_Dear Father_:
I am sending this letter to you, special delivery, care of the New York
branch, that you may feel that you are welcomed home. Although you have
been abroad but a few weeks, I know that you will be glad to set foot on
American soil once more. I wish I could be on hand to meet you and help
sing "The Star Spangled," but I want to stay here and keep an eye on
Milligan. In my absence he would be very likely to try and queer my
record.
It's a great pleasure to find from your last that you don't give a rag
for the bulls on pork, because when I heard that they were going to have
your heart's blood and make you squeal louder than any hog you ever
assassinated, it just naturally made me feel a bit uneasy. I don't want
to see the Graham money go flying on flyers, and ever since you showed
me the error of my ways in dabbling in the Open Board, I thought that
you, too, must have reformed. However, if you have got the bulls by
their tails and can twist 'em till the critters bellow again, I'll
forgive your little lapse from righteousness.
But, somehow, I can't help thinking of old Elder Blivins, of the little
New Hampshire town where we used to go summers before you got very rich.
You remember the Elder,--a tall, thin man, with a conscience as highly
developed as dyspepsia. Well, one Sunday he preached a mighty powerful
sermon on gambling, and the way he did sock it at the sinners made my
young blood run cold. There happened to be several summer visitors in
his congregation that day, among 'em Colonel Porter, a big stock-broker
of Boston, but that only inflamed the Elder all the more. He declared
that the stock market was run by the devil in person, and that every man
who took part in those hideous games of chance was predestinedly and
teetotally damned. It was a scorcher, and the deacons congratulated him
so heartily after the service that he naturally looked for a
fifty-dollar raise in his salary, which was just then running more to
potatoes than his needs seem to warrant. Colonel Porter looked a little
hot under the frying, but he didn't make a fool of himself by going out.
About the middle of the week the church had a Grand Fair and Sale for
the purpose of raising funds to mend the chimney. There were candy
tables, flower tables, and knit-goods tables; kissing booths, lemonade
stands, cider stands, and coffee stands. But the crowds were always
around the grab-bag and the place where tickets were sold for the "grand
drawing" of a piece of Rogers statuary, representing two old codgers at
a heartbreaking game of checkers.
Colonel Porter was on hand as chipper as a lark, spending money like a
hero and earning the blessings of all the ladies. He kept away from the
grab-bag until he saw Elder Blivins standing by, and then he sailed up.
He allowed that he wanted the gold ring that was said to be in the bag,
and he paid his money and took a draw. He got a birchbark napkin ring
tied with a yellow ribbon.
"Pshaw, Elder," said the colonel, looking old Blivins right in the eye,
"this is a hideous game of chance."
The Elder blinked a moment, as if he were trying to think of something,
but he never yipped.
"Come on, Elder," said the colonel heartily. "I want that Rogers group
the worst way. One of the old bucks looks just like my grandfather used
to when grandmother wigged him. I'm willing to gamble good and hard for
that group. I'll take--"
"Put up your filthy lucre, sir!" shouted the Elder. "The devil don't run
this church, and there isn't going to be any drawing." So saying, he
knocked off one of the heads of the Rogers group with his cane, kicked
the grab-bag down the cellar door, ordered the crowd to vamoose, put out
the lamps, and locked up the vestry. Then he disappeared from public
view until the following Sunday, when he preached his memorable
discourse on the text, "Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall."
And they do say that Colonel Porter put a century-run dollar bill into
the contribution box that day to make up for the loss the fair sustained
through his little joke on the parson.
I simply mention this story of the Elder as an example of how a man's
conscience for other folks may be extraordinarily active, while that
section reserved for himself may be sound asleep. And some graceless
individual generally holds the alarm clock.
In commenting on the Elder's sudden change of heart, Colonel Porter
admitted that he was pretty hard on the old chap. "But if he was ever to
reform it was time he began," he said. "Some people seem to think that
it's never too late to reform or"--softly--"or to become a lawyer." This
meant a story, for the colonel never chuckled except when he felt
anecdotal.
"Speaking of lawyers," mused the colonel, "there's a man in Boston who's
done more things, it seems to me, than any one I ever knew. He has run
stores of all sorts, has been a real estate agent, a promoter, a
journalist, a fiddler in an orchestra, and tuba in a band. A few years
ago he opened a fish market in the winter, sold it out two days before
Lent and went into the cultivation of strawberries. He couldn't be
content long enough to make a success of anything. He didn't stick at
anything long enough to even lose money at it, to say nothing of making
it. One day I met him near the Court House, hurrying along with an
earnest, wrapt look in his eyes. I knew at once that he had a new call
of duty, for he always began like a steam engine.
"'Hulloa, Caldwell," I said, 'what you up to?'
"'Got to hurry to court,' he answered.
"'What's up,' I asked, 'not in trouble, I hope?'
"'No, indeed,' he said. 'But perhaps you haven't heard. I'm in new
business.'
"'Indeed!' I said, with as great a show of interest as I could command
in a man whom I never met without learning of a change of calling. 'What
now?'
"'Oh, I'm an expert,' he said, proudly.
"My face must have expressed interrogation, for he hastened to explain.
'An expert for legal cases, you know.'
"'In what line?' I ventured.
"'Oh, anything,' he replied. In view of his record I was free to admit
mentally that his experience was no better in any one thing than in any
of the others. A month or so later I was riding in an open car with a
friend of Caldwell's, when we passed that chameleon. He had a blue bag
under his arm and looked happy.
"'There's Caldwell,' I remarked. 'Wonder how he is doing as an expert
witness?'
"'Oh, he gave that up several weeks ago,' retorted my companion. 'His
court attendance gave him a new inspiration. He's studying law now.'
"'Studying law!' I cried, in amazement. 'Studying law at 65? The idiot!'
"'I don't know about that,' said my friend. 'He may not be such a fool
as he looks. I was surprised when he told me that he was going to try
the bar examination next spring, and expressed it. He smiled
significantly and said he guessed he'd get through all right. 'You see,'
he said, 'my wife's word is law, and she's been laying it down to me for
thirty years.'"
"Hence," said the colonel, "it's never too late for some men to
reform--to desert or to take to the bar."
I'm sure I have no desire to be a humming bird in life, to flit from
flower to flower; but I shall not be sorry if some day a stentorian call
comes to me to forsake the pork industry. I am not much of a farmer,
but I'm cock sure you can't make cider out of dried apples, and as far
as taste for the business of selling pig is concerned, I'm threaded on a
string from the rafters. I really think it's time that the family name
was taken out of trade. Where would the "four hundred" be if the Astors
and Vanderbilts and the rest of the aristocracy had stuck to the
business that made them rich? It's actually indecent for the wealthy to
parade the source of their prosperity to the populace.
May I venture a suggestion? Why not capitalize the Graham plant? You can
do this at a figure about four times its worth, sell almost half of the
stock, keep the rest and own the plant after all is done. If this isn't
kicking the gizzard out of the old proverb that you can't eat your cake
and have it too, I'm a Dutchman. Besides, when you are an incorporated
company, or in a merger, you're respectable. The grease don't come off
dividend checks. Then if, as a clincher, you give away some of your
surplus to educational institutions, you've headed your family along the
highway which leads to seeing your name in another part of the
newspapers than the court calendar.
You certainly owe something to your descendants, for upon them depends
the future of your own reputation. The original money grabber of a great
family may have dug clams and robbed widows and orphans, but his memory
swells into gigantic proportions when his multi-millionaire
great-grandchildren know that he is so generally forgotten as to be
talked about with impunity. You may not take kindly to this, but mother
has social aspirations. She will probably never get any farther,
personally, than an extremely pink tea, but she would be encouraged if
she had some hope of being pointed to in her portrait as the grandmother
of people to whom trade will be only a despised heirloom, to be stored
in the garret with the haircloth sofa.
I presume that you are to stay at the Waldorf-Astoria while you linger
in New York. Let me, as a dutiful son, give you a tip as to your bearing
in that hostelry. Don't let on that you are a pork packer from Chicago,
if you value the contents of your pocketbook. They'll skin you, dress
you and salt you while you wait, if they find out your profession. And
don't tell the clerk that you're the father of Pierrepont Graham who
stopped at his hotel for awhile, a little over a year ago. I believe
there's still a little something due for extras from that visit of mine,
and I am considerate enough not to want to get you into any muss about
that robber baron bill.
You are somewhat of a stranger in New York, and I want to caution you
against travelling around town exposing your massive gold chain with the
hog watch-charm you affect. Somehow a sucker is viewed by the amount of
yellow metal he displays on his vest, and I don't want to hear that you
have been treated to knock-out drops or tapped on the cranium with a
sandbag, just because you look like a guy with an inflated wallet. All I
ask of you is, that you get back safe to Chicago to straighten out the
business. Since I have assumed control of the lard department there have
been two strikes and one lock-out in our branch of the business, and I
don't know whether to close down the department altogether or to raise
everybody's wages and make it up on the quality of the lard. Even Ma is
beginning to kick, for she says she has a life interest in the business
and she can't see why your rheumatism should be allowed to cut her
dividends in two. I read her your excellent advice as to the sin of
worrying, but it had no effect on her. She says that any woman who has a
gallivanting husband and a fool son has the right to worry, and that she
will keep right at it until you drive up to the door, when she will give
you a welcome home that you will remember. Perhaps you had better come
in by the back entrance and let her discover you in bed suffering the
tortures of the damned, as they say in novels. Nothing disarms a woman
like a man keeled over by disease.
In any event, don't tell her the truth about your European trip and its
little enjoyments. If you do, you may have something like the experience
of Henry Bagshot. As you, I have reason to believe, know, Bagshot is an
habitual poker player--one of the kind who'd rather sit up all night
saying, "that's good," than make fifty thousand by a _coup_ on the
Exchange. In twenty-seven years of married life, it seems he has
concealed from Mrs. B. his feverish anxiety to draw one card for the
middle, and has always had some good excuse for his late sessions. But
about a month ago he had a bad attack with his heart and the doctor who
pulled him through warned him that life was not eternal in his case any
more than with the rest of us.
It gave Bagshot a creepy feeling to see the "Gates Ajar," and for a
couple of weeks, when his fingers itched for the chips, he let it go at
scratching. When he fell there was a terrible thud and it was 4 A.M.
when he crawled into the family mansion. Mrs. B. was sitting up. She had
feared the worst. A compunction of conscience, due to the graveyard
suggestion of his medical advisor, struck Bagshot when the lady of his
choice propounded the usual conundrum and he weakened. His carefully
prepared explanation stuck in his throat and he blurted out: "Very
sorry, my dear, but the fact is I got into a game of poker at the club
and--and I won eighty-five. Here they are, buy yourself something." And
he dropped the greenbacks into Mrs. B's lap.
Then there _was_ a scene. She didn't believe him and could not be
induced to do so. "Henry Bagshot," she cried, "in twenty-seven years
you've never stayed away from home to play poker. It was not cards, but
some awful hussy!" and she had hysterics till daylight and it cost
Bagshot $2,500 for a new brougham and a span of horses before he could
get away to breakfast. Whatever happens, no husband should tell the
truth to his wife. Either she'd not believe him or the shock would kill
her.
Your cautious son,
PIERREPONT.
P.S. I wrote George Damon congratulations on his marriage to Verbena
Philpot, the girl, you remember, whose father insisted that I should be
his son-in law. The letter evidently followed him to Europe where the
happy couple appear to have gone, for the other day I received this
cablegram: "Letter received. Congratulations belong to you."
LETTER No. XIX.
_Pierrepont tells the governor "what's what" about Helen Heath and cites
an example of matrimonial felicity secured by peculiar methods pursued
by the husband._