Reedy Jenkins, the first night of August, sat in his office, the
windows open, the door open, the neck of his soft shirt open, and his
low shoes kicked off. But his plump, pink face was freshly shaven and
massaged and he wore two-dollar silk socks. Even in dishabille Reedy
had an air of ready money.
There had been dark days last fall when he had been so closely cornered
by his creditors that it took many a writhe and a wriggle to get
through. Nobody but himself, unless it was the dour Tom Barton, knew
how overwhelmingly he was bankrupt.
But Reedy had kept up an affable front to all his creditors and a ready
explanation. "We are all broke, everybody in same boat. Why sweat
over it? Of course I've got some cotton across the line; we'll just
leave it there and save the duty until it'll sell. Then I'll pay out."
He kept up this reassurance until cotton began to sell, and then he
postponed:
"Wait; we are all easier now. Got enough so I can cash in any day and
have plenty to pay all bills. But just wait until it goes a little
higher."
And when it had gone to eight cents, eight and a half, and at last
nine, his creditors had ceased to worry him. Now that Reedy could sell
out any day and liquidate, and still be worth a hundred thousand or
more, there was no hurry to collect. Nobody wants to push a man who
can pay his debts any hour. Some of them even began to lend him more
money. He had borrowed $25,000 as a first payment on the $200,000 for
the Dillenbeck water system.
To-night Reedy had a list of figures before him again. Cotton had
touched 9.76 to-day. Things were coming to a head. It was time to act.
Reedy had one set of figures in which 8,000 bales were multiplied by
fifty and a fraction. It added $474,000. There was a column of
smaller sums, the largest of which was, Revenue $28,000. These smaller
sums were totalled and subtracted from $474,000, leaving $365,000--a
sum over which Reedy moistened his lips. Then he multiplied 15,000
acres by something and set that sum also under the $365,000 and added
again. The total made him roll his pencil between his two plump hands.
Madrigal, the Mexican Jew, entered with a jaunty gesture, and took a
chair and lighted a cigarette.
"When did you get back from Guaymas?" Reedy leaned back, lighted a
match on the bottom of his chair and touched it to a plump cigar.
"Yesterday, Senor Reedy." There was always a mixture of aggressiveness
and mocking freshness in Madrigal's tone and air.
"See Bondeberg?"
The Mexican nodded.
"Everything all right?"
"_Si, si._" Madrigal sometimes was American and sometimes Mexican.
"I've had a dickens of a time getting trucks," said Reedy, speaking in
a low, casual tone. "But I got 'em--twenty. Be unloaded to-morrow or
the next day. I've arranged to take care of the duty. They are to be
sold, you understand, with an actual bill of sale to each of the twenty
Mexican chauffeurs you have employed."
Madrigal nodded lightly as though all of this was primer work for him.
"Have everything ready by the tenth. I think I can close up this water
deal by that time."
As the Mexican left, Reedy reached for his telephone and called El
Centro.
"Mrs. Barnett?" Soft oiliness oozed from his voice. "This is Reedy.
What are you doing this evening? Nothing? How would you like a little
spin out to the foot of the mountains to get a cool breath and watch
the moon rise?--All right. I'll be along in about thirty minutes. By,
by." The words sounded almost like kisses.
"Mrs. Barnett"--Reedy slowed down the machine as they drove off across
the desert toward the foothills--"I owe everything to you."
The widow, all in white now--very light, cool white--felt a little
shivery thrill of pride go over her. She half simpered and tried to
sound deprecating.
"Oh, you merely flatter me." She was rolling a small dainty
handkerchief in her palms.
"No, indeed!" responded Reedy, roundly. "No one can estimate the
influence of a good woman on a man's life."
"I'm so glad"--the shivery thrill got to her throat--"if I've really
helped you--Reedy." It was the first time she had used his given name,
although he had often urged it.
"You know," he continued, "in spite of the great opportunities for
wealth here, I do not believe that I could have endured this valley if
it had not been for you. You can't imagine what it means to a man,
after the disagreeable hurly-burly of the day's business, to know there
is a pure, sweet, womanly woman waiting for him on the porch."
Mrs. Barnett gulped, filled with emotion. "I do believe," she almost
gushed, "men like the shy, womanly woman who keeps her place best after
all."
"They certainly do!"
"I don't see," mused Mrs. Barnett, "how a man really _could_ care for a
woman who becomes so--so--well, rough and sunburned, and coarsened by
sordid work--like that Chandler woman, for instance. I mean, I don't
see how any _good_ man could care for that sort."
"Nor I," said Reedy, emphatically. He steered with one hand, and got
both of her hands in the other.
"This year is going to be a great one for me. Cotton is already over
ten cents. I'll need only $25,000 more, and then I can clean up a
fortune for all of us."
Mrs. Barnett, still thrilling to that hand pressure, moved a little
uneasily.
"Uncle Jim has been right hard to manage for the last two times. He
was real ugly about that last $40,000. I had to remind him how much my
poor mother did for him and how little he had done for us before he
would listen to me."
No wonder the widow quaked within her at the honour of being elected to
do it all over again. It was not because she hesitated to attempt it
for so noble a man; but for the moment she was desperate for a way to
go at it. She had used in the last effort every "womanly" device known
to conservative tradition for separating a man from his money. But she
hesitated only a moment. A watery heart and a dry eye never won a fat
loan. Undoubtedly her womanly intuition--or Providence--would show her
a way.
"I'll do my best, Mr. Jenkins"--she lapsed into the formal again--"to
get the loan for you. But Uncle is getting right obstinate."
"That's all right, little girl," he patted her hands. "I trust you to
do it, you could move the heart of Gibraltar. And as I've promised you
all the time, when I close up these deals I'm going to give you
personally $25,000 of the profits in appreciation of your assistance.
And that is not all"--he squeezed both the widow's hands a moment, then
released them as if by terrific resolution--"but more of that later.
We must close up this prosaic business first."
The next morning at ten o'clock Jim Crill stamped up the outside
stairway, stamped through the open door and threw a check for $25,000
on Reedy's desk.
"That's the last," the old gentleman snapped with finality. "And I
want to begin to see some payments mighty quick."
Reedy smiled as the old gentleman stamped back down the stairs, proud
of his own ability as a "worker." And he was not without admiration
for Mrs. Barnett's ability in that line. It would be interesting to
know how she had done it so quickly.
"If the old man knew," Reedy picked up the check and grinned at the
crabbed signature, "what this is going for, he'd drop dead with
apoplexy at the foot of the stairs."
He reached for the telephone and called the freight agent:
"Are those motor trucks in yet? Good! We'll have them unloaded at
once."
There are two ways to make a lot of money perfectly honestly: One is to
produce much at a time when the product legitimately has such a high
value that it shows a good profit. The other is to plan, invent, or
organize so as to help a great many men save a little more, or earn a
little more, and share the little with each of the many benefited. And
there are two ways to get money wrongfully: One is by criminal
dishonesty--taking under some of the multiple forms of theft what does
not at all belong to one. The other is by moral dishonesty--forcing or
aggravating acute needs, and taking an unfair advantage of them,
blackmailing a man by his critical wants.
Reedy Jenkins had merely intended to be the latter. He had not planned
to produce anything, nor yet to help other men produce, but to farm
other men's needs--get hold of something so necessary for their success
that it would force tribute from them. He planned to hold a hammer
over the weakest link in others' financial deals and threaten to break
it unless they paid him double for the hammer.
Reedy indorsed Jim Crill's check, and stuck it in his vest pocket. He
liked to go into a bank and carelessly pull $25,000 checks out of his
vest pocket. Then he took from a drawer twenty letters already typed,
signed them, and put them into envelopes addressed to the ranchers who
bought water of the Dillenbeck Water Co.
"Now"--Reedy moistened his lips and nodded his head--"we are all set."