There was once a miller who was very poor, but he had a beautiful
daughter. There were a great many people who said that if he had not had
so beautiful a daughter he would not have been so poor, and it may be
that these were right, for beautiful daughters are not infrequently a
source of considerable expense to their parents, and I fear me that
Gasmerilda was no exception to this rule.
She had a great passion for rare furs and for opera and lingerie cloaks,
and the thousand and one other dainty things that appeal to the heart
of beautiful young maidenhood, and it seemed to make no difference how
many millions of bushels of corn passed through her father's mill day
after day, the returns from the grinding wheels were always thirty or
forty dollars a month lower than the total aggregate of Gasmerilda's
bills from milliners, furriers, jewelers, and others too numerous to
mention.
Of course, this thing could not go on indefinitely. There comes a time
when even the blindest of creditors will insist upon the liquidation of
a miller's account, and the poor man found himself getting deeper and
deeper into debt as the months passed along, and was now at last at his
wits' ends to devise new excuses for the non-payment of Gasmerilda's
indebtedness. Indeed, he had now come to a point where there was but one
refuge from the ultimate of financial disaster that should force him
into a public declaration of his bankruptcy, and that was to be seen
associating in public places with well-known malefactors of great
wealth.
What awful agony of mind this cost him--for he was an honest miller, as
had always been evidenced by his willingness to promise to pay his debts
even when he knew he could not--the world will never know, but he
swallowed his pride, and for a time gained immunity from the pressure of
his creditors with their threatened judgments by being seen walking down
Fifth Avenue in the morning alongside of Colonel John W. Midas, the
president of the Pactolean Trust Company, a savings institution formed
primarily for the purpose of lending its depositors' money to members of
its own board of directors, taking their checks dated two months ahead
and indorsed by their office-boys and stenographers for security.
It is true that anybody who was ever seen speaking to Colonel Midas in
public was, by orders of the district attorney, immediately snap-shotted
by the Secret Service Camera Squad attached to that gentleman's office,
and the resulting negatives filed away for future reference in case
Justice should ever, by some odd chance, peep over the top of her
bandage for a moment and fix her eagle eye upon the Colonel's doings;
but, on the other hand, there were countless thousands of worthy people,
and among them were the miller's creditors, who believed that
association with such a person as Colonel Midas was pretty good evidence
either of a man's solvency or of his immunity to the lash of the law.
Consequently, when for five successive mornings the furriers, the
jewelers, the milliners, and others, to whom the unfortunate miller owed
vast unpayable sums of money for sundries purchased from time to time by
the beautiful Gasmerilda, saw their debtor walking down-town alongside
of the great Pactolean magnate, they called off their collectors and
attorneys, and sent the beautiful girl extra notifications through the
mails of their new fall and winter importations; to which, in due course
of time, the lovely maid responded, to the consequent swelling of the
already over-large accounts due. If these persons had only known that
these walks upon the avenue were silent walks, and that from the Plaza
down to Madison Square Colonel Midas, though accompanied by the miller,
was utterly unaware of the latter's presence, being too deeply absorbed
in certain operations of great magnitude upon the Street to notice
anything that was going on around him, they would doubtless have acted
differently; but they did not know this, and it soon passed about among
the tradesmen that the miller was the friend of Midas, and thereby was
his credit greatly expanded.
On the morning of the sixth day's promenade, however, Colonel Midas,
having solved the particular problem upon which his mind had been set
for the past week or ten days, became more observant, and, after the
miller had walked at his side for several blocks, he remarked the fact,
and with emotions that were not altogether pleasant. Wherefore, he
quickened his footsteps in order that he might leave the intruder
behind, but the miller quickened his also and remained alongside.
Colonel Midas stopped short in his walk before an art-shop window, and
gazed in at the paintings therein displayed.
The miller likewise, his head cocked knowingly to one side like that of
a connoisseur, paused and gazed in at the marvels of the brush. The
Colonel, with a sudden jerky turn, leaped from the window to the
gutter-curb and boarded a moving omnibus with surprising agility for a
man of his years. But he was not too quick for his pursuer, for the
miller, though scarcely able to afford the expense, immediately sprang
aboard the same vehicle and took the seat beside him. Then for the first
time the Colonel addressed him, and, there being no ladies upon the
omnibus at that early hour, in terms rather more forcible than polite.
[Illustration: "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"]
"What do you think you are doing?" he demanded, frowning upon his
pursuer.
"Riding in a 'bus," replied the miller, with a pleasant smile.
"Are you trying to shadow me?" roared the Colonel.
"I'd make a mighty poor eclipse for you, Colonel Midas," said the
miller, suavely, "but to tell you the truth," he added, a sudden idea
having flashed across his mind, which in the absence of anything else to
say in explanation of his conduct seemed as good as any other excuse he
could invent, "there _is_ a little matter I'd like to bring to your
attention."
"Bombs?" asked the Colonel, moving away apprehensively, noticing that
the miller had put his hand into his pocket, and fearing that he had,
perhaps, encountered a crank who designed to do him harm.
"No, indeed," laughed the miller. "Not in such close quarters as this.
When I throw a bomb at anybody I shall take care to provide a safety net
for myself."
"Ha!" ejaculated the Colonel, with a deep sigh of relief. "Book-agent?"
"Nothing in it," said the miller. "Work too heavy for the profits. No,
sir, I am neither a book-agent nor an anarchist. I am nothing but a poor
miller with an ingrowing income, but I have a beautiful daughter who--"
"Oh yes," interrupted Midas, with a nod. "I remember now. I've heard of
you. You preferred to remain independent instead of selling out to the
Trust. You tried to discount some of your notes at the Pactolean Trust
Company, of which I am president, the other day."
"Yes," said the miller, "and you refused them."
"Naturally," laughed Midas. "A beautiful daughter, Mr. Miller, is a
lovely possession, but she's mighty poor security for a loan. About the
worst in the market. Especially yours. I've seen Miss Miller at the
opera several times and have wondered how you managed it. It would cost
more than the face value of your notes to support the security for one
week in the style to which she is accustomed."
"That's true enough," said the miller, "and nobody knows it better than
I do. Nevertheless, you made a mistake. You have possibly never heard of
her wonderful gift."
"No," said the magnate. "I was not aware that the young lady had any
other gifts than beauty and a father with a little credit left."
"Well, be that as it may," retorted the miller, "she has one great gift.
She can spin straw into gold."
"What?" cried Midas, becoming interested at once.
"Yes, sir," the miller went on. "She has marvellous powers in that
direction. If she hadn't I'd have been up a tree long ago."
"I had heard of her father's ability to turn hot air into Russian sables
and diamond necklaces, but this straw business is something new," said
Midas.
"I thought you would so regard it," said the miller, confidently, "and
that is why I have been trying to get a word with you for the past week.
You are the only man I know in the financial world who is known to have
the enterprise and the courage to go into a little gamble that other
people would laugh at. You have that prime quality of success, Colonel
Midas, that is known to mankind as nerve. You are always willing to sit
in any kind of a game that shows a glimmer of profit in the perspective,
and that is why I bring this matter to you instead of to my friend
Rockernegie, a man utterly without imagination and blind to many a sure
thing because he can't understand it."
The Colonel, who was not unsusceptible to flattery, was visibly
impressed by this tribute. He scratched his head thoughtfully for a
moment.
"See here, Mr. Miller," he said, after a brief communion with himself,
"if this story is true, why are you trying to discount your notes at the
Pactolean Trust Company? Why don't you get a bale of straw and have your
daughter turn it over a few times?"
"I will be perfectly frank with you, Colonel," said the miller. "It is a
humiliating confession to make, sir, but I'm everlastingly busted. Just
plain down and out and I couldn't buy a lemonade straw if they were
going at a cent a ton, much less a bale."
The Colonel looked at him sympathetically, and then, giving his knee a
resounding whack, he cried: "By Jove, Miller, I'll back you! I rather
like your nerve, and, as you have so charmingly put it, I _am_ the sort
of man to take a long shot. Yes, sir, and I wouldn't have had seven
cents to my name to-day if I hadn't been. Come with me to the Pactolean
Trust Company and we'll discount your demand note, suitably indorsed,
right off, with the understanding, however, that your daughter gives us
an immediate demonstration of her powers. We'll furnish the straw."
The miller's heart leaped with joy, but he deemed it well not to show
himself over-anxious lest he lose the whole advantage.
"It is very good of you, Colonel," he observed quietly, "but I don't
know a soul in this bright, beautiful world who would indorse my note
for any sum, large or small."
"Oh, that will be all right," laughed the Colonel. "We've got a rubber
stamp in the office for just such emergencies."
So the miller and his new-found friend went to the offices of the
Pactolean Trust Company, where, in a short while, he found relief from
his pressing woes by the exchange of his demand note for five thousand
dollars, indorsed most appropriately by a man of straw, for four crisp
one-thousand-dollar treasury notes and the balance, less six months'
interest, in yellow-backs of a denomination of fifty dollars each.
"Tell your daughter to come down here to-morrow morning," said the
Colonel, as the miller pocketed the money. "I'll summon the board of
directors and she can give us a demonstration of her gift in the private
office. We'll have a couple of bales of straw all ready for her."
"You will have to excuse me, Colonel," said the miller, with that
calmness which a man is likely to show when he has five thousand dollars
in good money in his purse, "but that will be impossible. Gasmerilda has
always refused to exercise her gift in the presence of anybody else, and
I am quite sure she will make no exception in this case. Even as a child
she would not let either her mother or myself see how she did it."
"But she must," said the Colonel, firmly, "or I shall be under the
painful necessity of calling that note at once."
[Illustration: "THERE'S THE MONEY, SIR"]
"But she can't," returned the miller. "You see, sir, it is one of the
peculiarities of the gift that she must be alone while at work. It
requires such intense concentration of effort. If you insist upon her
presence here, why--well, as you intimate, the deal is off between us
and I shall have to take it to Rockernegie. There's the money, sir."
With a supreme effort of will the miller tossed the roll of bills back
upon the table. It was, of course, an act of sheer bravado, but he
carried it off so well that it worked.
"Oh, very well," said the Colonel, gruffly, a shade of disappointment
crossing his face. "If she can't, she can't, I suppose. It's worth a
try, anyhow. We'll send a bale of straw up to your residence this
afternoon, and if by to-morrow morning she has managed to turn it into
gold, all well and good. If not--well, we call the note, that's all."
"Can't you make it a week?" pleaded the miller. "She may have some other
engagement on for to-night, and--er--well, a week will give her time
to turn around."
"Make it five days," said the Colonel. "To-day is Wednesday. Let her
make the delivery on Monday morning."
"Done!" said the miller, overjoyed, and he went out.
He had not the slightest notion in the world how his beautiful daughter
would be able to fulfil the agreement--indeed, he was fairly certain in
his mind that she would be able to do nothing of the sort, but he had
the use of five thousand dollars at a critical moment in his career and
he knew that if worst came to worst he could shave off his mustache,
and, thus disguised, take passage for Europe in the steerage of some one
of the many Saturday steamers.
Now, on his return home that evening, the miller was very much
embarrassed by a searching inquiry from his beautiful daughter. It seems
that when she had tried to telephone to one of her friends that
afternoon she had been informed by Central that the service had been
discontinued for non-payment of the bill for December, 1906.
"Have we come to such a pass as that, father?" she demanded, her lovely
voice quivering with emotion.
"It looks like it," said the miller, with an uneasy laugh. "I have been
kept so busy paying for your daily supply of fresh sables that I haven't
had a moment for the gas bills or for your conversational accounts. With
you to look after, my dear, I find that even talk is not cheap."
The beautiful girl wiped the tears from her eyes with her point-lace
handkerchief.
"But," she cried, "what are we going to do? I must have eleven hundred
and seventy dollars and fifty-five cents to-morrow morning, father, or I
shall be ruined."
The miller's heart sank within him and his face grew ashen.
"Eleven hundred and seventy dollars and fuf-fifty--fuf--five cents?" he
stammered. "In Heaven's name what for, Gasmerilda--hairpins?"
"No, father," she trembled. "I have issued three or four pounds of
deferred bridge certificates, and they fall due to-morrow. You certainly
do not wish me to lose my social position--about the only thing I have
left?"
The unhappy man gazed long and anxiously at the pale face before him,
and then his heart softened, as it always had done.
"All right, my child," he sighed, as he tossed the exact amount to her
across the table. Then his face grew stern.
"Gasmerilda," he said, "your extravagance having brought us to this, I
may as well inform you now as at any other time that it is up to you to
get us out of trouble, and I have to-day been forced to enter into
negotiations with the Pactolean Trust Company by which you are to be
capitalized. Hereafter, my child, you are to become a dividend-paying
investment instead of twin sister to a sinking fund."
"What can you mean, father?" cried the girl, her face blanching with
fear.
The miller thereupon recounted to her in full detail the incidents of
the morning, and revealed to her astounded mind the preposterous claims
he had made on her behalf.
"But father," she protested, "I have no such gift."
"You will excuse me for refusing to discuss the matter further with you,
Gasmerilda," he replied, coldly. "If it so happens that you have no such
gift you must devise some method of getting it. I have given my word,
and as a dutiful daughter you must make good."
Turning to the butler, the miller asked:
"James, has a bale of straw arrived here to-day from Colonel Midas?"
"Yes, sir," said the butler. "It is down-stairs in the cellar, sir."
"Good!" said the miller. "You will have it carried up to Miss
Miller's dressing-room at once."
Rising from the table he kissed his unhappy daughter affectionately,
and, bidding her good-night, he went to the club, where he paid his
delinquent dues and house charges and set out once more upon a tolerably
care-free existence for five days at least.
"A short life and a merry one!" he muttered to himself, as he paid in a
hundred dollars for a supply of red and blue chips.
[Illustration: POOR GASMERILDA SAT WHITE-FACED]
Meanwhile, poor Gasmerilda sat white-faced, and eyes wide with fear and
perplexity, staring at that horrible bale of straw that occupied the
middle of the floor of her dainty boudoir. She had no more idea of how
to spin it into gold than she had of making over her last year's gingham
bath-robe into this year's panne-velvet opera gown. Hourly her distress
grew, until finally the floodgates of her tears broke, and she burst
into a passionate convulsion of weeping. But, even as the tears began
to flow, there came a faint golden tinkle on the jeweled 'phone that
stood on her escritoire. At first she paid no attention to the
unexpected tintinnabulation, but the tinkling soon became more
pronounced and so persistent that she finally answered it.
"Is that you, Gasmerilda?" came a quaint little voice over the wire.
"Yes," she sobbed. "Who is this?"
"There are tears in your voice, Gasmerilda," came the quaint little
voice.
"They are all over the place," wept the unhappy girl.
[Illustration: "I AM YOUR FAIRY GODMOTHER, GASMERILDA"]
"And I know why," said the little voice, sympathetically. "I am your
fairy godmother, Gasmerilda, and I have not ceased to watch over you.
Your father has negotiated a loan on your remarkable gift of spinning
straw into gold, has he not?"
"Yes," sobbed Gasmerilda, "and I have no such gift."
"Well, don't worry, my child," said the little voice. "When you were
a baby you once offered a part of your school orange to a starving
kitten, and she has not forgotten it. I was that kitten and I have kept
my eye on you ever since, and now I am going to help you out. If you
will do exactly what I tell you to do all will be well."
Gasmerilda, with a great sigh of relief, promised to be faithful to her
fairy godmother's instructions.
"Oh, you dear!" she cried, impulsively.
"Go to-morrow, the first thing in the morning," said the fairy
godmother, "to the United States Assay Office on Wall Street, taking
with you the money your father gave you this evening at dinner, and buy
a one-thousand-dollar bar of gold."
"But, Fairy Godmother," Gasmerilda interrupted, "I--I must use that
money to pay off my bridge I. O. U.'s to-morrow."
"I have arranged for all that," laughed the fairy godmother. "Those
I. O. U.'s will never be presented. Transforming myself into a mouse, I
have entered the escritoires of the ladies holding your notes of hand,
and have eaten every single one of them."
Gasmerilda's heart leaped with joy.
"Oh, Fairy Godmother!" she cried. "Can't you get rid of father's note in
the same way?"
"No, my dear," sighed the little voice. "That note, unfortunately, is
stored away in a steel vault, and my teeth are not strong enough to
nibble through that. I have a more business-like method to get you both
out of your troubles. After you have purchased the bar of gold, take it
home with you and devise some convenient means of getting rid of the
straw without anybody seeing you do it. The best way to do this will be
to carry an armful of it at a time up on to the roof of your house and
let it blow away; and then, when next Monday comes, and your father is
required to deliver the first consignment of the precious metal to
Colonel Midas, go with him to the Colonel's office, yourself, taking
the gold bar with you, and see that it is really delivered. Wear your
most bewitching hat, and don't fail to remember what a woman's eyes were
given her for."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" cried Gasmerilda, a great wave of
happiness sweeping over her. "If I could get at you, dear Fairy
Godmother, over the 'phone, I should hug you to death."
"That is all right, child. My reward will come later," replied the fairy
godmother. "When your profits begin to come in you may pay me a
commission of ten per cent. on all you get."
"Gladly. I'll make it fifteen per cent.," cried the grateful girl. "But
how shall you be paid?"
"By check, dear, drawn to the order of The Fairy's Aid Society of
America, of which I am the president," was the answer. "The address is
just Wall Street, New York. And now, sweet dreams, my beloved ward. The
sun of your troubles has set, and the dawn of prosperity is here."
With a happy smile Gasmerilda wished her kindly friend good-night, and
retired to her couch and slept the sleep of a weary child. Bright and
early the next morning, with her little gold-chain purse containing the
necessary funds dangling from her chatelaine, she appeared at the assay
office, and purchased there a shining bar of the lustrous metal,
returning to her home in time for luncheon.
"Well, daughter," said the miller, as he met her in the hallway, "how
does the good work proceed?"
"Very well, indeed, father," she said, with a cheery smile. "I'm a
little out of practise, but I managed to spin about ninety-eight
dollars' worth last night before going to bed."
The miller blinked amazedly at his daughter. This answer was indeed the
most extraordinary substitute for the floods of tears he had expected to
greet his question.
"You--you--you dud--don't--m--m--mean to sus--say--" he stammered.
"Father, dear, did you ever try to cut calves-foot jelly with a steel
knife?" she asked.
"Yes, child, yes--but what of that?" he demanded, completely nonplussed.
"Well, dear," she answered, kissing him on the tip end of his nose,
"that is hard labor compared to spinning gold out of straw."
She ran from him, laughing merrily as she hurried up the stairs to her
room, while he, staggering back against the newel-post of the staircase,
leaned on it, breathing heavily.
"If that's the case," he said, as with trembling hands he took a set of
false whiskers and a steerage ticket for Naples from his pocket, "I
shall not need these."
Nevertheless, prudence bade him wait until he had seen the gold before
destroying the paraphernalia of his possible flight, and oh, the joy of
that Saturday morning, when Gasmerilda, having, by an almost
super-human effort, having rid herself of the straw as her fairy
godmother had bade her to do, led her trembling father into her boudoir
and showed him the glittering bar!
"Are you sure it's real?" he quavered.
"I have had it stamped at the assay office, father," she replied. "See!"
And she showed him the stamps of the authorized government test.
"My child!" he cried, dancing about the room in a delirium of joy. "My
beloved, my beautiful daughter--was ever miller so blessed as I! Wait!"
Rushing madly to the jeweled 'phone, he rang up Colonel Midas.
"Excuse me for bothering you, Colonel," he said, excitedly, "but this is
Miller. I thought you would be interested to know that my daughter has
turned the trick a little sooner than I expected. If you want to see the
gold to-day instead of waiting until Monday, all you've got to do is to
say so."
The wire fairly sizzled with the reply. Of course, Colonel Midas
would not wait. In fact, he'd be right up. How much did the miller think
the gold would pan out?
"Oh, about a thousand dollars," replied the miller.
"What?" roared Midas. "A thousand dollars' worth of gold from a
seven-dollar bub--bale of straw?"
"That's the assay office estimate," said the miller, with a smile. "You
can't very well go behind that."
The answer was a long, low whistle, and within twenty minutes the great
financier's car came chugging up to the door, and he entered the house,
bringing with him a chemist.
[Illustration: "THIS IS THE GREATEST CINCH IN THE HISTORY OF FINANCE"]
"By Jingo! Miller," he cried, after the chemist had applied every known
test to the bar and declared it to be, beyond all question, the real
stuff, "by Jingo, old man, our fortune is made. This is the greatest
cinch in the history of finance."
"Looks that way," said the miller, calmly, leaning forward and tossing
the steerage ticket into the waste-basket.
"We--er--we must keep it in the family, Miller," the Colonel added,
slapping the proud father familiarly on the knee--for Gasmerilda had
remembered the fairy godmother's injunction as to the use of her eyes.
"I intend to, Colonel," said the miller, dryly. "I'll keep it in _my_
family if you don't mind--"
Midas gasped, and then he laughed sheepishly.
"To think that I, a hardened old bachelor, should be a victim to love at
first sight!" he said.
"Very funny indeed," laughed the miller.
"What would you say to me as a son-in-law, eh?" Midas went on. "You know
I'm a decent chap, old man. No funny business about my private
life--it's a good chance to get your daughter settled in life, and--"
"Well, I don't know," said the miller, coolly. "You are generally
considered to be a fairly eligible sort of person, Midas, but my
daughter can afford to marry for love as long as the straw crop holds
good."
A glitter came into Midas's eye.
"What if I were to corner the market?" he demanded.
"That would be bad for Gasmerilda and me," the miller agreed. "Mind you,
I haven't said I disapproved of the match, but let's be perfectly frank
with each other. I'm not going to sell my daughter to you or to anybody
else, but you know how things run these days. A man's a millionaire
to-day and a member of the down-and-out club to-morrow. Now, I don't
know the first blessed thing about your prospects. You are rich now, but
who knows that before 1915 you won't be in a federal jail somewhere
without a nickel?"
"I see your point," said Midas, "and I'll settle five million on her
to-morrow."
"Real money?" he demanded.
"Real money," said Midas.
"Done!" ejaculated the miller.
And so the papers settling five million dollars in approved securities
upon the miller's daughter were executed, and three months later that
invincible old bachelor, John W. Midas, for whom countless widows had
set their caps in vain, was led to the altar by the blushing and happy
Gasmerilda. The groom's gift to the bride was a princely one, consisting
of ten million dollars' worth of the preferred stock of the newly
organized American Straw and Hay Trust, of which Colonel Midas was
president, a concern controlling all the leading straw industries of the
United States and some said of foreign lands as well. The papers called
it the most brilliant match of the season, but, none the less, the bride
had some misgivings. She knew, and somehow or other in the perspective
of the vista of wedded bliss ahead of her, no larger than a pin-head,
she seemed at times to see the first faint symptoms of a cloud which
might sooner or later obscure the whole heavens; aye, even that vast
stretch of blue that reached from the easternmost part of New York to
the westernmost boundaries of Reno, Nevada. Still, back of this was a
silver--nay, a golden--lining, for Gasmerilda was now the possessor in
her own right of five million dollars in real money, and with such a
possession in hand one can stand a good deal of domestic
misunderstanding.
And even then there was the chance that the sporting instincts of
Colonel Midas would prove to be such that he would admire the genius
back of the transmutation that had originally won him--in addition to
which was the other fact that already, without a bale in sight, he had
sold the public over fifty millions' worth of the common stock in the
United States Straw and Hay Trust at 97-7/8.
The first check out of Gasmerilda's new account was as follows: