CHAPTER I_The Maker of Opportunities

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THE MAKER OF

OPPORTUNITIES

By GEORGE GIBBS

The Maker of Opportunities

The Forbidden Way

The Bolted Door

Tony's Wife

The Medusa Emerald

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

[Illustration: "But the Great Head rocks didn't hear."]

THE MAKER OF

OPPORTUNITIES

GEORGE GIBBS

AUTHOR OF "THE FORBIDDEN WAY,"

"THE BOLTED DOOR," ETC.

[Illustration]

ILLUSTRATED BY

EDMUND FREDERICK

NEW YORK AND LONDON

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1912

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

_Published April, 1912_

Printed in the United States of America

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING

PAGE

"But the Great Head rocks didn't hear." _Frontispiece_

"'I beg pardon,' he repeated, 'but isn't this yours?'" 66

"'What a lot of vermilion you use.'" 142

"'You are supposed to be playing the golf of the New

Era.'" 256

THE MAKER OF OPPORTUNITIES

CHAPTER I

It was two o'clock. Mr. Mortimer Crabb pushed back the chair from

his breakfast tray and languidly took up the morning paper. He had a

reputation (in which he delighted) of dwelling in a Castle of Indolence,

and took particular pains that no act of his should belie it. There were

persons who smiled at his affectations, for he had a studio over a

stable in one of the cross streets up town, where he dawdled most of his

days, supine in his easy chair. The age was running to athletics, so Mr.

Crabb in public had become the apostle and high priest of flaccidity. He

raised a supercilious eyebrow at tennis, drawled his disparagement of

polo and racquets and recoiled at the mere mention of college football.

But those highest in Crabb's favor knew that there were evenings when he

met professional pugilists at this same shrine of aestheticism, who, at

liberal compensation, matched their skill and heft to his.

Nor was he a mean antagonist in conversation. For Mr. Crabb had a slow

and rather halting way of making the most trenchantly witty remarks,

and a style exactly suited to the successful dinner table. And when a

satiated society demanded something new it was to Crabb they turned for

a suggestion. Mrs. Ryerson's Gainsborough ball, Jack Burrow's remarkable

ushers' dinner, and the pet-dog tea at Mrs. Jennings' country place were

fantasies of the mind of this Prester John of the effete. When to these

remarkable talents is added a yacht and a hundred and fifty thousand a

year, it is readily to be seen that Mr. Mortimer Crabb was a person of

consequence, even in New York.

Mr. Crabb scanned the headlines of the _Sun_, while McFee fastened his

boots. But his eye fell upon an item that made him sit up straight and

drop his monocle.

"H--m!" he muttered in a strange tone. "So Dicky Bowles is coming home!"

He peered at the item again and read, frowning.

"Owing to the necessity for the immediate departure of the

prospective groom for Europe, the marriage of Miss Juliet

Hazard, daughter of Mr. Henry Hazard, to Mr. Carl Geltman will

take place on Wednesday, June twentieth, instead of in October,

the month at first selected."

Crabb's expression had suddenly undergone a startling change, unknown in

the Platonic purlieus of the Bachelors' Club. The brows tangled, the

lower jaw protruded, while the feet which had languidly emerged from

the dressing-room a few moments before, had partaken suddenly of the

impulses which dominated the entire body. He rose abruptly and took a

few rapid turns up and down the room.

"So! They didn't dare wait! Poor little Julie! There ought to be better

things in store for her than that! And Dicky won't be here until

Thursday morning! It's too evident--the haste."

He dropped into his chair, picked up the paper again, and re-read the

item. June twentieth! And to-day was Sunday, June seventeenth! Geltman

had taken no more chances than decency demanded. Crabb remembered the

calamitous result of Hazard's ventures in Wall Street, and it was common

gossip that, had it not been for Carl Geltman, the firm of Hazard and

Company would long since have ceased to exist. It was easy to read

between the lines of the newspaper paragraph. Between the ruin of her

father's fortunes and her own, duty left Juliet Hazard no choice. And

here was Dicky Bowles upon the ocean coming back to claim his own. It

was monstrous.

Mr. Crabb laid aside the paper and paced the floor again. Then walked to

the window and presently found himself smiling down upon the hansom

tops.

"The very thing," he said. "The very thing. It's worth trying at any

rate. Jepson will help. And what a lark!" And then aloud:

"McFee," he called, "get me a hansom."

Mr. Carl Geltman sat in his office of chamfered oak, and smiled up at a

photograph upon his desk, conscious of nothing but the dull ecstasy

which suffused his ample person and blinded him to everything but the

contemplation of his approaching nuptials. The watch-chain stretched

tightly between his waistcoat pockets somehow conveyed the impression

of a tension of suppressed emotions, which threatened to burst their

confines. His rubicund visage exuded delight, and his short fingers

caressed his blond mustache. It was difficult for him to comprehend that

all of his ambitions were to be realized at once. Money, of course,

would buy almost anything in New York, but Mr. Geltman had hardly dared

to dream of this. Until he had seen Miss Hazard he had never even

thought of marriage. After he had seen her he had thought of nothing

else.

After working late in his office, Geltman dined alone at a fashionable

restaurant in a state of beatitude, then lit his cigar and walked forth

into Broadway for a breath of air before going to bed. The sooner to

sleep, the sooner would his wedding day dawn. But the glare of the

lights distracted him, the bells jangled out of harmony with his mood,

so he sought a side street and walked on toward the river, where he

could continue his dreams in quiet, until the hurrying thoroughfare was

far behind.

He had reached a spot between tall warehouses or factories when he felt

himself seized from behind by strong arms, and before he could make an

outcry something soft was thrust into his mouth and he had a dim sense

of sudden darkness, of hands not too tender lifting him into a carriage,

a brief whispered order, a hurried drive, more carrying, the sound of

lapping water and ship's bells, the throbbing of ferry paddles, the

motion of a boat, and the damp night air of the river through his thin

evening clothes.

When Geltman opened his eyes it was to fix them rather dully upon the

deck-beams of a yacht. The rushing water alongside sent rapid reflections

dancing along their polished surfaces. At first it occurred to him that

he was on an ocean steamer. Had he been married, and was this--? He

looked around. No. He was a good sailor, but the vessel rolled and

pitched sharply in a way to which he was unaccustomed. He arose to a

sitting posture and tried to piece together the shattered remnants of his

recollection. He felt strangely stupid and inert. How long had he been

lying in the bunk? He remarked that he was attired very properly in

pajamas--very fine pajamas they were, too, of silk such as he wore

himself. Upon the leather-covered bench opposite was a suit of flannels

carefully folded, white canvas shoes, stockings upon the deck, and other

unfamiliar undergarments disposed upon hooks by the cabin door.

He rose suddenly, his mind dully trying to grasp the situation.

He lurched to the porthole and looked out. It was a wilderness of

amber-color and white, rather bewildering and terrifying seen so near at

hand, for Geltman had been accustomed to look upon the ocean from the

security of fifty feet of freeboard. Far away where the leaping wave

crests met the line of sky, he could just distinguish the faint blue of

the land. He was seized with a sudden terror and, turning, he ran to the

cabin door and tried to open it. It was locked. He threw himself against

it and cried aloud, but his voice was lost in the rush of wind and water

without. His despairing eye at this moment lit upon a push-button by the

side of the bunk. He touched it with his finger and anxiously waited.

There was no sound. He sat upon the edge of the bunk, conscious of a

cold wind blowing upon his bare toes and of a dull ache within which

proclaimed the lack of food or drink, or both. He rang again and renewed

his shouting. In a moment there was the sound of a key in the lock, the

door opened, and a sober, smooth-shaven person in brass buttons stood in

the door.

"Did you ring, sir?" said the man, respectfully.

"I did," said Geltman, wrathfully.

"Yes, sir," said the man. "Can I get you anything, sir?"

"Can you get me--?" began the bewildered Geltman. "Is there anything you

_can't_ get me? Get me some food--my own clothes--and get me--get

me--out of this. Where am I? What am I doing here?"

"You were sleeping, sir," said the man, imperturbably. "I thought you

might not wish to be disturbed."

Geltman looked around him again as though unwilling to credit the

evidence of his senses. He saw that the man kept his hand upon the door

and eyed him narrowly.

"I've been drugged and shanghaied. What boat is this? Where are we?"

"We're at sea, sir," said the man, quietly. "Off Fire Island, I believe,

sir."

"Fire Island," he cried, "and this--" as memory came back with a horrible

rush--"what day is this?"

"Wednesday, June the twentieth," replied the man, calmly.

Geltman raised his hands toward the deck beams and sank upon the bunk on

the verge of collapse. He remembered now--it was his wedding day!