THE GRIFFIN
The doctor went away and came back again before the pale lady's
husband, for whom Mr. Cameron telephoned, arrived at the little
apartment. The patient was then better, but still very weak.
"A general breakdown," said the physician to Mr. Cameron. "No more than
I expected. I have treated her now and then--and the baby. He is a fine
little fellow, but not robust. How could he be?
"I've got to tell that young man a thing or two. He can't keep this
woman and the child here--"
"And why does he? I happen to know that he is earning a fair salary,"
Mr. Cameron said.
"Yes. He is--_now_. But they are burdened with debts. At the time the
baby was born they got very deeply into debt. You can see what sort
they are. Come of wealthy families, both of them. Trouble somewhere.
And the young folks did not know how to help themselves, nor what to
do. Not as poor people do. After all, the poor have the best of it when
it comes to work and living," said the practical physician.
"This young fool had to have a specialist for his wife when the baby
came. And those fellows don't work for nothing, and have to have cash
on the nail. And with the specialist came the day and night nurses and
all that folderol. They did not live here then, I can assure you. Nor
did I attend the woman and her child until after they did come here.
"At first, I presume, people made it easy for him to go into debt
because of his father's name. But when he had spent all he had, and
gone in as deep as he could to make her and the baby comfortable, the
girl finally awoke to the situation. She is a good deal of a woman,
frail as she appears. She insisted in curtailing and cutting down
expenses. Oh, they are both as square as can be; but she has the push
and determination, after all.
"They are paying their debts now. She insists on it. They do not owe me
anything--not a penny. I would not take money for this call. I am no
specialist," said the medical practitioner, bitterly. "But I feel it my
duty to talk straight out to the young man. If his wife and baby remain
here it will be the undertaker, not the doctor, who will be called!"
"I'm going to tell him a thing or two myself," promised Mr. Cameron
huskily.
But when Joe Bassett ran up the narrow stairway and burst into the
crowded kitchen to face the doctor and Carolyn's father, neither of
those gentlemen could really scold the young fellow. That he was
very, very anxious about his wife and child was plainly shown in his
countenance and his manner.
"Is she--is she--"
"She's better," said the doctor briskly. "For the time being. Your
friends here--especially the lady--have done all they can for your
wife. A doctor can't do much, Mr. Bassett. I have told Mrs. Bassett
so before. The city is no place for her and your baby through the hot
weather. The summer is only beginning. Find some way of getting them
out of this place--and at once. That is all I can tell you. You are
likely to lose them both if you do not take this advice."
"That advice is harder to take, Doctor, than your medicine," said
Bassett faintly. "I will do my best--"
"And why did you not tell me?" demanded Carolyn's father, as the busy
medical man made off. "My wife suspected who Carolyn's 'pale lady' was.
But I did not dream--
"See here, Bassett! Something must be done about this at once. Your
wife and baby must get out of here. It is evident she is not used to
the city's heat, and most certainly she is not used to such a locality
and such a house as _this_."
"Don't you suppose I know all that?" groaned the young man. "But fixed
as we are--"
"Are you in debt?" demanded Mr. Cameron bluntly.
"Yes."
"And have you worried about the bills you owe?"
"Of course."
"Let the other fellow do the worrying," was Mr. Cameron's iconoclastic
declaration. "To sacrifice your wife and child for the sake of paying
debts is nothing less than a crime."
"But she is so very anxious for us to pay those bills."
"Put your foot down. Be boss in your own house for once!" exclaimed
Mr. Cameron, smiling rather grimly. "I am usually in favour of a woman
having her own way--she almost always gets it in any case. But this is
a matter about which your wife's judgment cannot be trusted. See what
you can do, and I'll talk with you again tomorrow, Bassett. I see Mrs.
Cameron is about ready to go. Something must be done about it."
Carolyn had been standing by, the loop of Prince's leash in her hand,
and staring with all her might at Joe Bassett. At last she ejaculated:
"Then your _real_ name is Mr. Laird! I never!"
The young man was too much troubled at the moment to give Carolyn any
answer. The latter and her father and Prince went down to the sidewalk
to wait for Mrs. Cameron to join them; where they were eyed by the
neighbours and the children, who considered the Camerons as beings from
another world.
Carolyn and her parents had their dinner in a restaurant that evening,
for it was altogether too late to get it at home. Carolyn May might
have enjoyed the occasion more had she not been so sleepy; and Prince
sank frankly into slumber under the restaurant table, and snored.
So the little girl did not hear all that was said by her father and
mother regarding the young couple whose troubles seemed to be forced
upon the Camerons' attention; nor did the little girl understand the
plans made at the time for the Bassetts.
However, Mr. Cameron left for downtown much earlier than usual the next
morning. First of all he telephoned to a certain Wall Street office
and after a great deal of trouble he obtained the favour of a tentative
appointment with the great man known as the Griffin of Wall Street.
"An interview with St. Peter at the heavenly portals would be little
more difficult to arrange," Mr. Cameron told his wife, "than an
appointment with the Griffin." Only that the magnate had found from
long experience that it was the part of wisdom to treat the newspaper
representatives well, was Mr. Cameron able to get the attention of one
of Mr. Henry Bassett's secretaries.
This individual the newspaper editor had first to see when he reached
the offices of the Griffin. He was a sharp-featured man, very dark and
with black eyebrows stenciled distinctly over his nose.
"You did not explain your business very clearly to me over the 'phone,
Mr. Cameron," said the secretary. "Only because you are from the
_Beacon_ did I take the chance of having you come here; but Mr. Bassett
does not know yet that you wish to see him."
"My business with him is quite a personal matter, Mr.--?"
"Inness," finished the secretary.
"Mr. Inness. A private matter entirely."
"You mean it is something personal concerning yourself, Mr. Cameron?"
"Not at all. It is intimately connected with Mr. Bassett's affairs. So
intimately, indeed, that I could not possibly explain it to you, Mr.
Inness."
The man was evidently of a mind to bid Mr. Cameron curtly begone. Yet
the _Beacon_ was a powerful party organ, and just at this time the
Griffin had political ends to serve. Although Mr. Cameron did not ask
for the interview in the name of his paper, Inness was a cautious man.
That is why he had held his lucrative situation with the Griffin for
ten years or more.
"I will take your card, Mr. Cameron," he said at last, holding out his
hand for the caller's bit of pasteboard. "But I cannot promise you an
interview under the circumstances. Mr. Bassett does not like mysteries."
"No. He is not going to like this one," rejoined the editor. "Nor do I
like it. But I feel it to be my duty to see him."
"Mr. Cameron," said Inness dryly, "I would not possess your
overpowering sense of duty for worlds," and he walked out of the
reception room with the card in his hand.
Had the newspaper man come on his own behalf he might have felt some
trepidation; but consideration for Joe Bassett and his wife and baby
had brought him to the Griffin's office, and he felt no burden of a
personal nature upon his mind. When Inness finally beckoned him from
the door of the private suite, the caller went quite cheerfully to
meet the man whose reputation for being a Tartar was as broad as his
financial activities were known.
Mr. Henry Bassett beat no round of the bushes; he came directly to the
point. "You are John Lewis Cameron, of the _Beacon_," he said. "I do
not know you. Inness says your call is not on business for your paper.
What do you want?"
"I wish to interest you, Mr. Bassett, in the needs of an unfortunate
family in which I am interested--but because of no ordinary charitable
instinct upon my part or yours. I am no charity collector, nor is this
case of destitution one that can be brought to the attention of anybody
but yourself."
"What do you mean?" demanded the Griffin roughly. "Mrs. Bassett usually
attends to all such matters. I do not consider myself a judge of their
worth."
"There are certain elements in this matter which preclude my speaking
to anybody but you about it, Mr. Bassett."
The financier looked startled. His continued silence enabled Mr.
Cameron to go on:
"The people I speak of are a man and his wife and child. They are
not ordinary people. I have not known much about them until lately.
I find that they live in a frightfully unpleasant neighbourhood,
that their surroundings are most uncongenial, and that they lack all
the luxuries--even those necessities--which people of respectable
bringing-up must have."
"Why do you tell me all this?" demanded the millionaire.
"Because it concerns you, concerns you deeply. The young woman and
her baby may not live through the summer if she is obliged to stay in
that horrible apartment which is the best her husband has been able to
afford."
"Who is he?" shot in Henry Bassett.
"He is your son. And his wife and your grandchild are dying in that
place they live in. What are you going to do about it?"
The change that came over Henry Bassett's face shook even Mr. Cameron.
The editor's experience with all sorts and conditions of men enabled
him to hide his own feelings well; so he merely stared back into the
passion-distorted countenance of the Wall Street man.
"You dare to come to me from that cur? He has sent you to try to
squeeze money out of me--for himself and that wretched woman, and her
ill-begotten brat?"
"You are quite wrong, Mr. Bassett," his caller said coldly. "Your
son has no idea that I have come to you in his behalf. Nor does your
daughter-in-law know of it. I merely believe that you should be told
their circumstances."
Henry Bassett actually snorted. He tried to speak, but for the moment
his rage would not let him.
"The boy is doing the very best he can. He has not yet made any very
great success it is true. He happens at present to be working on the
_Beacon_. That is how I come to know something about his circumstances.
He got woefully into debt when your grandchild was born, and is still
struggling to square himself with his creditors."
"Bah!" suddenly roared the rich man, starting half out of his chair
and unable to control himself further. "What did he do with the ten
thousand dollars he had when he walked out of my house determined to
marry that wasteful, useless, luxury-loving woman? Oh, I knew what she
was and I knew what she would bring him to."
[Illustration: "_What did he do with the ten thousand dollars?_"]
The phrases came raspingly from Henry Bassett's lips. It was plain
that he felt deeply his son's defection. But the mention of ten
thousand dollars--
"The boy is a fool," went on the millionaire. "Worse, he is a knave.
But she made him that. The story was brought to me how he hung about
certain cheap brokerage houses all that first winter that he left
me. That is where that ill-gotten money went. He gambled it away, of
course. Ten thousand wouldn't suit My Lady! She must have more, and
the young fool doubtless tried to pyramid his capital--and lost it,
instead, and as he deserved.
"Sin brings its own punishment," said the millionaire harshly but
impressively. "That boy was determined to marry against my command and
his mother's wishes. The girl was nothing but a flibbertigibbet--a
useless baggage. She had been brought up by Wetherby Gaines and his
foolish wife to do nothing; and when they were dead she had nothing.
All she could do was to lead my son into extravagance.
"To please her--to meet her extravagant demands--he tried to double
that stolen ten thousand in the market."
"_Stolen?_" gasped Mr. Cameron.
The millionaire was silent. He licked his lips, glaring at his visitor
like a wolf. In his rage he had gone farther and said more than he had
intended. But he was too angry to retract or deny the truth.
"You have learned something that I have not even told to my wife," he
said hoarsely. "It is a shame that I shall never get over. When I
threatened that boy with dismissal from his home if he insisted upon
marrying the girl, he knew I had brought ten thousand dollars home for
a special purpose. It was in the library safe which he knew how to open
as well as I did.
"He made his choice and left the house the next morning. When he was
gone I found the money had gone with him. _That_ is what this woman you
prate of brought my son to. Fool he was, but never knave before! If it
had not been for her luxurious tastes and her wasteful extravagance, he
would never have taken that money. He was crazy about her. And nothing
but ready money would buy her for him. That is the sum and substance of
the sordid affair.
"There! I have never told a soul before of this fact, not even his
mother. And I trust to your honour not to repeat it. But do not come to
me for charity for that boy, or for the woman who has wasted his life.
They are nothing to me--nor will they ever be! I long since washed my
hands of them."