When he had stepped from the car to the sidewalk, Hamilton Burton stood
there for a while in apparent abstraction. A private policeman in cadet
gray waited deferentially with his hand on the knob of the grilled
bronze door which gave entrance to the office building. Burton's eyes
were resting on Paul's face, but the pupils were focused for no such
circumscribed range. Their vistas were of the future and empire-wide.
The fire that had wakened in them with the pronunciamento, "Above me
there shall be no one," lingered and the smile which hovered on the lips
held a certain grimness in its curve. It was not a reassuring smile for
such interests as ran counter to his own. A passing reporter who fancied
himself wise in the lore of the Street, halted to observe, and muttered
to himself, "Ursus Major wearing his fighting face! This may prove a day
worth watching."
A floor representative of a brokerage office caught the expression, too,
and into his memory came flooding the events of another day when this
same man, wearing the same smile, hurled himself upon the
Stock-Exchange, in a bear raid which had cost bull millions.
"The Great Bear, damn him!" he exclaimed with savage vehemence. "The
buccaneer's got some fresh piracy on foot if I know that sardonic grin."
Within the half-hour a mysteriously fathered rumor passed from mouth to
mouth on the floor of the Exchange, that Hamilton Burton was drawing
his battle-lines and that somewhere his bolt would fall. Because the
report was untraceable it was the more disquieting, and the
Stock-Exchange is ever ready to rock to an alarm. Yet just now, the man
whose silent smile could give birth to such sweeping potentialities did
nothing more significant than gaze absently at the tide of life which
eddied through Broadway's cañon and at the disintegrating tombstones
which spoke of death in the shadow of Trinity.
There was something of tawny and tigerish splendor about this young man
who had sprung with mushroom swiftness from nowhere into the fierce
eminence of a financial conqueror. The supple grace of his movements
attested ready power. The immaculate elegance of his apparel challenged
notice by a flawlessness which went beyond the art of the tailor who
clothed him and assumed a distinction as though it had been the belted
uniform of a field marshal. Though pronounced the best-dressed man in
New York, he escaped all seeming of foppishness. Each small detail, from
the flower in his lapel to his gloves and shoes, seemed a significant
touch.
Hamilton Burton lent qualities from himself to everything that marked
him--and these qualities seemed to go like heralds at his front,
proclaiming, "This man is led by a star--his head overlooks the crowd!"
Men and women staring out from a sight-seeing car turned their heads
with a common accord, their attention arrested by something intangible.
Then as the megaphone operator lowered his voice it became pregnant with
importance. To visitors from Paris, Kentucky, Berlin, Iowa, and Cairo,
Illinois, he confided, "The gentleman by the car with the broken
wind-shield is Hamilton Burton." It was enough. It conjured up to memory
newspaper stories of a genie to whose wand fabulous tides of gold
responded. These sight-seers were beholding a man credited with the
power to cause or avert panics; one of the most lauded, the most hated
and the most feared men in finance, and, for some inexplicable reason,
after they looked at him it was no longer difficult to believe the
stories of his wizardry.
He nodded to Paul and turned toward the door. Once more he repeated,
"Then above me there shall be--no other man," and though he said it with
all the arrogant and ruthless spirit of a tyrant who would take no count
of razed cities as he rode to his victory, yet he said it in a low and
pleasant voice; a voice even tinged with musical gentleness.
At the twentieth floor where the elevator stopped to let him alight,
Hamilton's eyes were aglow with the reflected light of his thoughts. He
was still young and before him lay conquests that should dwarf those of
the past. Posterity should link his name with achievements so titanic
that history would be beggared for a precedent. Kingdoms would be his
clients and kings his vassals.
Of late, a persistent idea had been creeping into his thoughts. The
world was to know him as one of its mightiest rulers--so mighty that for
him a crown would be too tawdry a toy--but some day he must die. Who
then, demanded his sublimely arrogant self-appraisement, would carry on
the work that had called him on to conquest from hills where the burned
stumps stood up stark and black in the forest? It is the hallucination
of superlative egotism to imagine that the world demands of her great
sons--a succession.
Whatever gods looked on must have laughed as they read the vast audacity
of this man's conceit. Never had it occurred to him that such an
ambition as his own meant a mere greed for power--that no great cause or
motive impelled him forward. Never had a whisper come to his soul that
power is a trust which should make its recipient a crusader. The world
thought of him as a man of great potentiality. He thought of himself
grown to the proportions and stature of his dreams--the financial Titan
expanded to the _n_th power. There must be an heir to this empire of
his building.
"I suppose I could marry any woman in the world I wanted," he reflected
as he strode along the hall to the door of his office suite, "but the
devil of it is I don't want any of them." A fresh thought brought to his
face an expression a shade saner and less self-centered. "Mary is as
beautiful and as charming as I am efficient, moreover she has brains,"
he soliloquized. "Mary must marry brilliantly and her son shall be my
successor."
In a sort of audience hall waited the Coal and Ore directors who had
been burning up valuable time and burning up as well a patience
unschooled to such delays, but as the door opened and the young field
marshal of great business appeared on the threshold, they masked their
irritation in smiles. These men were neither sycophants nor fawning
suppliants. Each of them held high prominence in the aristocracy of
wealth, but Hamilton Burton topped them--and the singular power upon
which he had risen was one-half pure charm and hypnotism of personality.
Men might swear at the Hamilton Burton who kept them twiddling their
thumbs until he came, yet _when_ he came it seemed that the sunlight
came with him and the mists of impatience were dissipated. A half-hour
later he bowed them out, and they went smiling and telling one another
as they left, "Remarkable fellow, Burton! Absolutely surmounts ordinary
rules and ordinary difficulties. Most remarkable and able man!"
He next passed through the outer offices to the door marked "private,"
and there, near the window of his sanctum, sat a stout and elderly
gentleman. In the unsparing revelation of the morning sunshine the
visitor's face declared all its wrinkles. The whitening hair, growing
sparse, was carefully combed across an arid patch of scalp. Hamilton
Burton's smile died and his face grew for a moment solicitous as he read
his father's troubled eyes. Old Thomas Burton was shaven and manicured
and betailored into a model of well-nourished--possibly
over-nourished--senectitude. His mustaches and beard were waxed and
pointed. Once he had deplored the necessity and trouble of the Sabbath
shave--and his hair had known no law of shears or shampoo. In his lapel
a gardenia was carefully placed so that it should not obscure the button
which proclaimed him a Son of the American Revolution. He restlessly
tapped his gaitered boots with a stick upon whose gold head was carven
the Burton crest.
As Hamilton came forward the elder man rose and turned with some
embarrassment. In his movements the son read with a pang of sudden
realization the approaching atrophy of age. "I'm sorry to intrude on
your office hours, Hamilton," began the father, "but the fact
is--I--er--I--" he broke off confusedly.
Tom Burton was mightily changed, but now and again an echo of the old
self harassed his reincarnation. He had never learned to beg for money
with the unabashed ease of an aristocratic parasite. While it was in his
pocket he could top the extravagance of a drunken sailor, but when its
lack drove him again to his bountiful son he came haltingly--covered
with confusion.
"What is it, father?" Hamilton clapped the old gentleman on the shoulder
and declared, "When you come others can wait."
Tom Burton flushed deeply. "I--er--well, I've had a notice of over-draft
from my bank."
Hamilton Burton's brows contracted.
"Did they keep you sitting here, cooling your heels like a book-agent
until I arrived? Why didn't you go direct to Corbin? He has _carte
blanche_ to accommodate you in every demand you choose to make."
Again Tom Burton spoke hesitantly.
"I did--er--mention it to Mr. Corbin. He was very polite, but he
suggested that, unless I was in urgent haste, I'd better wait until you
came in.... He reminded me that--er--that I'd made rather heavy demands
of late, and I'm bound to say it's true."
The young financier threw back his head and his eyes burst into a blaze
of white-hot anger.
"Hell-fire and damnation!" he stormed. "Is my money my own or is it to
be doled out by parsimonious hirelings? Must I beg my servants' consent
to supply my family with funds?"
"Mr. Corbin was very courteous," placated the old man in a mild voice.
"Courteous!" The word crackled like a mule whip. "Who is Corbin to be
patronizingly courteous to my father? Are you to approach me only
through a cordon of lackeys?" He broke off and started to slam his palm
down on a table-bell that should bring the too-careful subordinate face
to face with his anger, but he stayed his hand half-way, and began
talking again.
"Back there in those damned hills, when I begged you to gamble on me,
didn't I tell you that I meant to give you more than you could ever
want? Didn't I tell you that it would be my pride to anticipate and
outdo your whims--to dwarf them with bigger things? You _did_ gamble on
me, when a little money was a frail barrier between you and the
wolf--you gambled to go stark-broke." He was pacing the room now as he
talked, and his voice mounted. "To me money is a passionless slave, the
eunuch that serves my bidding, and serves blindly. Cash has been my
watchword. There is not outside the United States Treasury another sum
of unencumbered cash equal to that which I command. Any part of it is
yours at any time; how much do you want?"
"Why--er--a few thousand for the present."
"Just state your figure and I'll triple it. You don't have to make
explanations--or apologies." Then with a rather grim smile Ham added:
"That's for Corbin to do."
Tom Burton carefully drew down his waistcoat over his rotund middle and
settled his hat on his head at an exact angle. His son accompanied him
to the elevator with an arm about his shoulder and as he returned to the
outer office he directed curtly, "Carl, come into my room. I want to see
you."
Inside he pointed to the bell. "I had my hand three inches from that
button a few minutes back to call Corbin in here and fire him. I think I
meant to sack everybody in this damned office--except yourself, Carl.
I'm sick of these economists that hedge me round with unsolicited
safeguards and try to defend me against myself and my family."
"If Mr. Burton had come to me--" began the secretary, but Hamilton
Burton interrupted him.
"Have I failed to make myself entirely clear to my employees?" he
inquired. "Do I have to tell them every day that they need not be so
damned economical with my money? Haven't I ordered that my father and my
brother shall always be accommodated without question?" Bristoll nodded,
but made no comment.
"Carl, please try once more to make Corbin understand that one of the
things I pay him for is to obey orders. Please make it plain beyond
cavil that one of my most explicit orders is this: When the Governor
comes for money, his job is to begin digging. Find out how much the
Governor wants and give him some more."
The secretary was valuable in part because he was frank and because in
his sincere loyalty dwelt no taint of sycophant fawning.
"To be entirely just, sir, I think Corbin does understand you, but a
cashier who gives out money with no check on disbursements feels the
burden of his responsibility. Any item that your father forgot would
leave Corbin unpleasantly close to seeming a thief. Of late, your
father's demands have been heavy."
"Yes, yes, I know about all that." A sudden change of mood brought a
twinkle to the financier's eyes. "My father has been under very heavy
expenses of late, Carl. If you had known him as I knew him--back there
close to 'God's immortal granite,' as you so aptly phrased it, you would
agree with me that the humor of the situation is worth whatever it
costs. He had to count the pennies, Carl, and when one threatened to get
away he had to chase around it and head it off. He led the simple life
and though his middle name was Standish, he regarded it as a sinful
vanity to think of his ancestors."
Hamilton's smile was one of whimsical and naïve humor as he fished from
a desk drawer a thick sheaf of papers and laid them before the other.
"Times have changed. Cast your eye on those. They represent some of the
Governor's expenses. They are bills from the Anglo-Saxon Bureau of
Genealogy."
"What is this bureau?" inquired Carl, and Burton raised his brows.
"Don't you know? Why, it's a concern that outfits one with a full line
of ancestors. My father is now prominent in many orders predicated on
ancestors. His mail runs over with epistles beginning, 'Dear Sir and
Compatriot.' Such excavating of tombs and catacombs is costly." The
young money baron paused and grinned.
"Once the old gentleman got warmed up, he went the full route and took
all the jumps, Carl. He started out modestly enough to establish his
descent from Miles Standish, but when they had run the Plymouth captain
to earth, the trail was hot and their appetites were whetted. They had
tasted blue blood. Now they've worked back to a king or two, and the
Governor spoke recently of going to England to consult cathedral
records. I believe he secretly covets William the Conqueror."
Hamilton shook his head and added sadly, "I hate to think how Corbin
will grieve when he learns what William the Conqueror costs. Also,
father has a beautiful family crest--you may have noticed it on his
walking stick. I haven't yet mastered the niceties of heraldry so I
can't properly describe it, but, to me, it looks like a rabbit leaping
over an Edam cheese with sprigs of lettuce on either side. A
delicatessen shop will steal it some day and father's heart will break."
Carl Bristoll filled and lighted a pipe and Hamilton Burton seated
himself on the edge of the desk with his eyes fixed on a swinging foot.
"We all have our vanities," he mused. "I named myself
Montagu--arbitrarily and of my own unbiased will. I nominated and
elected myself a Montagu, Carl, and I had an equal right to be a
Capulet."
"I call that a moderately innocent offense," admitted the secretary.
There were moments when these two came near forgetting the relationship
of chief and lieutenant, meeting on the level of a joint affection.
"But that is not all. My father has other even more burdensome expenses
at the present time," continued the elder young man. "He is deeply
interested in charity."
"Really?" The inquiry was courteously vague, and Ham's nod of response
was solemn.
"Yes, sir. There are various sorts of charities, Carl. Some folks send
silk hats and neckties to the heathen in their blindness, and some found
hospitals for three-legged dogs. My father does none of these
impractical things. He has dedicated himself to establishing a fund for
supplying Havana cigars and motor cars to the Idle Rich. Each day finds
him waiting for a quorum up at the National Union Club. When enough are
gathered together for a rubber he makes it royal and doubles until
everyone save his partner feels a warm glow of wealth stealing
gratefully through his arteries." Hamilton broke off and smiled, shaking
his head. "Far be it from me to criticize my father," he declared with
mock plaintiveness, "but I sometimes wonder why the devil he doesn't
learn to play bridge or stop trying."
Then the April change of mood came once more and his eyes darkened into
seriousness. "Well, if it amuses him, why not?" he demanded, almost as
fiercely as though someone had contradicted old Tom Burton's right to
mellow into a self-indulgent decay.
"All his hard life until ten years ago he sweated and toiled for those
he loved. I thought recently it might amuse him to take charge of one of
my country places--to try farming with no hardships. He was as much good
there as an armless man in a billiard tournament. All his farming had
been done with calloused hands on the plowshare. All he knew of dairies
was nestling his head against the flank of a flea-bitten cow. Let him
take his pleasure as he fancies. Thank God he can."