The house of Charles Stevens stood in Ninth Street, close to Chestnut.
The building was set back from the street and in the midst of a garden
which even now, in the bareness of the autumn, looked pleasant with its
tall trees, its neat walks, its sun-dial and dove-cote. A black servant
in a livery coat admitted the young man; and from the passage he heard
the voices of his uncle and Dr. King.
He was shown into a large room on the second floor. This was crowded
with rare furniture; its hangings were rich and delightful to the eye;
upon stands and shelves were examples of bronze and gold and pottery
such as Anthony had never seen before. Charles greeted him.
"James," said the merchant to Dr. King, "here he is, come to visit me
like a good fellow, forgetting all about how I've neglected him."
Dr. King shook Anthony's hand, smiling.
"At any rate," said he, "he shows the right disposition. And we should
be glad enough to have him back."
As Anthony settled into a chair, Charles limped up and down the room in
mounting excitement.
"I've heard of your damned goings-on," stated he, eagerly. "To-day,
when you'd told me you'd been in the city almost a week, I was on the
verge of commiserating you on your loneliness; and here I learn that
you've left a trail of very active devilment strung out behind you." He
paused in front of Anthony and clutched his shoulder exultantly. "So
you pummeled that infernal sneering fire-eater, Tarrant, did you? What
for?"
"He intruded upon me, and refused to give an account of himself," said
Anthony. "And, I suppose, I was in no humor to listen to him."
Once more Charles limped up and down; his eyes blazed with excitement.
"A porter saw you pitch him out!" cried Charles. "He saw you pitch him
into the passage, and has told it all over town." Here Charles filled
the room with his laughter. "He saw you throw his hat after him," he
gasped between bursts; "and he had to help the damned villain to his
feet, and down the stairs." For a moment he choked back his mirth. "Out
into the passage!" he said. "And with his hat after him! Oh, what a
picture!" And again he laughed consumedly.
"You know him, then?" said Anthony.
His uncle composed himself, took a seat in a big chair, and nursed his
lame foot.
"I have known him these five years," said he. "And in that time I've
found him to be a knave and a cheat. It's true he once served aboard
a United States frigate, and with some distinction; but a thing like
that doesn't light a man through a whole lifetime of roguery. His open
doings are of that rakehell kind countenanced by many honest people as
the outcomes of a large nature and high spirit. But his connections
with the money-lenders and slimy shipping-agents of the Algerian coast
are kept out of view and are known to only a few, and even those few
don't know enough to speak publicly against him. But," and he looked
at Anthony with narrowed eyes, "what of this answer you made to his
challenge?"
"It was the answer I'd make to any man's challenge."
"You are not afraid, then," and the eyes of the uncle devoured him, "of
being thought a coward?"
Anthony smiled.
"The man who is afraid of being thought one, is one," said he.
"By God!" said Charles. "That's what your grandfather would have said!
They are the very words."
Here Captain Weir was shown in, and after greeting Anthony he sat down
at the far end of the room with the merchant, while Anthony talked with
Dr. King.
"Well," said the physician humorously, "he seems to approve your
doings, even though they've been a trifle heady."
"At any rate," said the young man, "he is no friend of Tarrant's; and
that is in my favor."
Dr. King lost his jocular expression, and shook his head gravely.
"The time was when the American merchant had only the elements, falling
markets, and an occasional corsair to contend with," said he. "But,
now that he is growing prosperous and takes his share of the world's
wealth, the birds of prey have gathered. Let him show a sign, however
slight, of financial weakness; then his sky is dark with them, their
beaks whetted to pick his bones. This is the first hint I've had that
Tarrant is concerned with the filthy tribe; but I shouldn't wonder if
it were true."
"I can understand money-lenders and note-shavers thriving in a port
like New Orleans," said Anthony; "for under the hands of the Spanish
governors honesty must always pay a toll. But in a city as well managed
as this, where banks are numerous, why should a merchant in need of
funds go to a usurer?"
Dr. King smiled and shook his head.
"After you are here a while,--if you make up your mind to stay,--you
may learn that even a soberly governed place like this has its public
tricksters. There are many things a money-lender dare not do--openly.
But it is the habit of some of them--as your uncle just now said of
Tarrant--to carry on certain operations underground."
The dining-room of Charles Stevens on the floor below was appointed
with the same high-pitched taste as the others Anthony had seen;
indeed, so lavish had become the exhibition of treasure that it
resembled the heaped-up loot of a commercial conqueror.
"Every ship of ours that enters port carries something that I cannot
find it in me to sell. It may be a rug, or a gold cup, a cushion,
a bolt of rare silk, or an ivory or bronze carving. I have amulets
and arms and precious stones from places that are in the books
of few traders," added Charles, who had read his nephew's look.
"Unfortunately," and he laughed a little ruefully, "I am a collector,
as well as a merchant."
There was a soup of terrapin, into which a deft cook had introduced the
faint fragrance of a very old sherry. Sturgeon steaks followed, with
a wonderful sauce, and with them deviled oysters and a Johannisberger
that made Anthony's palate curl in rapture.
"So Siddons is appalled," smiled Charles; he looked at Anthony, but
addressed Weir. "Poor fellow, it does not take much to frighten him.
Because he is asked to add some feet to his ship ways, he acts as
though we required him to enlarge the solar system."
"Perhaps," observed Captain Weir, "it would be well to reconsider the
thing, and put it into the hands of the Carters; they are younger and
have moved with the times."
But Charles smiled and shook his head.
"No," said he. "The Siddons yard builds honest craft; they built the
first my father designed, and so they'll build these for me. Properly
prodded, they'll do well enough; on launching-day you'll find us in
possession of a pair of well-found ships that'll out-stow and perhaps
outsail anything that carries the United States flag. Dick Siddons has
always complained, but he has never failed me."
While other matters of food were being brought in, Charles Stevens
talked. He was a fascinating talker; all history seemed at his finger
ends, and especially the history of shipping. He drew dazzling
pictures; events as recorded in his mind were always striking. He
followed, at one period of the talk, the great movements of the armed
world in the track of each fresh discovery of iron. The greed behind
these movements, their terrifying injustices, the gross world fat they
accumulated, the merciless labor they brought upon those who had no
share in what their work produced, never seemed to present themselves
to Charles. He saw only the surge of the thing, the sharp-pointing,
definite track, the panoply and power that came into life, the romance
in the thought that, snuggling beneath the surface, in places unthought
of, except by a venturesome few, there lay the thing that made men
great.
"He looks upon it," thought Anthony, "as the old Spaniards of the gulf
must have regarded the idea of the fountain of life. It is a sort of
magic."
Charles talked of ships and storms, of fabrics and ports, of men and
nations, of ideas, prophecy, and signs in the heavens. Anthony followed
his flowing words, enthralled by his enthusiasm and the rich color of
his thought. But at the same time there was a spot in the young man's
brain which remained alert and which the golden flood could not sweep
away. And at this spot was an alert sentry, a direct inheritance from
old Rufus; and this sentry watched and listened unemotionally. He saw
a man moving with joy among the mountain-tops, drinking the thin,
strong air as one would drink a heady wine; he saw the long leaps,
spectacular and full of grace, from peak to peak, the flashing symbols
of victory upon victory. But he did not once see him set foot upon the
level earth where the plodders sweated in obscurity. The man's dream
was a soaring one, full of color and gorgeousness; he caught lightly
at wonders which those who moved in the lower levels did not even see;
but, once seized, he threw the wonders to the plodders, and seldom
thought of them again.
"To this man," reported the sentry posted by old Rufus in Anthony's
brain, "life is all heights. There are no depths. To him, great deed
follows upon the heels of noble effort; magnificent achievement springs
full-armored into being, glory is a thing made by a single motion. The
romance of commerce, as Dr. King called it, he holds to his heart; the
reality he leaves to others." Anthony followed this report soberly, for
the sentry was one in whom he had great faith. And before he closed his
wicket for the night the sentry added, "And I wonder who these people
are, through whose hands the realities pass?"
There was a space, after the plates had been removed and the wine and
tobacco were brought in, in which Charles took Dr. King into a room
adjoining, to point out an example of the work of a Persian artist for
whom he expressed great admiration, and Anthony was left with Captain
Weir. There was a silence for a moment, and then Weir said:
"Your uncle is in one of his talkative moods to-night." His level gaze
was fixed upon Anthony with inquiry, but from his mask no indication
was to be had of what was in his mind. "When a man talks we are often
able to get a definite impression of him," said Weir.
Anthony nodded, but said nothing. The other waited; then he proceeded.
"I talked with Dr. King for some time to-day. He told me that he had
tried to induce you to remain in the city and go into Rufus Stevens'
Sons. I agreed with him that this was a thing greatly to be wished."
"What," asked Anthony, "do you think I could do that another could not?"
"I don't know," said Weir. "But I have a feeling that you are needed,
and that the house is your natural place."
"But," said Anthony, "I do not know my uncle's attitude."
"He means to ask you to resume where your father stepped out. He's told
me so." There was another short pause. "What answer will you give?"
asked Weir.
"I'll do it," said Anthony.
And Weir, leaning across the table, gripped his hand.
"That's what I expected you to say," said he. "And I am very glad."
But as he turned away his head there was a glint in the green,
stone-like eyes, a glint that Anthony did not see.