XIX

It was not many minutes after ten when Tetlow hurried into Norman's

office. "Galloway's coming at eleven!" said he, with an air of triumph.

"So you mulled over what I said and decided that I was not altogether

drunk?"

"I wasn't sure of that," replied Tetlow. "But I was afraid you'd be

offended if I didn't try to get him. He gave me no trouble at all. As

soon as I told him you'd be glad to see him at your office, he astounded

me by saying he'd come."

"He and I have had dealings," said Norman. "He understood at once. I

always know my way when I'm dealing with a big man. It's only the little

people that are muddled and complex. I hope you'll not forget this

lesson, Billy."

"I shan't," promised Tetlow.

"We are to be partners," pursued Norman. "We shall be intimately

associated for years. You'll save me a vast amount of time and energy

and yourself a vast amount of fuming and fretting, if you'll simply

accept what I say, without discussion. When I want discussion I'll ask

your advice."

"I'm afraid you don't think it's worth much," said Tetlow humbly, "and I

guess it isn't."

"On the contrary, invaluable," declared Norman with flattering emphasis.

"Where you lack and I excel is in decision and action. I'll often get

you to tell me what ought to be done, and then I'll make you do

it--which you'd never dare, by yourself."

At eleven sharp Galloway came, looking as nearly like a dangerous old

eagle as a human being well could. Rapacious, merciless, tyrannical; a

famous philanthropist. Stingy to pettiness; a giver away of millions.

Rigidly honest, yet absolutely unscrupulous; faithful to the last letter

of his given word, yet so treacherous where his sly mind could nose out

a way to evade the spirit of his agreements that his name was a synonym

for unfaithfulness. An assiduous and groveling snob, yet so militantly

democratic that, unless his interest compelled, he would not employ any

member of the "best families" in any important capacity. He seemed a

bundle of contradictions. In fact he was profoundly consistent. That is

to say, he steadily pursued in every thought and act the gratification

of his two passions--wealth and power. He lost no seen opportunity,

however shameful, to add to his fortune or to amuse himself with the

human race, which he regarded with the unpitying contempt characteristic

of every cold nature born or risen to success.

His theory of life--and it is the theory that explains most great

financial successes, however they may pretend or believe--his theory of

life was that he did not need friends because the friends of a strong

man weaken and rob him, but that he did need enemies because he could

grow rich and powerful destroying and despoiling them. To him friends

suggested the birds living in a tree. They might make the tree more

romantic to the unthinking observer; but they in fact ate its budding

leaves and its fruit and rotted its bough joints with their filthy

nests.

We Americans are probably nearest to children of any race in

civilization. The peculiar conditions of life--their almost Arcadian

simplicity--up to a generation or so ago, gave us a false training in

the study of human nature. We believe what the good preacher, the

novelist and the poet, all as ignorant of life as nursery books, tell us

about the human heart. We fancy that in a social system modeled upon the

cruel and immoral system of Nature, success is to the good and kind.

Life is like the pious story in the Sunday-school library; evil is the

exception and to practice the simple virtues is to tread with sure step

the highway to riches and fame. This sort of ignorance is taught, is

proclaimed, is apparently accepted throughout the world. Literature and

the drama, representing life as it is dreamed by humanity, life as it

perhaps may be some day, create an impression which defies the plain

daily and hourly mockings of experience. Because weak and petty

offenders are often punished, the universe is pictured as sternly

enforcing the criminal codes enacted by priests or lawyers. But, while

all the world half inclines to this agreeable mendacity about life, only

in America of all civilization is the mendacity accepted as gospel, and

suspicion about it frowned upon as the heresy of cynicism. So the

Galloways prosper and are in high moral repute. Some day we shall learn

that a social system which is merely a slavish copy of Nature's

barbarous and wasteful sway of the survival of the toughest could be and

ought to be improved upon by the intelligence of the human race. Some

day we shall put Nature in its proper place as kindergarten teacher, and

drop it from godship and erect enlightened human understanding instead.

But that is a long way off. Meanwhile the Galloways will reign, and will

assure us that they won their success by the Decalogue and the Golden

Rule--and will be believed by all who seek to assure for themselves in

advance almost certain failure at material success in the arena of

action.

But they will not be believed by men of ambition, pushing resolutely for

power and wealth. So Frederick Norman knew precisely what he was facing

when Galloway's tall gaunt figure and face of the bird of prey appeared

before him. Galloway had triumphed and was triumphing not through

obedience to the Sunday sermons and the silly novels, poems, plays, and

the nonsense chattered by the obscure multitudes whom the mighty few

exploit, but through obedience to the conditions imposed by our social

system. If he raised wages a little, it was in order that he might have

excuse for raising prices a great deal. If he gave away millions, it was

for his fame, and usually to quiet the scandal over some particularly

wicked wholesale robbery. No, Galloway was not a witness to the might of

altruistic virtue as a means to triumph. Charity and all the other forms

of chicanery by which the many are defrauded and fooled by the few--those

"virtues" he understood and practiced. But justice--humanity's ages-long

dream that at last seems to glitter as a hope in the horizon of the

future--justice--not legal justice, nor moral justice, but human

justice--that idea would have seemed to him ridiculous, Utopian,

something for the women and the children and the socialists.

Norman understood Galloway, and Galloway understood Norman. Galloway,

with an old man's garrulity and a confirmed moral poseur's eagerness

about appearances, began to unfold his virtuous reasons for the

impending break with Burroughs--the industrial and financial war out of

which he expected to come doubly rich and all but supreme. Midway he

stopped.

"You are not listening," said he sharply to the young man.

Their eyes met. Norman's eyes were twinkling. "No," said he, "I am

waiting."

There was the suggestion of an answering gleam of sardonic humor in

Galloway's cold gray eyes. "Waiting for what?"

"For you to finish with me as father confessor, to begin with me as

lawyer. Pray don't hurry. My time is yours." This with a fine air of

utmost suavity and respect.

In fact, while Galloway was doddering on and on with his fake

moralities, Norman was thinking of his own affairs, was wondering at his

indifference about Dorothy. The night before--the few hours before--when

he had dealt with her so calmly, he, even as he talked and listened and

acted, had assumed that the enormous amount of liquor he had been

consuming was in some way responsible. He had said to himself, "When I

am over this, when I have had sleep and return to the normal, I shall

again be the foolish slave of all these months." But here he was, sober,

having taken only enough whisky to prevent an abrupt let-down--here he

was viewing her in the same tranquil light. No longer all his life; no

longer even dominant; only a part of life--and he was by no means

certain that she was an important part.

How explain the mystery of the change? Because she had voluntarily come

back, did he feel that she was no longer baffling but was definitely

his? Or had passion running madly on and on dropped--perhaps not dead,

but almost dead--from sheer exhaustion?--was it weary of racing and

content to saunter and to stroll? . . . He could not account for the

change. He only knew that he who had been quite mad was now quite

sane. . . . Would he like to be rid of her? Did he regret that they were

tied together? No, curiously enough. It was high time he got married;

she would do as well as another. She had beauty, youth, amiability,

physical charm for him. There was advantage in the fact that her

inferiority to him, her dependence on him, would enable him to take as

much or as little of her as he might feel disposed, to treat her as the

warrior must ever treat his entire domestic establishment from wife down

to pet dog or cat or baby. . . . No, he did not regret Josephine. He could

see now disadvantages greater than her advantages. All of value she

would have brought him he could get for himself, and she would have been

troublesome--exacting, disputing his sway, demanding full value or more

in return for the love she was giving with such exalted notions of its

worth.

"You are married?" Galloway suddenly said, interrupting his own speech

and Norman's thought.

"Yes," said Norman.

"Just married, I believe?"

"Just."

Young and old, high and low, successful and failed, we are a race of

advice-givers. As for Galloway, he was not one to neglect that showy

form of inexpensive benevolence. "Have plenty of children," said he.

"And keep your family in the country till they grow up. Town's no place

for women. They go crazy. Women--and most men--have no initiative. They

think only about whatever's thrust at them. In the country it'll be

their children and domestic things. In town it'll be getting and

spending money."

Norman was struck by this. "I think I'll take your advice," said he.

"A man's home ought to be a retreat, not an inn. We are humoring the

women too much. They are forgetting who earns what they spend in

exhibiting themselves. If a woman wants that sort of thing, let her get

out and earn it. Why should she expect it from the man who has

undertaken her support because he wanted a wife to take care of his

house and a mother for his children? If a woman doesn't like the job,

all right. But if she takes it and accepts its pay, why, she should do

its work."

"Flawless logic," said Norman.

"When I hire a man to work, he doesn't expect to idle about showing

other people how handsome he is in the clothes my money pays for. Not

that marriage is altogether a business--not at all. But, my dear sir--"

And Galloway brought his cane down with the emphasis of one speaking

from a heart full of bitter experience--"unless it is a business at

bottom, organized and conducted on sound business principles, there's no

sentiment either. We are human beings--and that means we are first of

all _business_ beings, engaged in getting food, clothing, shelter. No

sentiment--_no_ sentiment, sir, is worth while that isn't firmly grounded.

It's a house without a foundation. It's a steeple without a church under

it."

Norman looked at the old man with calm penetrating eyes. "I shall

conduct my married life on a sound, business basis, or not at all," said

he.

"We'll see," said Galloway. "That's what I said forty years ago--No, I

didn't. I had no sense about such matters then. In my youth the men knew

nothing about the woman question." He smiled grimly. "I see signs that

they are learning."

Then as abruptly as he had left the affairs he was there to discuss he

returned to them. His mind seemed to have freed itself of all

irrelevancy and superfluity, as a stream often runs from a faucet with

much spluttering and rather muddy at first, then steadies and clears.

Norman gave him the attention one can get only from a good mind that is

interested in the subject and understands it thoroughly. Such attention

not merely receives the words and ideas as they fall from the mouth of

him who utters them, but also seems to draw them by a sort of suction

faster and in greater abundance. It was this peculiar ability of giving

attention, as much as any other one quality, that gave Norman's clients

their confidence in him. Galloway, than whom no man was shrewder judge

of men, showed in his gratified eyes and voice, long before he had

finished, how strongly his conviction of Norman's high ability was

confirmed.

When Galloway ended, Norman rapidly and in clear and simple sentences

summarized what Galloway had said. "That is right?" he asked.

"Precisely," said Galloway admiringly. "What a gift of clear statement

you have, young man!"

"It has won me my place," said Norman. "As to your campaign, I can tell

you now that the legal part of it can be arranged. That is what the law

is for--to enable a man to do whatever he wants. The penalties are for

those who have the stupidity to try to do things in an unlawful way."

Galloway laughed. "I had heard that they were for doing unlawful

things."

"Nothing is unlawful," said Norman, "except in method."

"That's an interesting view of courts of justice."

"But we have no courts of justice. We have only courts of law."

Galloway threw back his head and laughed till the tears rolled down his

cheeks. "What a gift for clear statement!" he cried.

Norman beamed appreciation of a compliment so flattering. But he went

back to business. "As I was saying, you can do what you want to do. You

wish me to show you how. In our modern way of doing things, the relation

of lawyer and client has somewhat changed. To illustrate by this case,

you are the bear with the taste for honey and the strength to rob the

bees. I am the honey bird--that is, the modern lawyer--who can show you

the way to the hive. Most of the honey birds--as yet--are content with a

very small share of the honey--whatever the bear happens to be unable to

find room for. But I--" Norman's eyes danced and his strong mouth curved

in a charming smile--"I am a honey bird with a bear appetite."

Galloway was sitting up stiffly. "I don't quite follow you, sir," he

said.

"Yet I am plain enough. My ability at clear statement has not deserted

me. If I show you the way through the tangled forest of the law to this

hive you scent--I must be a partner in the honey."

Galloway rose. "Your conceptions of your profession--and of me, I may

say--are not attractive. I have always been, and am willing and anxious

to pay liberally--more liberally than anyone else--for legal advice. But

my business, sir, is my own."

Norman rose, his expression one of apology and polite disappointment. "I

see I misunderstood your purpose in coming to me," said he. "Let us take

no more of each other's time."

"And what did you think my object was in coming?" demanded Galloway.

"To get from me what you realized you could get nowhere else--which

meant, as an old experienced trader like you must have known, that you

were ready to pay my price. Of course, if you can get elsewhere the

assistance you need, why, you would be most unwise to come to me."

Galloway moved toward the door. "And you might have charged practically

any fee you wished," said he, laughing satirically. "Young man, you are

making the mistake that is ruining this generation. You wish to get rich

all at once. You are not willing to be patient and to work and to build

your fortune solidly and slowly."

Norman smiled as at a good joke. "What an asset to you strong men has

been the vague hope in the minds of the masses that each poor devil of

them will have his turn to loot and grow rich. I used to think ignorance

kept the present system going. But I have discovered that it is that

sly, silly, corrupt hope. But, sir, it does not catch me. I shall not

work for you and the other strong men, and patiently wait my turn that

would never come. My time is _now_."

"You threaten me!" cried Galloway furiously.

"Threaten you?" exclaimed Norman, amazed.

"You think, because I have given you, my lawyer, my secrets, that you

can compel me----"

With an imperious gesture Norman stopped him. "Good day, sir," he said

haughtily. "Your secrets are safe with me. I am a lawyer, not a

financier."

Galloway was disconcerted. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Norman," he said. "I

misunderstood you. I thought I heard you say in effect that you purposed

to be rich, and that you purposed to compel me to make you so."

"So I did," replied Norman. "But not by the methods you financiers are

so adept at using. Not by high-class blackmail and blackjacking. I meant

that my abilities were such that you and your fellow masters of modern

society would be compelled to employ me on my own terms. A few moments

ago you outlined to me a plan. It may be you can find other lawyers

competent to steer it through the channel of the law. I doubt it. I may

exaggerate my value. But--" He smiled pleasantly--"I don't think so."

In this modern world of ours there is no more delicate or more important

branch of the art of material success than learning to play one's own

tune on the trumpets of fame. To those who watch careers intelligently

and critically, and not merely with mouth agape and ears awag for

whatever sounds the winds of credulity bear, there is keen interest in

noting how differently this high art is practiced by the

fame-seekers--how well some modest heroes disguise themselves before

essaying the trumpet, how timidly some play, how brazenly others. It is

an art of infinite variety. How many there are who can echo

Shakespeare's sad lament, through Hamlet's lips--"I lack advancement!"

Those are they who have wholly neglected, as did Shakespeare, this

essential part of the art of advancement--Shakespeare, who lived almost

obscure and was all but forgotten for two centuries after his death.

Norman, frankly seeking mere material success, and with the colossal

egotism that disdains egotism and shrugs at the danger of being accused

of it--Norman did not hesitate to proclaim his own merits. He reasoned

that he had the wares, that crying them would attract attention to them,

that he whose attention was attracted, if he were a judge of wares and a

seeker of the best, would see that the Norman wares were indeed as

Norman cried them. At first blush Galloway was amused by Norman's candid

self-esteem. But he had often heard of Norman's conceit--and in a long

and busy life he had not seen an able man who was unaware of his

ability; any more than he had seen a pretty woman unaware of her

prettiness. So, at second blush, Galloway was tempted by Norman's calm

strong blast upon his own trumpet to look again at the wares.

"I always have had a high opinion of you, young man," said he, with

laughing eyes. "Almost as high an opinion as you have of yourself. Think

over the legal side of my plan. When you get your thoughts in order, let

me know--and make me a proposition as to your own share. Does that

satisfy you?"

"It's all I ask," said Norman.

And they parted on the friendliest terms--and Norman knew that his

fortune was assured, if Galloway lived another nine months. When he was

alone, the sweat burst out upon him and, trembling from head to foot, he

locked his door and flung himself at full length upon the rug. It was

half an hour before the fit of silent hysterical reaction passed

sufficiently to let him gather strength to rise. He tottered to his desk

chair, and sat with his head buried in his arms upon the desk. After a

while the telephone at his side rang insistently. He took the receiver

in a hand he could not steady.

"Yes?" he called.

"It's Tetlow. How'd you come out?"

"Oh--" He paused to stiffen his throat to attack the words

naturally--"all right. We go ahead."

"With G.?"

"Certainly. But keep quiet. Don't let him know you've heard, if you see

him or he sends for you. Remember, it's in my hands entirely."

"Trust me." Tetlow's voice, suppressed and jubilant, suggested a fat,

hoarse rooster trying to finish a crow before a coming stone from a farm

boy reaches him. "It seems natural and easy to you, old man. But I'm

about crazy with joy. I'll come right over."

"No. I'm going home."

"Can't I see you there?"

"No. I've other matters to attend to. Come about lunch time

to-morrow--to the office, here."

"All right," said Tetlow disappointedly, and Norman rang off.