Mr. Babcock had come in early this morning, depositing a small
traveling-bag behind the door of his office, and then looking at his
watch to see if Mr. Bigelow were not about due. Somewhat travel-stained
was Mr. Babcock, as a glance at the mirror told him; and there was time
to wash and change his linen before his senior should arrive.
Shortly entered Mr. Bigelow, pausing within the threshold.
“Good-morning, Mr. Babcock. Did you find Michigan City still on the
map?”
Mr. Babcock, giving a last flick at his coat-collar before the
mirror, turned, listened, and laughed at his senior's little jest. The
stenographer, sitting in her corner by the window, smiled and giggled.
Young men at desks in the outer office snickered and chuckled over their
books. The round-eyed office-boy tee-heed outright, and then, covered
with fright and confusion, disappeared behind the water-cooler as the
head of the firm passed on to the inner office.
The arrival of Mr. Babcock with a traveling-bag was, it seemed, to be
considered important; more important even than the heap of letters that
lay ready opened on the mahogany desk. For now Mr. Babcock had been
summoned, the stenographer had been dismissed to some work in the outer
office, and Mr. Bigelow, closely attentive, and Mr. Babcock, with much
to communicate in that low voice of his, were settling down to consider
a problem.
“The price appealed to them,” Mr. Babcock was saying, “but they are
afraid of Higginson. They admit it. Higginson, they say, has their
written order to cut out the timber at the old price. Higginson, on his
part, has agreed to deliver the entire bill, two hundred thousand
feet or more, at the wharf at Michigan City, by the fourteenth of this
month.”
Mr. Bigelow's eyes strayed to his desk calendar.
“Yes,” went on Mr. Babcock, “to-day's the eleventh. That gives us three
days to stop it in.”
At this point there was an interruption. As had happened once before
when these two gentlemen were talking, the door opened and the small
office-boy appeared, catching his breath hurriedly before getting out
the words:
“Lady t' see y'u, sir.”
A decisive utterance was hanging on Mr. Bigelow's lips; a hand was
raised to make it more emphatic, but the lips closed and the hand fell.
“You will excuse me, Mr. Babcock?”
“Certainly.”
“I shall be engaged only a moment.”
The discreet Mr. Babcock withdrew, and the head of the firm, with a
glance at the heap of letters still untouched, turned, without rising,
toward the door. There was a curious expression on his face, the
expression of a man who feels himself at last in a position to cut
knots, who knows that he commands the situation. A person who might
choose to break in on such a weighty conference this morning need not
be surprised at summary treatment. And as the woman entered and softly
closed the door he leaned a little forward and drew his brows together,
his whole appearance saying plainly: “My time is short, madam. Speak to
the point.”
The woman faltered and waited for his question. He said not a word. She
started to speak, but seemed unable to break through this heavy silence.
He waited, his brows coming down more and more. And at last, when the
words did pass her lips, they were not at all what she had meant to say.
“I have tried not to come to you again. God knows how it hurts me. But I
had to come. I was turned out of the New York Store ten days ago,
without warning.”
Once started, she was finding it a little easier to go on; but Mr.
Bigelow, carrying the weight of millions on his shoulders, dealing
hourly with questions of importance, greater or less, to the whole
commercial world, had no time now--kind as he may have been in the more
leisurely past--to waste on trivial matters. He had given the woman
a chance; was he to blame for her failure? Did “not potential success
exist within every human being? Was any man to blame for the shipwreck
of another?
“I know nothing about that,” he cut in shortly and finally. “There is no
use in bringing your story here.”
She quailed before him. “But I have a right--the law----”
“The law is yours to use. If you think it will help you, use it.” He
rose, opened the door, and bowed her out. And she, baffled, humiliated,
at the end of her resources, went out without a word, crossed the hall
as steadily as any young stenographer, stepped into the elevator with
a composed face, and out into the street--and all this while there was
nothing to mark her out from a thousand other ill-dressed women; nothing
to show that her hopes were gone; simply a plain woman on La Salle
Street, quietly walking--where? Where could she walk now? Were there
still depths to sound, or had she reached the bottom?
“Mr. Babcock!”
The junior partner came out from his own private office at the sound of
his senior's voice.
“You were saying,” said Mr. Bigelow, taking up the thread where they
had laid it down, “that Higginson & Company have agreed to deliver the
timber by the fourteenth. Now, of course, a blockade, to be effective,
must be complete.” This was self-evident to Mr. Babcock.
“And so long as these people are free to deliver lumber the blockade is
not complete. What is your plan regarding this?”
“The Michigan City people, as I said, are afraid of Higginson. But they
will accept our price the minute we can show them that they're safe
in doing it. They received a letter from Higginson's manager yesterday
stating that the Higginson steamer, with the timber, will reach Michigan
City on the night of the thirteenth or the morning of the
fourteenth. That means that it will be ready for loading on the
twelfth--to-morrow--and that the steamer will start the morning of the
thirteenth. Now, it's not hard to imagine a delay that would keep the
Higginson manager from getting the boat off in time. And if he fails to
deliver, we are promised the order.”
“How do you mean to do this?”
Mr. Babcock glanced around in that cautious way of' his, leaned
forward, and buzzed along rapidly for a few moments, his eyes keen with
eagerness. The senior partner listened closely and slowly nodded, to
show that he understood. Even Mr. Bigelow, as we have seen, was not
wholly free from annoyance. Head of the Lumber Trust was Mr. Bigelow,
but not, unfortunately, sole owner of the Lumber Trust. Fighting is
expensive; and voting heads of constituent companies are sometimes
unreasonable about expenses. Mr. Bigelow was skilful and resourceful; he
knew well how to paint rainbows that should dazzle even the hard-headed,
hard-fisted old lumbermen of Michigan; he understood how to make it
plain that money spent in defeating Higginson would come back threefold
when the defeat was over, and the price up where it should be, and the
“economies” of the trust in working order; he was shrewd, and he knew
that the sooner Higginson could be run out of business the better it
would be for him (to say nothing of the trust and its directors). And so
it was indeed important that the blockade should be made effective. The
railroads were practically closed to Higginson now, his customers were
to be had for the buying, but the steamers of the Higginson line were
still afloat and ready to deliver Higginson lumber at contract prices.
The Michigan City contract was not a matter of money; there was a
principle at stake. Higginson _must not_ deliver that lumber on the
fourteenth!
“Very good,” he said, nodding again. “Have you the right man for this
work?”
Buzz--buzz--from Mr. Babcock. More words from Mr. Bigelow.
“You will have to move quickly.”
“Yes, I am off now,” and the junior partner headed for the
traveling-bag, feeling in his pocket for a time-table.