of his. That problem is a real problem, and it is for you alone to
solve,--and, of course, you're under the disadvantage of having a
financial interest in the result, which makes it doubly hard."
"All the same," maintained the boy, "I want to be fair to myself."
"--And to him," added Mr. Tutt solemnly. "The fact that this wish is not
expressed in such a way as to be legally obligatory makes it all the
more binding. In a way, I suppose, that is your hard luck. You might,
perhaps, fight a provision in the will. You can't fight this--or
disregard it, either."
"I don't exactly see why this is any _more_ binding than a provision in
the will itself!" protested Payson.
Mr. Tutt threw his stogy into the fire and fumbled for another in the
long box on the library table.
"Maybe it isn't," he conceded, "but I've always liked that specious
anecdote attributed to Sheridan who paid his gambling debts and let his
tailor wait. You remember it, of course? When the tailor demanded the
reason for this Sheridan told him that a gambling debt was a debt of
honor and a tailor's bill was not, since his fortunate adversary at the
card table had only his promise to pay, whereas the tailor possessed an
action for an account which he could prosecute in the courts.
"'In that case!' declared the tailor, 'I'll tear up my bill!' which he
did, and Sheridan thereupon promptly paid him. Have another nip of
brandy?"
"No, thank you!" answered Payson. "It's getting late and I must be
going. I've--I've had a perfectly--er--ripping time!"
"You must come again soon!" said Mr. Tutt warmly, from the top of the
steps outside.
As Payson reached the sidewalk he looked back somewhat shamefacedly and
said:
"Do you think it makes any difference what sort of a person this Sadie
Burch is?"
In the yellow light of the street lamp it seemed to the collegian as if
the face of the old man bore for an instant a fleeting resemblance to
that of his father.
"Not one particle!" he answered. "Good night, my boy!"
But Payson Clifford did not have a good night by any manner of means.
Instead of returning to his hotel he wandered aimless and miserable
along the river front. He no longer had any doubt as to his duty. Mr.
Tutt had demolished Tutt in a breath,--and put the whole proposition
clearly. Tutt had given, as it were, and Mr. Tutt had taken away.
However, he told himself, that wasn't all there was to it; the money was
his in law and no one could deprive him of it. Why not sit tight and let
Mr. Tutt go to the devil? He need never see him again! And no one else
would ever know! Twenty-five thousand dollars? It would take him years
to earn such a staggering sum! Besides, there were two distinct sides to
the question. Wasn't Tutt just as good a lawyer as Mr. Tutt? Couldn't he
properly decide in favor of himself when the court was equally divided?
And Tutt had said emphatically that he would be a fool to surrender the
money. As Payson Clifford trudged along the shadows of the docks he
became obsessed with a curious feeling that Tutt and Mr. Tutt were both
there before him; Mr. Tutt--a tall, benevolent figure carrying a torch
in the shape of a huge, black, blazing stogy that beckoned him onward
through the darkness; and behind him Tutt--a little paunchy red devil
with horns and a tail--who tweaked him by the coat and twittered, "Don't
throw away twenty-five thousand dollars! The best way is to leave
matters as they are and let the law settle everything. Then you take no
chances!"
But in the end--along about a quarter to seven A.M.--Mr. Tutt won.
Exhausted, but at peace with himself, Payson Clifford stumbled into the
Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street, ordered three fried eggs done on
one side, two orders of bacon and a pot of coffee, and then wrote a
letter which he dispatched by a messenger to Tutt & Tutt.
"Gentlemen," it read: "Will you kindly take immediate steps to find Miss
Sarah Burch and pay over to her twenty-five thousand dollars from my
father's residuary estate. I am entirely satisfied that this was his
wish. I am returning to Cambridge to-day. If necessary you can
communicate with me there.
"Yours very truly,
"PAYSON CLIFFORD."
* * * * *
One might suppose that a legatee to twenty-five thousand dollars could
be readily found; but Miss Sadie Burch proved a most elusive person. No
Burches grew in Hoboken--according to either the telephone or the
business directory--and Mr. Tutt's repeated advertisements in the
newspapers of that city elicited no response. Three months went by and
it began to look as if the lady had either died or permanently absented
herself--and that Payson Clifford might be able to keep his twenty-five
thousand with a clear conscience. Then one day in May came a letter from
a small town in the central part of New Jersey from Sadie Burch. She
had, she said, only just learned entirely by accident that she was an
object of interest to Messrs. Tutt & Tutt. Unfortunately, it was not
convenient for her to come to New York City, but if she could be of any
service to them she would be pleased, etc.
"I think I'll give the lady the once-over!" remarked Mr. Tutt, as he
looked across the glittering bay to the shadowy hills of New Jersey.
"It's a wonderful day, and there isn't much to do here...."
* * * * *
"Sadie Burch? Sadie Burch? Sure, I know her!" answered the lanky man
driving the flivver tractor nearby, as he inspected the motor carrying
Mr. Tutt. "She lives in the second house beyond the big elm--" and he
started plowing again with a great clatter.
The road glared white in the late afternoon sun. On either side
stretched miles of carefully cultivated fields, the country drowsed, the
air hot, but sweet with magnolia, lilac and apple blossoms. Miss Burch
had obviously determined that when she retired from the world of men she
would make a thorough job of it and expose herself to no temptation to
return--eight miles from the nearest railroad. Just beyond the elms they
slowed up alongside a white picket fence enclosing an old-fashioned
garden whence came to Mr. Tutt the busy murmur of bees. Then they came
to a gate that opened upon a red-tiled, box-bordered, moss-grown walk,
leading to a small white house with blue and white striped awnings. A
green and gold lizard poked its head out of the hedge and eyed Mr. Tutt
rather with curiosity than hostility.
"Does Miss Sadie Burch live here?" asked Mr. Tutt of the lizard.
"Yes!" answered a cheerful female voice from the veranda. "Won't you
come up on the piazza?"
The voice was not the kind of voice Mr. Tutt had imagined as belonging
to Sadie Burch. But neither was the lady on the piazza that kind of
lady. In the shadow of the awning in a comfortable rocking chair sat a
white-haired, kindly-faced woman, knitting a baby jacket. She looked up
at him with a friendly smile.
"I'm Miss Burch," she said. "I suppose you're that lawyer I wrote to?
Won't you come up and sit down?"
"Thanks," he replied, drawing nearer with an answering smile. "I can
only stay a few moments and I've been sitting in the motor most of the
day. I might as well come to the point at once. You have doubtless heard
of the death of Mr. Payson Clifford, Senior?"
Miss Burch laid down the baby-jacket and her lips quivered. Then the
tears welled in her faded blue eyes and she fumbled hastily in her bosom
for her handkerchief.
"You must excuse me!" she said in a choked voice. "--Yes, I read about
it. He was the best friend I had in the world,--except my brother John.
The kindest, truest friend that ever lived!"
She looked out across the little garden and wiped her eyes again.
Mr. Tutt sat down upon the moss-covered door-step beside her.
"I always thought he was a good man," he returned quietly. "He was an
old client of mine--although I didn't know him very well."
"I owe this house to him," continued Miss Burch tenderly. "If it hadn't
been for Mr. Clifford I don't know what would have become of me. Now
that John is dead and I'm all alone in the world this little
place--with the flowers and the bees--is all I've got."
They were silent for several moments. Then Mr. Tutt said:
"No, it isn't all. Mr. Clifford left a letter with his will in which he
instructed his son to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars. I'm here to
give it to you."
A puzzled look came over her face, and then she smiled again and shook
her head.
"That was just like him!" she remarked. "But it's all a mistake. He paid
me back that money five years ago. You see he persuaded John to go into
some kind of a business scheme with him and they lost all they put into
it--twenty-five thousand apiece. It was all we had. It wasn't his fault,
but after John died Mr. Clifford made me--simply made me--let him give
the money back. He must have written the letter before that and
forgotten all about it!"
You're Another!
"We have strict statutes, and most biting laws."
Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4.
"I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no
laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have."
Montaigne. Of Experience, Chapter XIII.
Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly, lawful spouse of Vice President Pumpelly, of
Cuban Crucible, erstwhile of Athens, Ohio, was fully conscious that even
if she wasn't the smartest thing on Fifth Avenue, her snappy little car
was. It was, as she said, a "perfec' beejew!" The two robes of silver
fox alone had cost eighty-five hundred dollars, but that was nothing;
Mrs. Pumpelly--in her stockings--cost Pierpont at least ten times that
every year. But he could afford it with Cruce at 791. So, having moved
from Athens to the metropolis, they had a glorious time. Out home the
Pierpont had been simply a P. and no questions asked as to what it stood
for; P. Pumpelly. But whatever its past the P. had now blossomed
definitely into Pierpont.
Though the said Pierpont produced the wherewithal, it was his wife,
Edna, who attended to the disbursing of it. She loved her husband, but
regarded him socially as somewhat of a liability, and Society was now,
as she informed everybody, her "meal yure."
She had eaten her way straight through the meal--opera box, pew at St.
Simeon Stylites, Crystal Room, musicales, Carusals, hospital
entertainments, Malted Milk for Freezing France, Inns for Indigent
Italians, Biscuits for Bereft Belgians, dinner parties, lunch parties,
supper parties, the whole thing; and a lot of the right people had come,
too.
The fly in the ointment of her social happiness--and unfortunately it
happened to be an extremely gaudy butterfly indeed--was her next-door
neighbor, Mrs. Rutherford Wells, who obstinately refused to recognize
her existence.
At home, in Athens, Edna would have resorted to the simple expedient of
sending over the hired girl to borrow something. But here there was
nothing doing. Mrs. Rutherford had probably never seen her own chef and
Mrs. Pumpelly was afraid of hers. Besides, even Edna recognized the
lamentable fact that it was up to Mrs. Wells to call first, which she
didn't. Once when the ladies had emerged simultaneously from their
domiciles Mrs. Pumpelly had smilingly waddled forward a few steps with
an ingratiating bow, but Mrs. Wells had looked over her head and hadn't
seen her.
Thereupon the iron had entered into Mrs. Pumpelly's soul and her life
had become wormwood and gall, ashes in her mouth and all the rest of it.
She proposed to get even with the cat at the very first chance, but
somehow the chance never seemed to come. She hated to be living on the
same street with that kind of nasty person. And who was this Wells
woman? Her husband never did a thing except play croquet or something at
a club! He probably was a drunkard--and a roo-ay. Mrs. Pumpelly soon
convinced herself that Mrs. Wells also must be a very undesirable, if
not hopelessly immoral lady. Anyhow, she made up her mind that she would
certainly take nothing further from her. Even if Mrs. Wells should have
a change of heart and see fit to call, she just wouldn't return it! So
when she rolled up in the diminutive car and found Mrs. Wells' lumbering
limousine blocking the doorway she was simply furious.
"Make that man move along!" she directed, and Jules honked and honked,
but the limousine did not budge.