These are the directions for finding the office of Carteret & Carteret,
Mill Supplies and Leather Belting:
You follow the Broadway trail down until you pass the Crosstown Line,
the Bread Line, and the Dead Line, and come to the Big Cañons of the
Moneygrubber Tribe. Then you turn to the left, to the right, dodge a
push-cart and the tongue of a two-ton four-horse dray and hop, skip,
and jump to a granite ledge on the side of a twenty-one-story synthetic
mountain of stone and iron. In the twelfth story is the office of
Carteret & Carteret. The factory where they make the mill supplies and
leather belting is in Brooklyn. Those commodities--to say nothing of
Brooklyn--not being of interest to you, let us hold the incidents within
the confines of a one-act, one-scene play, thereby lessening the toil
of the reader and the expenditure of the publisher. So, if you have the
courage to face four pages of type and Carteret & Carteret's office boy,
Percival, you shall sit on a varnished chair in the inner office and
peep at the little comedy of the Old Nigger Man, the Hunting-Case Watch,
and the Open-Faced Question--mostly borrowed from the late Mr. Frank
Stockton, as you will conclude.
First, biography (but pared to the quick) must intervene. I am for the
inverted sugar-coated quinine pill--the bitter on the outside.
The Carterets were, or was (Columbia College professors please rule), an
old Virginia family. Long time ago the gentlemen of the family had worn
lace ruffles and carried tinless foils and owned plantations and had
slaves to burn. But the war had greatly reduced their holdings. (Of
course you can perceive at once that this flavor has been shoplifted
from Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith, in spite of the "et" after "Carter.") Well,
anyhow:
In digging up the Carteret history I shall not take you farther back
than the year 1620. The two original American Carterets came over in
that year, but by different means of transportation. One brother, named
John, came in the _Mayflower_ and became a Pilgrim Father. You've seen his
picture on the covers of the Thanksgiving magazines, hunting turkeys in
the deep snow with a blunderbuss. Blandford Carteret, the other brother,
crossed the pond in his own brigantine, landed on the Virginia coast,
and became an F.F.V. John became distinguished for piety and shrewdness
in business; Blandford for his pride, juleps; marksmanship, and vast
slave-cultivated plantations.
Then came the Civil War. (I must condense this historical
interpolation.) Stonewall Jackson was shot; Lee surrendered; Grant
toured the world; cotton went to nine cents; Old Crow whiskey and Jim
Crow cars were invented; the Seventy-ninth Massachusetts Volunteers
returned to the Ninety-seventh Alabama Zouaves the battle flag of
Lundy's Lane which they bought at a second-hand store in Chelsea, kept
by a man named Skzchnzski; Georgia sent the President a sixty-pound
watermelon--and that brings us up to the time when the story begins.
My! but that was sparring for an opening! I really must brush op on my
Aristotle.
The Yankee Carterets went into business in New York long before the war.
Their house, as far as Leather Belting and Mill Supplies was concerned,
was as musty and arrogant and solid as one of those old East India
tea-importing concerns that you read about in Dickens. There were some
rumors of a war behind its counters, but not enough to affect the
business.
During and after the war, Blandford Carteret, F.F.V., lost his
plantations, juleps, marksmanship, and life. He bequeathed little
more than his pride to his surviving family. So it came to pass that
Blandford Carteret, the Fifth, aged fifteen, was invited by the
leather-and-mill-supplies branch of that name to come North and learn
business instead of hunting foxes and boasting of the glory of his
fathers on the reduced acres of his impoverished family. The boy jumped
at the chance; and, at the age of twenty-five, sat in the office of the
firm equal partner with John, the Fifth, of the blunderbuss-and-turkey
branch. Here the story begins again.
The young men were about the same age, smooth of face, alert, easy of
manner, and with an air that promised mental and physical quickness.
They were razored, blue-serged, straw-hatted, and pearl stick-pinned
like other young New Yorkers who might be millionaires or bill clerks.
One afternoon at four o'clock, in the private office of the firm,
Blandford Carteret opened a letter that a clerk had just brought to his
desk. After reading it, he chuckled audibly for nearly a minute. John
looked around from his desk inquiringly.
"It's from mother," said Blandford. "I'll read you the funny part of
it. She tells me all the neighborhood news first, of course, and then
cautions me against getting my feet wet and musical comedies. After that
come vital statistics about calves and pigs and an estimate of the wheat
crop. And now I'll quote some:
"'And what do you think! Old Uncle Jake, who was seventy-six last
Wednesday, must go travelling. Nothing would do but he must go to New
York and see his "young Marster Blandford." Old as he is, he has a deal
of common sense, so I've let him go. I couldn't refuse him--he seemed to
have concentrated all his hopes and desires into this one adventure into
the wide world. You know he was born on the plantation, and has never
been ten miles away from it in his life. And he was your father's body
servant during the war, and has been always a faithful vassal and
servant of the family. He has often seen the gold watch--the watch that
was your father's and your father's father's. I told him it was to be
yours, And he begged me to allow him to take it to you and to put it
into your hands himself.
"'So he has it, carefully enclosed in a buck-skin case, and is bringing
it to you with all the pride and importance of a king's messenger. I
gave him money for the round trip and for a two weeks' stay in the city.
I wish you would see to it that he gets comfortable quarters--Jake
won't need much looking after--he's able to take care of himself. But
I have read in the papers that African bishops and colored potentates
generally have much trouble in obtaining food and lodging in the Yankee
metropolis. That may be all right; but I don't see why the best hotel
there shouldn't take Jake in. Still, I suppose it's a rule.
"'I gave him full directions about finding you, and packed his valise
myself. You won't have to bother with him; but I do hope you'll see that
he is made comfortable. Take the watch that he brings you--it's almost a
decoration. It has been worn by true Carterets, and there isn't a stain
upon it nor a false movement of the wheels. Bringing it to you is the
crowning joy of old Jake's life. I wanted him to have that little outing
and that happiness before it is too late. You have often heard us talk
about how Jake, pretty badly wounded himself, crawled through the
reddened grass at Chancellorsville to where your father lay with the
bullet in his dear heart, and took the watch from his pocket to keep it
from the "Yanks."
"'So, my son, when the old man comes consider him as a frail but worthy
messenger from the old-time life and home.
"'You have been so long away from home and so long among the people
that we have always regarded as aliens that I'm not sure that Jake will
know you when he sees you. But Jake has a keen perception, and I rather
believe that he will know a Virginia Carteret at sight. I can't conceive
that even ten years in Yankee-land could change a boy of mine. Anyhow,
I'm sure you will know Jake. I put eighteen collars in his valise. If
he should have to buy others, he wears a number 15½. Please see that he
gets the right ones. He will be no trouble to you at all.
"'If you are not too busy, I'd like for you to find him a place to board
where they have white-meal corn-bread, and try to keep him from taking
his shoes off in your office or on the street. His right foot swells a
little, and he likes to be comfortable.
"'If you can spare the time, count his handkerchiefs when they come back
from the wash. I bought him a dozen new ones before he left. He should
be there about the time this letter reaches you. I told him to go
straight to your office when he arrives.'"
As soon as Blandford had finished the reading of this, something
happened (as there should happen in stories and must happen on the
stage).
Percival, the office boy, with his air of despising the world's output
of mill supplies and leather belting, came in to announce that a colored
gentleman was outside to see Mr. Blandford Carteret.
"Bring him in," said Blandford, rising.
John Carteret swung around in his chair and said to Percival: "Ask him
to wait a few minutes outside. We'll let you know when to bring him in."
Then he turned to his cousin with one of those broad, slow smiles that
was an inheritance of all the Carterets, and said:
"Bland, I've always had a consuming curiosity to understand the
differences that you haughty Southerners believe to exist between 'you
all' and the people of the North. Of course, I know that you consider
yourselves made out of finer clay and look upon Adam as only a
collateral branch of your ancestry; but I don't know why. I never could
understand the differences between us."
"Well, John," said Blandford, laughing, "what you don't understand about
it is just the difference, of course. I suppose it was the feudal way
in which we lived that gave us our lordly baronial airs and feeling of
superiority."
"But you are not feudal, now," went on John. "Since we licked you
and stole your cotton and mules you've had to go to work just as we
'damyankees,' as you call us, have always been doing. And you're just as
proud and exclusive and upper-classy as you were before the war. So it
wasn't your money that caused it."
"Maybe it was the climate," said Blandford, lightly, "or maybe our
negroes spoiled us. I'll call old Jake in, now. I'll be glad to see the
old villain again."
"Wait just a moment," said John. "I've got a little theory I want to
test. You and I are pretty much alike in our general appearance. Old
Jake hasn't seen you since you were fifteen. Let's have him in and play
fair and see which of us gets the watch. The old darky surely ought to
be able to pick out his 'young marster' without any trouble. The alleged
aristocratic superiority of a 'reb' ought to be visible to him at once.
He couldn't make the mistake of handing over the timepiece to a Yankee,
of course. The loser buys the dinner this evening and two dozen 15½
collars for Jake. Is it a go?"
Blandford agreed heartily. Percival was summoned, and told to usher the
"colored gentleman" in.
Uncle Jake stepped inside the private office cautiously. He was a little
old man, as black as soot, wrinkled and bald except for a fringe of
white wool, cut decorously short, that ran over his ears and around his
head. There was nothing of the stage "uncle" about him: his black suit
nearly fitted him; his shoes shone, and his straw hat was banded with a
gaudy ribbon. In his right hand he carried something carefully concealed
by his closed fingers.
Uncle Jake stopped a few steps from the door. Two young men sat in their
revolving desk-chairs ten feet apart and looked at him in friendly
silence. His gaze slowly shifted many times from one to the other. He
felt sure that he was in the presence of one, at least, of the revered
family among whose fortunes his life had begun and was to end.
One had the pleasing but haughty Carteret air; the other had the
unmistakable straight, long family nose. Both had the keen black eyes,
horizontal brows, and thin, smiling lips that had distinguished both
the Carteret of the _Mayflower_ and him of the brigantine. Old Jake had
thought that he could have picked out his young master instantly from a
thousand Northerners; but he found himself in difficulties. The best he
could do was to use strategy.
"Howdy, Marse Blandford--howdy, suh?" he said, looking midway between
the two young men.
"Howdy, Uncle Jake?" they both answered pleasantly and in unison. "Sit
down. Have you brought the watch?"
Uncle Jake chose a hard-bottom chair at a respectful distance, sat on
the edge of it, and laid his hat carefully on the floor. The watch in
its buckskin case he gripped tightly. He had not risked his life on the
battle-field to rescue that watch from his "old marster's" foes to hand
it over again to the enemy without a struggle.
"Yes, suh; I got it in my hand, suh. I'm gwine give it to you right
away in jus' a minute. Old Missus told me to put it in young Marse
Blandford's hand and tell him to wear it for the family pride and
honor. It was a mighty longsome trip for an old nigger man to make--ten
thousand miles, it must be, back to old Vi'ginia, suh. You've growed
mightily, young marster. I wouldn't have reconnized you but for yo'
powerful resemblance to old marster."
With admirable diplomacy the old man kept his eyes roaming in the space
between the two men. His words might have been addressed to either.
Though neither wicked nor perverse, he was seeking for a sign.
Blandford and John exchanged winks.
"I reckon you done got you ma's letter," went on Uncle Jake. "She said
she was gwine to write to you 'bout my comin' along up this er-way.
"Yes, yes, Uncle Jake," said John briskly. "My cousin and I have just
been notified to expect you. We are both Carterets, you know."
"Although one of us," said Blandford, "was born and raised in the
North."
"So if you will hand over the watch--" said John.
"My cousin and I--" said Blandford.
"Will then see to it--" said John.
"That comfortable quarters are found for you," said Blandford.
With creditable ingenuity, old Jake set up a cackling, high-pitched,
protracted laugh. He beat his knee, picked up his hat and bent the brim
in an apparent paroxysm of humorous appreciation. The seizure afforded
him a mask behind which he could roll his eyes impartially between,
above, and beyond his two tormentors.
"I sees what!" he chuckled, after a while. "You gen'lemen is tryin' to
have fun with the po' old nigger. But you can't fool old Jake. I knowed
you, Marse Blandford, the minute I sot eyes on you. You was a po' skimpy
little boy no mo' than about fo'teen when you lef' home to come No'th;
but I knowed you the minute I sot eyes on you. You is the mawtal image
of old marster. The other gen'leman resembles you mightily, suh; but you
can't fool old Jake on a member of the old Vi'ginia family. No suh."
At exactly the same time both Carterets smiled and extended a hand for
the watch.
Uncle Jake's wrinkled, black face lost the expression of amusement to
which he had vainly twisted it. He knew that he was being teased, and
that it made little real difference, as far as its safety went, into
which of those outstretched hands he placed the family treasure. But it
seemed to him that not only his own pride and loyalty but much of the
Virginia Carterets' was at stake. He had heard down South during the war
about that other branch of the family that lived in the North and fought
on "the yuther side," and it had always grieved him. He had followed
his "old marster's" fortunes from stately luxury through war to almost
poverty. And now, with the last relic and reminder of him, blessed by
"old missus," and intrusted implicitly to his care, he had come ten
thousand miles (as it seemed) to deliver it into the hands of the one
who was to wear it and wind it and cherish it and listen to it tick off
the unsullied hours that marked the lives of the Carterets--of Virginia.
His experience and conception of the Yankees had been an impression of
tyrants--"low-down, common trash"--in blue, laying waste with fire and
sword. He had seen the smoke of many burning homesteads almost as grand
as Carteret Hall ascending to the drowsy Southern skies. And now he was
face to face with one of them--and he could not distinguish him from his
"young marster" whom he had come to find and bestow upon him the emblem
of his kingship--even as the arm "clothed in white samite, mystic,
wonderful" laid Excalibur in the right hand of Arthur. He saw before him
two young men, easy, kind, courteous, welcoming, either of whom might
have been the one he sought. Troubled, bewildered, sorely grieved at
his weakness of judgment, old Jake abandoned his loyal subterfuges.
His right hand sweated against the buckskin cover of the watch. He
was deeply humiliated and chastened. Seriously, now, his prominent,
yellow-white eyes closely scanned the two young men. At the end of his
scrutiny he was conscious of but one difference between them. One wore a
narrow black tie with a white pearl stickpin. The other's "four-in-hand"
was a narrow blue one pinned with a black pearl.
And then, to old Jake's relief, there came a sudden distraction. Drama
knocked at the door with imperious knuckles, and forced Comedy to the
wings, and Drama peeped with a smiling but set face over the footlights.
Percival, the hater of mill supplies, brought in a card, which he
handed, with the manner of one bearing a cartel, to Blue-Tie.
"Olivia De Ormond," read Blue-Tie from the card. He looked inquiringly
at his cousin.
"Why not have her in," said Black-Tie, "and bring matters to a
conclusion?"
"Uncle Jake," said one of the young men, "would you mind taking that
chair over there in the corner for a while? A lady is coming in--on some
business. We'll take up your case afterward."
The lady whom Percival ushered in was young and petulantly, decidedly,
freshly, consciously, and intentionally pretty. She was dressed with
such expensive plainness that she made you consider lace and ruffles as
mere tatters and rags. But one great ostrich plume that she wore would
have marked her anywhere in the army of beauty as the wearer of the
merry helmet of Navarre.
Miss De Ormond accepted the swivel chair at Blue-Tie's desk. Then the
gentlemen drew leather-upholstered seats conveniently near, and spoke
of the weather.
"Yes," said she, "I noticed it was warmer. But I mustn't take up too
much of your time during business hours. That is," she continued,
"unless we talk business."
She addressed her words to Blue-Tie, with a charming smile.
"Very well," said he. "You don't mind my cousin being present, do you?
We are generally rather confidential with each other--especially in
business matters."
"Oh no," caroled Miss De Ormond. "I'd rather he did hear. He knows all
about it, anyhow. In fact, he's quite a material witness because he was
present when you--when it happened. I thought you might want to talk
things over before--well, before any action is taken, as I believe the
lawyers say."
"Have you anything in the way of a proposition to make?" asked
Black-Tie.
Miss De Ormond looked reflectively at the neat toe of one of her dull
kid-pumps.
"I had a proposal made to me," she said. "If the proposal sticks it cuts
out the proposition. Let's have that settled first."
"Well, as far as--" began Blue-Tie.
"Excuse me, cousin," interrupted Black-Tie, "if you don't mind my
cutting in." And then he turned, with a good-natured air, toward the
lady.
"Now, let's recapitulate a bit," he said cheerfully. "All three of us,
besides other mutual acquaintances, have been out on a good many larks
together."
"I'm afraid I'll have to call the birds by another name," said Miss De
Ormond.
"All right," responded Black-Tie, with unimpaired cheerfulness; "suppose
we say 'squabs' when we talk about the 'proposal' and 'larks' when we
discuss the 'proposition.' You have a quick mind, Miss De Ormond. Two
months ago some half-dozen of us went in a motor-car for a day's run
into the country. We stopped at a road-house for dinner. My cousin
proposed marriage to you then and there. He was influenced to do so, of
course, by the beauty and charm which no one can deny that you possess."
"I wish I had you for a press agent, Mr. Carteret," said the beauty,
with a dazzling smile.
"You are on the stage, Miss De Ormond," went on Black-Tie. "You have
had, doubtless, many admirers, and perhaps other proposals. You must
remember, too, that we were a party of merrymakers on that occasion.
There were a good many corks pulled. That the proposal of marriage
was made to you by my cousin we cannot deny. But hasn't it been your
experience that, by common consent, such things lose their seriousness
when viewed in the next day's sunlight? Isn't there something of a
'code' among good 'sports'--I use the word in its best sense--that
wipes out each day the follies of the evening previous?"
"Oh yes," said Miss De Ormond. "I know that very well. And I've always
played up to it. But as you seem to be conducting the case--with the
silent consent of the defendant--I'll tell you something more. I've got
letters from him repeating the proposal. And they're signed, too."
"I understand," said Black-Tie gravely. "What's your price for the
letters?"
"I'm not a cheap one," said Miss De Ormond. "But I had decided to make
you a rate. You both belong to a swell family. Well, if I _am_ on the
stage nobody can say a word against me truthfully. And the money is only
a secondary consideration. It isn't the money I was after. I--I believed
him--and--and I liked him."
She cast a soft, entrancing glance at Blue-Tie from under her long
eyelashes.
"And the price?" went on Black-Tie, inexorably.
"Ten thousand dollars," said the lady, sweetly.
"Or--"
"Or the fulfillment of the engagement to marry."
"I think it is time," interrupted Blue-Tie, "for me to be allowed to say
a word or two. You and I, cousin, belong to a family that has held its
head pretty high. You have been brought up in a section of the country
very different from the one where our branch of the family lived. Yet
both of us are Carterets, even if some of our ways and theories differ.
You remember, it is a tradition of the family, that no Carteret ever
failed in chivalry to a lady or failed to keep his word when it was
given."
Then Blue-Tie, with frank decision showing on his countenance, turned
to Miss De Ormond.
"Olivia," said he, "on what date will you marry me?"
Before she could answer, Black-Tie again interposed.
"It is a long journey," said he, "from Plymouth rock to Norfolk Bay.
Between the two points we find the changes that nearly three centuries
have brought. In that time the old order has changed. We no longer burn
witches or torture slaves. And to-day we neither spread our cloaks on
the mud for ladies to walk over nor treat them to the ducking-stool.
It is the age of common sense, adjustment, and proportion. All of
us--ladies, gentlemen, women, men, Northerners, Southerners, lords,
caitiffs, actors, hardware-drummers, senators, hod-carriers, and
politicians--are coming to a better understanding. Chivalry is one of
our words that changes its meaning every day. Family pride is a thing
of many constructions--it may show itself by maintaining a moth-eaten
arrogance in a cobwebbed Colonial mansion or by the prompt paying of
one's debts.
"Now, I suppose you've had enough of my monologue. I've learned
something of business and a little of life; and I somehow believe,
cousin, that our great-great-grandfathers, the original Carterets,
would indorse my view of this matter."
Black-Tie wheeled around to his desk, wrote in a check-book and tore out
the check, the sharp rasp of the perforated leaf making the only sound
in the room. He laid the check within easy reach of Miss De Ormond's
hand.
"Business is business," said he. "We live in a business age. There is my
personal check for $10,000. What do you say, Miss De Ormond--will it he
orange blossoms or cash?"
Miss De Ormond picked up the cheek carelessly, folded it indifferently,
and stuffed it into her glove.
"Oh, this'll do," she said, calmly. "I just thought I'd call and put it
up to you. I guess you people are all right. But a girl has feelings,
you know. I've heard one of you was a Southerner--I wonder which one of
you it is?"
She arose, smiled sweetly, and walked to the door. There, with a flash
of white teeth and a dip of the heavy plume, she disappeared.
Both of the cousins had forgotten Uncle Jake for the time. But now they
heard the shuffling of his shoes as he came across the rug toward them
from his seat in the corner.
"Young marster," he said, "take yo' watch."
And without hesitation he laid the ancient timepiece in the hand of its
rightful owner.