DUGALD STEELE cordially hated his neighbours, and evinced little
hesitation in telling them so, whenever opportunity offered. He lived
apparently in the depths of extreme poverty, occupying a dilapidated
wooden, unpainted house at the northern outskirts of the village of
Stumpville, Michigan. He kept no servant, but cooked his own meals, and
if any trespassers dared to set foot on his property, he threatened them
with a shotgun. He was a cantankerous, crabbed old Scotsman, snarling
like an unowned dog, and going about in shabbier clothes than the
most ragged tramp that had ever honoured Stumpville with his fleeting
presence.
Dugald and his younger brother Neil, the latter then newly married, came
out of the highlands of Scotland to the lowlands of Michigan. It was
not that the life in the American backwoods was harder than life in the
northern part of Scotland, but the hardships were different, and they
affected the health of the young wife; she died because of a falling
tree--a tree she had never seen, and whose final crash she had not
heard. Her husband was felling oaks in the forest, and one of them
lodged in the branches of another, resting there at an angle of
forty-five degrees. Neil, unaccustomed to forestry in its gigantic
American form, not knowing the danger he ran, set himself to chop down
the impediment, when the half-fallen tree suddenly completed its descent
and crushed him, face downward and lifeless, into the forest mould.
To the elder brother fell the grim task of chopping through the fallen
timber and rolling the log from off the dead man. The wife died from the
shock, and their little boy was left to the care of his taciturn uncle.
No one is alive who knew Dugald Steele in his youth, and so none can
tell what early experiences may have warped his character. Perhaps
the stinging poverty of those days gave him an exaggerated idea of the
necessity of hoarding money; perhaps the tragic death of his brother,
whose rude coffin he made with his own hands from slabs of the tree that
killed him, crushed out his natural affections instead of ripening them;
but, be that as it may, he was, during the latter part of his life, a
hard man, whom no tale of pathos could move into the expenditure of a
penny; a gnarled, cross-grained, twisted specimen of humanity from whom
all emotion, except that of hatred, seemed to have departed.
When he died a will was found leaving all his property to a neighbouring
town simply, as he said in the document, written by his own hand to
save a lawyer’s fee, that he might wreak posthumous revenge upon his
neighbours, who would understand, now that it was too late, what they
had missed by not being decent to him. But this will was invalidated by
a later one, which shows how a man with a kind heart may sometimes do
well for himself when he little understands what he is about.
Nemesis comes to all of us, and it is strange that it should have rested
on old Dugald, as the result of the hard, honest work in his young days.
Seeing no smoke from his chimney, a kindly woman neighbour, with fear
and trembling, penetrated to his dwelling, and found him knotted on the
floor with rheumatism, snarling and waspish as ever, but helpless. The
woman ran for assistance, and he was lifted into his bed, where he lay
when the doctor came, while the old man protested that he had no money
to pay him, and would not pay him if he had. The doctor, however, did
the best he could for him, and told the neighbours that the old man was
stricken with his last illness, which indeed proved to be the case. The
doctor said to his patient that if he had any relatives he wished to see
he had better send for them, offering to write if the old man gave him
an address. All his life Dugald Steele had distrusted medical advice,
but it is likely that on this occasion something within him corroborated
the verdict which had been passed upon him. He lay there for a long time
in silence, the doctor waiting, and at last said, in a hoarse whisper,
that he would like his nephew to know he was ill, giving the address
as John Steele, Hitchen’s Siding; but, he added, with a return of his
cantankerousness, that the doctor was to tell his nephew he need not
come unless he wanted to. The doctor at his own cost sent a telegram,
and late that night received a long answering despatch from John Steele
which deplored the impossibility of the sender’s going to Stumpville at
that time, begged that no expense should be spared in getting the old
man what comforts he needed, and concluded by saying that a check for
a hundred dollars had been posted to the physician for the purpose
indicated.
The young man knew his uncle well enough to be aware that if he sent
the money direct to him, that miserly person would hoard it, rather
than spend a penny on whatever necessities he required. He also knew
the delight his uncle experienced in handling money, so when he sent the
letter he enclosed two crisp new ten-dollar bills.
_My Dear Uncle,--he wrote,--I am deeply grieved to hear from the doctor
of your illness and sincerely hope it is not serious. I would come to
you at once if I could, but, alas, there is over me a severe taskmaster
who refuses me even a day’s leave, yet my position here is so good that
I dare not jeopardise it by absenting myself without permission, for if
I lose my job I lose also the chance of assisting you. Please accept the
twenty dollars which I send you, and get for yourself whatever you may
need. Procure the best physician in the place, and a nurse. I will send
you more money right along, and if it is not enough, refer creditors to
my employers, and they will, I think, guarantee that I can pay any debt
you may incur. Please do not stint yourself, but order what you want, or
whatever the physician thinks you should have, and do not imagine that
the spending of money will leave me short, for I have several hundred
dollars in a bank, and will send it to you as you require it. So, dear
uncle, keep up a good heart and take every care of yourself.--Your
loving Nephew._
The woman sitting at the bed-head read this letter to the old man,
wondering if he was paying attention, for his eyes were closed.
Presently she saw a tear trickle down his withered cheek and she thought
his heart was softening, but the first remark he made did not seem to
verify that conclusion.
“Give me the money,” he demanded in a harsh whisper.
The bills were handed to him, and his long, yellow fingers, like talons,
closed avariciously upon them; lingeringly dwelling on their smooth
texture, thumb and finger rubbed them up and down. His next remark was
more encouraging.
“Read the letter again,” he said, and the woman did so, although anger
was in her heart that affection should be wasted upon one so unworthy.
There was a long silence after she had finished the second reading, and
at last she asked him:
“Shall I send for another doctor?”
“No,” growled the old man, “doctors can do me no good. Go and tell
Lawyer Strathmore I want to see him. Tell him I have just received
twenty dollars, else he won’t come.”
The lawyer came on the strength of the woman’s assurance that the money
had arrived, and on his return to his office his partner said: “Well,
what struck the old Highlander? Wanted to make his will, I suppose. I
hope he hasn’t left his ancient suit of clothes to me.”
“Oh, he’s gone clean crazy,” replied Strathmore, “but I secured ten
dollars all right enough, so it doesn’t matter. He seems to think he
owns Michigan. Two hundred thousand dollars Michigan Central Railway
stock are deposited in the vaults of the Wayne County Savings Bank.
Seventy-nine thousand dollars Northern Pacific stock deposited somewhere
else. Cash in the bank over thirty thousand dollars--amounting all in
all to something like three hundred thousand dollars, which is left to a
nephew of his, a railway man on the Manateau Midland.”
“By Jove, Strathmore,” cried the partner, who had been a newspaper man
in his youth and saw a sensation in this, “I wouldn’t take my oath that
it isn’t all right. He’s just the sort of a dilapidated old miser who
would turn out to be a rich man.”
“Impossible,” said Strathmore.
“Improbable, perhaps, but a telegram to Detroit would soon let us know.”
And it did let them know. The inhabitants of Stumpville learned next
morning that an old man had died in one of their most ruinous shanties
who could have bought and sold each of them, and all of them combined.
When the telegram came announcing his uncle’s death John Steele rose
from his desk, locked the door, and paced up and down the room with bent
head. He had not expected this outcome, for although his uncle was old,
he had weathered so many gales, it had not occurred to the young man
that there must come one storm which would lay the gnarled old oak level
with the ground. Unavailingly did he regret that a consideration for his
own position had kept him from the bedside. With a sigh he stopped his
walk, pulled himself together, sat down at his desk, and wrote a brief
note to Blair, saying he had just received a telegram informing him of
the death of his uncle; that he intended to start by the next train for
Michigan, and would put Johnson temporarily in his place. He might be
gone as long as three days, but anything addressed to Stumpville would
find him. Pinning the telegram to this, and folding up the documents, he
sealed them into an envelope addressed to T. Acton Blair, and sent
the letter by a messenger to the general manager’s room. He knew that
official was in his office, but until the time John took his train there
came no response to his note. He called in Johnson, and briefly placed
him in transient command. The young man received his appointment with
a smug satisfaction that he found it impossible quite to conceal, and
although his departing chief noticed this, he made no comment upon it.
During his journey to Stumpville John Steele meditated upon his plan of
campaign. The sense of injustice he had felt ever since Blair
refused him permission to visit his uncle was now crystallised into a
determination to use the iron gauntlet rather than the velvet glove in
future. Naturally he was of a conciliatory disposition, but the exercise
of forbearance had resulted in failure and disorganisation. The next
move lay with the general manager. If Blair persisted in dismissing
him, he would appeal to Cæsar, for Cæsar himself had placed him in the
position he held.
Arriving at Stumpville, he went direct to the telegraph office, and
found awaiting him a despatch which, he was well aware without opening
it, came from the general manager; no one else knew his address. The
fact that he telegraphed instead of sending a messenger to his room in
the same building, which he had had ample time to do, seemed to Steele
the first sign of weakness. Blair wished to settle this matter at long
range. Tearing open the envelope he read: “I am amazed that you should
have left your post without at least personal consultation with me.
I have made your appointment of Johnson permanent, but will hold his
former office open for you unless you decline to accept it.”
Steele smiled grimly as he read these words. They showed that Blair
had not the courage definitely to dismiss him. The general manager was
afraid to burn his bridges behind him, hoping possibly that Steele would
telegraph his resignation or his indignant refusal of the subordinate
position.
Before leaving the city, John Steele had withdrawn from the bank several
hundred dollars in order that he might pay any debts his uncle had
contracted, and in order also that his funeral should be as imposing as
if the old man had been the leading citizen of the place. Then to his
amazement he learned that Dugald Steele had made him comparatively a
rich man, but this independence made no difference in Steele’s projects
for the future. He liked work for its own sake, and he was particularly
attached to the duty which chance and good fortune had assigned to him.
He was not going to allow that task to be interfered with by a
pompous wind-bag like T. Acton Blair, and much less so by a gang of
undisciplined subordinates who needed to hear the crack of the whip over
their heads.
On the journey back to the city, however, a germ of thought formed in
his mind, for the present to lie dormant, but in the future to develop
into marvellous things, watered by circumstance, fertilised by disaster.
Pondering on the strange, almost repulsive character of the old miser
who was gone, it occurred to John Steele that mere hoarding could never
have produced the sum of money he had accumulated. In his uncle’s mental
equipment there must have been a shrewd understanding of the world’s
affairs, of which he secretly took advantage to his own enrichment.
Quite unsuspected by his neighbours this recluse had played a game of
finance that proved marvellously successful. This could not have been
done in Stumpville. Dugald Steele had evidently worked through a broker
in some large city, and John Steele began to wonder if he, too, had
inherited this seventh sense of money-making which has produced those
bulky unearned fortunes for which America is celebrated or notorious.
John resolved to watch the markets in future and learn some of the rules
of the game; then he would venture in a small way, so that it did not
matter whether he won or lost, and thus put his suspected hereditary
abilities to the test. He was very sure from what he remembered of
his uncle that the cautious old man had never plunged blindly into
speculation. Unless he was very much mistaken, there had been nothing of
the gambler about Dugald Steele. He surely amassed his wealth because of
a well-informed belief in the continued progress of his adopted country,
placing his money here and there where he believed it would secure
the advantage of a rise in values. Thus the glow lamp of sweet
reasonableness shed its mild rays upon the entrance of a path new to
John Steele; a path which offered alluring vistas, but led into a wild
and dangerous country--the path of speculation.
When Steele opened the door of the division superintendent’s room,
Johnson, seated in the division superintendent’s chair, whirled round
abruptly with the frown of high authority on his brow, apparently
annoyed that any one should have taken the liberty of entering without
knocking.
“Ah, Steele, it’s you, is it?” cried Johnson airily, neglecting
to prefix the word “Mr.” which he would have used a week before.
“How-d’e-do, how-d’e-do? When did you get back?”
“My train arrived just three minutes ago,” replied John Steele calmly.
He closed the door behind him, and stood there, while Johnson remained
seated, palpably uneasy, evidently determined to carry off the situation
with an air of bonhomie. Mentally he had no doubt rehearsed it several
times during the past few days, but the man now confronting him was not
the anxious, worried individual who had left the chair he continued
to sit in, or the genial, good-humoured youth of former years. For
the first time in their intercourse Johnson saw before him the stern
demeanour of one in authority, and inwardly he quaked, though outwardly
he endeavoured to maintain the guise of airy indifference which appeared
fitting for the encounter.
“You received Mr. Blair’s telegram, I suppose?” said Johnson at last,
becoming more and more embarrassed by the frigid silence. Somehow the
crisis was not evolving exactly as he had pictured it. He was _de facto_
division superintendent, yet somehow this new, quiet man before him did
not appear to recognise his elevation.
“Everything has gone right since I left, I take it; otherwise I should
have heard from you,” remarked Steele, ignoring the question just put to
him.
“Oh, yes,” said Johnson, “everything has gone smoothly. Look here,
Steele,” cried Johnson in a burst of candour, “why didn’t you reply
to the old man’s telegram? You know how touchy he is on questions of
discipline. He very generously offered you the position I held, and you
didn’t even take the trouble to acknowledge his kindness. I can assure
you, John, it has been all I could do to keep the old man from promoting
Car-ruthers into my place, but I succeeded in persuading Mr. Blair to
take no further steps until you returned. I said I was sure you would
have some satisfactory explanation to offer.”
“You were quite right; I have. And now, Mr. Johnson, you will reap the
reward of your own kindness. The place you have so generously kept open
for me I take pleasure in bestowing upon you; but in return for the
counsel you have been good enough to give me, I warn you that unless I
get a little better service than has been rendered for some months past
you will not hold the position.”
Johnson threw back his head and laughed loudly.
“Steele, my dear boy, that’s a good bluff, but it won’t work. I have
been made division superintendent by the general manager of this road.
Mr. Blair and myself have both been very patient over your unauthorised
desertion of your post, but I tell you frankly that my patience is at
an end. I offer you the position which I formerly held. If you do not
at once accept it, I shall call Car-ruthers in and give him the vacant
place.”
“Do,” said John Steele.
Johnson’s hand hovered over the electric button, but he forbore to press
it, looking anxiously toward the impassive man who had made such a curt
reply to his threat.
“I dislike exceedingly to call Carruthers. I want to give you every
chance, Steele.”
“That is very good of you, but don’t hesitate on my account. I may say,
however, that if you touch that button, or issue any further orders
in this room, you will automatically have dismissed yourself from the
service of the Midland Road.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? You’re going to show fight, are you? I’ll very
quickly convince you that you haven’t the slightest chance of winning.
I have behind me the general manager of this road, and he has the owners
of the system behind _him_. If you bring on an unnecessary contest, in
which you have no possibility of victory, I shall then not allow you to
be employed on this line, even in the meanest capacity.”
“I quite understand, Mr. Johnson, that either you or I must leave. Now,
press the button, and make your promotion without further talk.”
All this time Johnson’s hand had been hesitating over the ivory knob. It
trembled slightly, but at last it took the plunge, and made the signal.
Presently there came a knock at the door, and James Carruthers entered,
glancing uncertainly from Steele to Johnson, apparently undecided whom
he should first address. Johnson’s voice was extremely urbane, and it
brought joy to the heart of his former colleague.
“Carruthers,” he said, “you will now take my place in the other room,
and with your new position I am happy to say there will be an addition
to your salary.”
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” replied Carruthers, very humbly, meanwhile
glancing timidly at the silent man standing there. Perhaps James
Carruthers would have been more certain of his promotion had John Steele
made the announcement. The latter’s kind heart was not proof against
this mute appeal, and a smile came to his lips as he said: “Have
no fear, Carruthers. It gives me great pleasure to sanction your
appointment. Now, just step around to Mr. Blair’s room, and ask him to
come here for a moment.”
“You will do nothing of the sort, Carruthers,” cried Johnson
truculently, springing to his feet with clenched fist. It was neck or
nothing now, and he knew it. “I am division superintendent, and in this
room you take orders from no one but me.”
Poor Carruthers stood with his hand on the door knob, wishing himself
safely back in his own room, while Johnson took a determined step toward
him, seeing the youth’s hesitation, and resolved to overcome it in his
own favour. Then a quite unimportant incident happened which caused him
to face the other way, and to feel that somehow he had lost a point
in the game. Without any hurry John Steele had seated himself in the
division superintendent’s chair. Steele, momentarily ignoring both
commander and commanded, rang a bell at the private telephone which
communicated with the general manager’s room, and placed the receiver at
his ear.
“Is that you, Mr. Blair? This is John Steele. I have just returned,
and I want you to step round to my room, as I wish to make a rather
important communication.”
There was a momentary pause, and so intensely still did the room become
that the two men standing there looking at John Steele could hear the
indefinite murmur of the voice coming over the telephone.
“No,” said Steele firmly, “the conference must take place in this room,
and it must take place now. Otherwise the complaint I have to make
against you will go by telegraph direct to Mr. Rockervelt, and I shall
leave by to-night’s train for New York.”
Again there was a pause, and a ghostly suggestion of a whisper. Then
Steele said: “Oh, I am not on the war-path at all. In fact, such is my
deep respect for yourself that it rests entirely with you to say whether
there will _be_ a war-path or not. Personally I see no necessity for it.
Just step round, and we’ll talk it over in the most amicable way. Yes,
Johnson’s here.” With that Steele hung up his receiver, swung round on
the swivel chair, the usual winning smile on his lips as he met the gaze
of two very anxious young men. His voice, however, was sharp enough when
he spoke.
“Carruthers, clear out,” whereupon Carruthers opened the door and
disappeared as if by magic.
“Johnson, sit down. You are just about to learn a lesson on the value of
all this backing of which you have been boasting.”
Before Johnson could either accede to the request or disobey it the door
opened and the stout gentleman entered. There was a severe frown on
his brow intended to denote resolute strength, but an expression of
uncertainty in his lower face which hinted at weakness.
Steele waved his hand amiably toward a deep leather-covered easy
chair, and into its luxurious folds the fat man sank, drawing forth a
handkerchief, which he passed across his brow, and somehow the action
appeared to obliterate the frown.
“You said in your telegram, Mr. Blair, that I was in fault because
I left without personally consulting with you, but I think you will
forgive my error when you remember that having applied for permission
to leave when my uncle was dying, and being refused, it would have been
futile for me to appear before you with proof of his death and a further
request for leave of absence. You would have been bound in consistency
to refuse, while I was equally determined to attend my uncle’s funeral.
If you disbelieved my words when I told you he was dying, you could not
have so stultified yourself as to credit the news of his death.”
“I did not disbelieve your word,” protested Blair, timorously.
“I understood you to do so. If you did not, then your action was at once
cruel and tyrannical. However, that is past and done with, so we will
say no more about it, unless you choose that it should come up later
on. Now, I may inform you that my late uncle has left me a legacy that
approximates three hundred thousand dollars. As the interest on this,
even at one per cent, is more than I receive as division superintendent
of the Midland, you will easily understand that I do not retain my
position merely from mercenary motives. I am to-day in a position of
independence which makes the outcome of any struggle we may engage in a
matter of perfect indifference to me.”
“I am happy,” said Blair, again mopping his brow, “to be the first of
your old colleagues to congratulate you on your improved prospects. John
Jacob Astor once said that a poor man with a hundred thousand dollars
might make a fortune in this country. Although times have changed
since then, still, a poor man with three times that amount has numerous
opportunities denied to more poverty-stricken individuals. As for the
struggle you speak of, I really see nothing on earth that either of us
would gain by engaging in it.”
“_I_ am quite at one with you there, sir, and indeed you will find me
the least belligerent of individuals if I but get my own way, which
I intend to insist on hereafter, so far as my immediate department is
concerned. While I have no fear of the struggle I suggested, neither
have I any desire to engage in it. You see, Mr. Blair, you would be
too severely handicapped from the start to give you a chance. Your task
would be to show that Mr. Rockervelt is a fool, while all I should need
to do would be to prove that he is the wisest of men. You are too shrewd
a judge of human nature to doubt the outcome of such a contest. Mr.
Rockervelt prides himself on two things. First, the unerringness of his
judgment regarding men; second, the excellence of his various roads, and
he reaches the second by means of the first. Now, he placed me in
this chair. If he had wished you to choose the occupant, he would have
delegated that duty to you. If he had desired the estimable Mr. Johnson
here, he would not have had the slightest hesitation in enlisting Mr.
Johnson’s co-operation. Now, if you stood to gain anything by forcing a
hopeless issue I could comprehend your attitude, but anything you wish
you can have through good will, so where is the use of coercion or of a
fight?”
“I assure you, my dear Mr. Steele, that I have no desire whatever to
bring on a fight. I have said so all along.”
“Very well, Mr. Blair, there’s no more to be said, and I predict you
will find me the most deferential, accommodating subordinate that ever
worked in your office.”
“But where do I come in?” ejaculated the panic-stricken Johnson, whose
face had become paler and paler as this colloquy went on.
“My dear sir, you _don’t_ come in,” said John Steele urbanely. “I told
you that at the beginning, when I counselled you not to enter a contest
where you were bound to be the loser. I commend to you in future the
sensible attitude assumed by Mr. Blair.”
“Mr. Blair,” persisted Johnson, “you appointed me division
superintendent, and assured me you would stand by that appointment.”
“Oh, well,” explained Blair, “you see how it is yourself. I did so under
an entire misapprehension. I thought that Mr. Steele had openly defied
my authority, which I now understand was not the case. Am I right in
that, Mr. Steele?”
“Perfectly right, sir. I had no desire to impugn your authority, and I
apologise for my abrupt action, which certainly bore that complexion.”
“There, Johnson,” said Blair, almost pleadingly, “you must see that puts
a different face on the matter entirely.”
It certainly put a different face on Johnson, who stood there with
dropped jaw, gazing pitifully at his backboneless chief.
“I am very sorry there has been any misunderstanding,” said Blair
soothingly. “Such, of course, occurs in all offices, but luckily
discipline is so perfect here that a few words will adjust things in
their right proportion to each other. You have done very well, Mr.
Johnson, during your short occupancy of this room, and when you resume
your old place you may be certain that both Mr. Steele and myself will
remember you when a chance for promotion occurs.”
“I regret to say,” remarked Steele casually, before Johnson had an
opportunity of speaking, “that Mr. Johnson’s last act during his
temporary occupancy of this chair was to promote Carruthers into his
vacant place, and this promotion I myself confirmed. I recommend Mr.
Johnson to take a vacation for a month, and if during that period
he secures another situation, I shall be happy to recommend him, and
probably you, Mr. Blair, would not object to do the same.”
“Certainly not, certainly not,” muttered Blair hastily. “If, at the end
of a month,” continued John Steele, “you have not suited yourself, Mr.
Johnson, you may return to me, and I’ll see what I can do for you. I am
going to rearrange my staff, and give most of its members a step upward.
Some of them, however, will take a step downward, and some will be
promoted over the heads of their seniors. All this will require a little
thought and manipulation, but, as Mr. Blair truly says, discipline
is everything, and I am determined to carry out his wishes in that
respect.”
“Well, Mr. Steele,” said the general manager, rising with a deep sigh
of satisfaction, as if everything had gone exactly as he planned it,
“anything I can do to help on the good work will not be stinted. Call
upon me when in any difficulty, Mr. Steele, and be assured of my most
whole-hearted support,” and with that the great man held out his hand,
which Steele, springing to his feet, clasped cordially. Without a glance
at the crest-fallen Johnson, T. Acton Blair strode majestically from the
room.
John Steele turned to his desk.
“May I have a word with you, Mr. Steele?” asked Johnson.
“Yes, this day month,” said John Steele without looking up.