BOOK 3.

XVIII.

As the name of our city grew to be more and more a byword for sudden and

fabulous wealth, not only were the Huns and the Slavs, the Czechs and

the Greeks drawn to us, but it became the fashion for distinguished

Englishmen and Frenchmen and sometimes Germans and Italians to pay us a

visit when they made the grand tour of America. They had been told that

they must not miss us; scarcely a week went by in our community--so it

was said--in which a full-fledged millionaire was not turned out. Our

visitors did not always remain a week,--since their rapid journeyings

from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to the Gulf rarely

occupied more than four,--but in the books embodying their mature

comments on the manners, customs and crudities of American civilization

no less than a chapter was usually devoted to us; and most of the

adjectives in their various languages were exhausted in the attempt

to prove how symptomatic we were of the ambitions and ideals of

the Republic. The fact that many of these gentlemen--literary and

otherwise--returned to their own shores better fed and with larger

balances in the banks than when they departed is neither here nor there.

Egyptians are proverbially created to be spoiled.

The wiser and more fortunate of these travellers and students of life

brought letters to Mr. and Mrs. Hambleton Durrett. That household was

symptomatic--if they liked--of the new order of things; and it was rare

indeed when both members of it were at home to entertain them. If Mr.

Durrett were in the city, and they did not happen to be Britons with

sporting proclivities, they simply were not entertained: when Mrs.

Durrett received them dinners were given in their honour on the Durrett

gold plate, and they spent cosey and delightful hours conversing with

her in the little salon overlooking the garden, to return to their

hotels and jot down paragraphs on the superiority of the American

women over the men. These particular foreigners did not lay eyes on Mr.

Durrett, who was in Florida or in the East playing polo or engaged in

some other pursuit. One result of the lavishness and luxury that amazed

them they wrote--had been to raise the standard of culture of the women,

who were our leisure class. But the travellers did not remain long

enough to arrive at any conclusions of value on the effect of luxury and

lavishness on the sacred institution of marriage.

If Mr. Nathaniel Durrett could have returned to his native city after

fifteen years or so in the grave, not the least of the phenomena to

startle him would have been that which was taking place in his own

house. For he would have beheld serenely established in that former

abode of Calvinism one of the most reprehensible of exotic abominations,

a 'mariage de convenance;' nor could he have failed to observe,

moreover, the complacency with which the descendants of his friends,

the pew holders in Dr. Pound's church, regarded the matter: and not only

these, but the city at large. The stronghold of Scotch Presbyterianism

had become a London or a Paris, a Gomorrah!

Mrs. Hambleton Durrett went her way, and Mr. Durrett his. The less said

about Mr. Durrett's way--even in this suddenly advanced age--the better.

As for Nancy, she seemed to the distant eye to be walking through life

in a stately and triumphant manner. I read in the newspapers of her

doings, her comings and goings; sometimes she was away for months

together, often abroad; and when she was at home I saw her, but

infrequently, under conditions more or less formal. Not that she was

formal,--or I: our intercourse seemed eloquent of an intimacy in a

tantalizing state of suspense. Would that intimacy ever be renewed? This

was a question on which I sometimes speculated. The situation that had

suspended or put an end to it, as the case might be, was never referred

to by either of us.

One afternoon in the late winter of the year following that in which

we had given a dinner to the Scherers (where the Durretts had rather

marvellously appeared together) I left my office about three o'clock--a

most unusual occurrence. I was restless, unable to fix my mind on my

work, filled with unsatisfied yearnings the object of which I sought

to keep vague, and yet I directed my steps westward along Boyne Street

until I came to the Art Museum, where a loan exhibition was being held.

I entered, bought a catalogue, and presently found myself standing

before number 103, designated as a portrait of Mrs. Hambleton

Durrett,--painted in Paris the autumn before by a Polish artist then

much in vogue, Stanislaus Czesky. Nancy--was it Nancy?--was standing

facing me, tall, superb in the maturity of her beauty, with one hand

resting on an antique table, a smile upon her lips, a gentle mockery in

her eyes as though laughing at the world she adorned. With the smile

and the mockery--somehow significant, too, of an achieved

inaccessibility--went the sheen of her clinging gown and the glint

of the heavy pearls drooping from her high throat to her waist. These

caught the eye, but failed at length to hold it, for even as I looked

the smile faded, the mockery turned to wistfulness. So I thought, and

looked again--to see the wistfulness: the smile had gone, the pearls

seemed heavier. Was it a trick of the artist? had he seen what I saw,

or thought I saw? or was it that imagination which by now I might have

learned to suspect and distrust. Wild longings took possession of me,

for the portrait had seemed to emphasize at once how distant now she was

from me, and yet how near! I wanted to put that nearness to the test.

Had she really changed? did anyone really change? and had I not been

a fool to accept the presentment she had given me? I remembered those

moments when our glances had met as across barriers in flashes

of understanding. After all, the barriers were mere relics of the

superstition of the past. What if I went to her now? I felt that I

needed her as I never had needed anyone in all my life.... I was aroused

by the sound of lowered voices beside me.

“That's Mrs. Hambleton Durrett,” I heard a woman say. “Isn't she

beautiful?”

The note of envy struck me sharply--horribly. Without waiting to listen

to the comment of her companion I hurried out of the building into the

cold, white sunlight that threw into bold relief the mediocre houses of

the street. Here was everyday life, but the portrait had suggested that

which might have been--might be yet. What did I mean by this? I didn't

know, I didn't care to define it,--a renewal of her friendship, of our

intimacy. My being cried out for it, and in the world in which I lived

we took what we wanted--why not this? And yet for an instant I stood on

the sidewalk to discover that in new situations I was still subject

to unaccountable qualms of that thing I had been taught to call

“conscience”; whether it were conscience or not must be left to

the psychologists. I was married--terrible word! the shadow of that

Institution fell athwart me as the sun went under a cloud; but the

sun came out again as I found myself walking toward the Durrett house

reflecting that numbers of married men called on Nancy, and that what

I had in mind in regard to her was nothing that the court would have

pronounced an infringement upon the Institution.... I reached her

steps, the long steps still guarded by the curved wrought-iron railings

reminiscent of Nathaniel's day, though the “portals” were gone, a modern

vestibule having replaced them; I rang the bell; the butler, flung open

the doors. He, at any rate, did not seem surprised to see me here, he

greeted me with respectful cordiality and led me, as a favoured guest,

through the big drawing-room into the salon.

“Mr. Paret, Madam!”

Nancy, rose quickly from the low chair where she sat cutting the pages

of a French novel.

“Hugh!” she exclaimed. “I'm out if anyone calls. Bring tea,” she added

to the man, who retired. For a moment we stood gazing at each other,

questioningly. “Well, won't you sit down and stay awhile?” she asked.

I took a chair on the opposite side of the fire.

“I just thought I'd drop in,” I said.

“I am flattered,” said Nancy, “that a person so affaire should find

time to call on an old friend. Why, I thought you never left your office

until seven o'clock.”

“I don't, as a rule, but to-day I wasn't particularly busy, and I

thought I'd go round to the Art Museum and look at your portrait.”

“More flattery! Hugh, you're getting quite human. What do you think of

it?”

“I like it. I think it quite remarkable.”

“Have a cigarette!”

I took one.

“So you really like it,” she said.

“Don't you?”

“Oh, I think it's a trifle--romantic,” she replied “But that's Czesky.

He made me quite cross,--the feminine presentation of America, the

spoiled woman who has shed responsibilities and is beginning to have a

glimpse--just a little one--of the emptiness of it all.”

I was stirred.

“Then why do you accept it, if it isn't you?” I demanded. “One doesn't

refuse Czesky's canvases,” she replied. “And what difference does it

make? It amused him, and he was fairly subtle about it. Only those who

are looking for romance, like you, are able to guess what he meant,

and they would think they saw it anyway, even if he had painted

me--extinct.”

“Extinct!” I repeated.

She laughed.

“Hugh, you're a silly old goose!”

“That's why I came here, I think, to be told so,” I said.

Tea was brought in. A sense of at-homeness stole over me,--I was more at

home here in this room with Nancy, than in any other place in the world;

here, where everything was at once soothing yet stimulating, expressive

of her, even the smaller objects that caught my eye,--the crystal

inkstand tipped with gold, the racks for the table books, her

paper-cutter. Nancy's was a discriminating luxury. And her talk! The

lightness with which she touched life, the unexplored depths of her,

guessed at but never fathomed! Did she feel a little the need of me as I

felt the need of her?

“Why, I believe you're incurably romantic, Hugh,” she said laughingly,

when the men had left the room. “Here you are, what they call a paragon

of success, a future senator, Ambassador to England. I hear of those

remarkable things you have done--even in New York the other day a man

was asking me if I knew Mr. Paret, and spoke of you as one of the coming

men. I suppose you will be moving there, soon. A practical success! It

always surprises me when I think of it, I find it difficult to remember

what a dreamer you were and here you turn out to be still a dreamer!

Have you discovered, too, the emptiness of it all?” she inquired

provokingly. “I must say you don't look it”--she gave me a critical,

quizzical glance--“you look quite prosperous and contented, as though

you enjoyed your power.”

I laughed uneasily.

“And then,” she continued, “and then one day when your luncheon has

disagreed with you--you walk into a gallery and see a portrait of--of an

old friend for whom in youth, when you were a dreamer, you professed a

sentimental attachment, and you exclaim that the artist is a discerning

man who has discovered the secret that she has guarded so closely. She's

sorry that she ever tried to console herself with baubles it's what

you've suspected all along. But you'll just run around to see for

yourself--to be sure of it.” And she handed me my tea. “Come now,

confess. Where are your wits--I hear you don't lack them in court.”

“Well,” I said, “if that amuses you--”

“It does amuse me,” said Nancy, twining her fingers across her knee and

regarding me smilingly, with parted lips, “it amuses me a lot--it's so

characteristic.”

“But it's not true, it's unjust,” I protested vigorously, smiling, too,

because the attack was so characteristic of her.

“What then?” she demanded.

“Well, in the first place, my luncheon didn't disagree with me. It never

does.”

She laughed. “But the sentiment--come now--the sentiment? Do you

perceive any hint of emptiness--despair?”

Our chairs were very close, and she leaned forward a little.

“Emptiness or no emptiness,” I said a little tremulously, “I know that I

haven't been so contented, so happy for a long time.”

She sat very still, but turned her gaze on the fire.

“You really wouldn't want to find that, Hugh,” she said in another

voice, at which I exclaimed. “No, I'm not being sentimental. But, to be

serious, I really shouldn't care to think that of you. I'd like to think

of you as a friend--a good friend--although we don't see very much of

one another.”

“But that's why I came, Nancy,” I explained. “It wasn't just an

impulse--that is, I've been thinking of you a great deal, all along. I

miss you, I miss the way you look at things--your point of view. I can't

see any reason why we shouldn't see something of each other--now--”

She continued to stare into the fire.

“No,” she said at length, “I suppose there isn't any reason.” Her mood

seemed suddenly to change as she bent over and extinguished the flame

under the kettle. “After all,” she added gaily, “we live in a tolerant

age, we've reached the years of discretion, and we're both too

conventional to do anything silly--even if we wanted to--which we don't.

We're neither of us likely to quarrel with the world as it is, I think,

and we might as well make fun of it together. We'll begin with our

friends. What do you think of Mr. Scherer's palace?”

“I hear you're building it for him.”

“I told him to get Eyre,” said Nancy, laughingly, “I was afraid he'd

repeat the Gallatin Park monstrosity on a larger scale, and Eyre's the

only man in this country who understands the French. It's been rather

amusing,” she went on, “I've had to fight Hilda, and she's no mean

antagonist. How she hates me! She wanted a monstrosity, of course, a

modernized German rock-grotto sort of an affair, I can imagine. She's

been so funny when I've met her at dinner. 'I understand you take a

great interest in the house, Mrs. Durrett.' Can't you hear her?”

“Well, you did get ahead of her,” I said.

“I had to. I couldn't let our first citizen build a modern Rhine castle,

could I? I have some public spirit left. And besides, I expect to build

on Grant Avenue myself.”

“And leave here?”

“Oh, it's too grubby, it's in the slums,” said Nancy. “But I really owe

you a debt of gratitude, Hugh, for the Scherers.”

“I'm told Adolf's lost his head over you.”

“It's not only over me, but over everything. He's so ridiculously proud

of being on the board of the Children's Hospital.... You ought to hear

him talking to old Mrs. Ogilvy, who of course can't get used to him

at all,--she always has the air of inquiring what he's doing in that

galley. She still thinks of him as Mr. Durrett's foreman.”

The time flew. Her presence was like a bracing, tingling atmosphere in

which I felt revived and exhilarated, self-restored. For Nancy did not

question--she took me as I was. We looked out on the world, as it were,

from the same window, and I could not help thinking that ours, after

all, was a large view. The topics didn't matter--our conversation was

fragrant with intimacy; and we were so close to each other it seemed

incredible that we ever should be parted again. At last the little clock

on the mantel chimed an hour, she started and looked up.

“Why, it's seven, Hugh!” she exclaimed, rising. “I'd no idea it was so

late, and I'm dining with the Dickinsons. I've only just time to dress.”

“It's been like a reunion, hasn't it?--a reunion after many years,” I

said. I held her hand unconsciously--she seemed to be drawing me to her,

I thought she swayed, and a sudden dizziness seized me. Then she drew

away abruptly, with a little cry. I couldn't be sure about the cry,

whether I heard it or not, a note was struck in the very depths of me.

“Come in again,” she said, “whenever you're not too busy.” And a minute

later I found myself on the street.

This was the beginning of a new intimacy with Nancy, resembling the old

intimacy yet differing from it. The emotional note of our parting on

the occasion I have just related was not again struck, and when I

went eagerly to see her again a few days later I was conscious of

limitations,--not too conscious: the freedom she offered and which I

gladly accepted was a large freedom, nor am I quite sure that even I

would have wished it larger, though there were naturally moments when

I thought so: when I asked myself what I did wish, I found no answer.

Though I sometimes chafed, it would have been absurd of me to object to

a certain timidity or caution I began to perceive in her that had been

absent in the old Nancy; but the old Nancy had ceased to exist, and here

instead was a highly developed, highly specialized creature in whom I

delighted; and after taking thought I would not have robbed her of

fine acquired attribute. As she had truly observed, we were both

conventional; conventionality was part of the price we had willingly

paid for membership in that rarer world we had both achieved. It was

a world, to be sure, in which we were rapidly learning to take the law

into our own hands without seeming to defy it, in order that the fear

of it might remain in those less fortunately placed and endowed: we

had begun with the appropriation of the material property of our

fellow-citizens, which we took legally; from this point it was, of

course, merely a logical step to take--legally, too other gentlemen's

human property--their wives, in short: the more progressive East had set

us our example, but as yet we had been chary to follow it.

About this time rebellious voices were beginning to make themselves

heard in the literary wilderness proclaiming liberty--liberty of the

sexes. There were Russian novels and French novels, and pioneer English

novels preaching liberty with Nietzschean stridency, or taking it for

granted. I picked these up on Nancy's table.

“Reading them?” she said, in answer to my query. “Of course I'm reading

them. I want to know what these clever people are thinking, even if I

don't always agree with them, and you ought to read them too. It's quite

true what foreigners say about our men,--that they live in a groove,

that they haven't any range of conversation.”

“I'm quite willing to be educated,” I replied. “I haven't a doubt that I

need it.”

She was leaning back in her chair, her hands behind her head, a posture

she often assumed. She looked up at me amusedly.

“I'll acknowledge that you're more teachable than most of them,” she

said. “Do you know, Hugh, sometimes you puzzle me greatly. When you are

here and we're talking together I can never think of you as you are out

in the world, fighting for power--and getting it. I suppose it's part

of your charm, that there is that side of you, but I never consciously

realize it. You're what they call a dual personality.”

“That's a pretty hard name!” I exclaimed.

She laughed.

“I can't help it--you are. Oh, not disagreeably so, quite

normally--that's the odd thing about you. Sometimes I believe that you

were made for something different, that in spite of your success you

have missed your 'metier.'”

“What ought I to have been?”

“How can I tell? A Goethe, perhaps--a Goethe smothered by a

twentieth-century environment. Your love of adventure isn't dead, it's

been merely misdirected, real adventure, I mean, forth faring, straying

into unknown paths. Perhaps you haven't yet found yourself.”

“How uncanny!” I said, stirred and startled.

“You have a taste for literature, you know, though you've buried it.

Give me Turgeniev. We'll begin with him....”

Her reading and the talks that followed it were exciting, amazingly

stimulating.... Once Nancy gave me an amusing account of a debate which

had taken place in the newly organized woman's discussion club to which

she belonged over a rather daring book by an English novelist. Mrs.

Dickinson had revolted.

“No, she wasn't really shocked, not in the way she thought she was,”

said Nancy, in answer to a query of mine.

“How was she shocked, then?”

“As you and I are shocked.”

“But I'm not shocked,” I protested.

“Oh, yes, you are, and so am I--not on the moral side, nor is it the

moral aspect that troubles Lula Dickinson. She thinks it's the moral

aspect, but it's really the revolutionary aspect, the menace to those

precious institutions from which we derive our privileges and comforts.”

I considered this, and laughed.

“What's the use of being a humbug about it,” said Nancy.

“But you're talking like a revolutionary,” I said.

“I may be talking like one, but I'm not one. I once had the makings

of one--of a good one,--a 'proper' one, as the English would say.” She

sighed.

“You regret it?” I asked curiously.

“Of course I regret it!” she cried. “What woman worth her salt doesn't

regret it, doesn't want to live, even if she has to suffer for it?

And those people--the revolutionaries, I mean, the rebels--they live,

they're the only ones who do live. The rest of us degenerate in a

painless paralysis we think of as pleasure. Look at me! I'm incapable

of committing a single original act, even though I might conceive one.

Well, there was a time when I should have been equal to anything and

wouldn't have cared a--a damn.”

I believed her....

I fell into the habit of dropping in on Nancy at least twice a week on

my way from the office, and I met her occasionally at other houses. I

did not tell Maude of that first impulsive visit; but one evening a few

weeks later she asked me where I had been, and when I told her she

made no comment. I came presently to the conclusion that this renewed

intimacy did not trouble her--which was what I wished to believe. Of

course I had gone to Nancy for a stimulation I failed to get at home,

and it is the more extraordinary, therefore, that I did not become more

discontented and restless: I suppose this was because I had grown

to regard marriage as most of the world regarded it, as something

inevitable and humdrum, as a kind of habit it is useless to try to shake

off. But life is so full of complexities and anomalies that I still had

a real affection for Maude, and I liked her the more because she didn't

expect too much of me, and because she didn't complain of my friendship

with Nancy although I should vehemently have denied there was anything

to complain of. I respected Maude. If she was not a squaw, she performed

religiously the traditional squaw duties, and made me comfortable: and

the fact that we lived separate mental existences did not trouble me

because I never thought of hers--or even that she had one. She had the

children, and they seemed to suffice. She never renewed her appeal for

my confidence, and I forgot that she had made it.

Nevertheless I always felt a tug at my heartstrings when June came

around and it was time for her and the children to go to Mattapoisett

for the summer; when I accompanied them, on the evening of their

departure, to the smoky, noisy station and saw deposited in the

sleeping-car their luggage and shawls and bundles. They always took the

evening train to Boston; it was the best. Tom and Susan were invariably

there with candy and toys to see them off--if Susan and her children had

not already gone--and at such moments my heart warmed to Tom. And I was

astonished as I clung to Matthew and Moreton and little Biddy at

the affection that welled up within me, saddened when I kissed Maude

good-bye. She too was sad, and always seemed to feel compunctions for

deserting me.

“I feel so selfish in leaving you all alone!” she would say. “If it

weren't for the children--they need the sea air. But I know you don't

miss me as I miss you. A man doesn't, I suppose.... Please don't work so

hard, and promise me you'll come on and stay a long time. You can if you

want to. We shan't starve.” She smiled. “That nice room, which is yours,

at the southeast corner, is always waiting for you. And you do like the

sea, and seeing the sail-boats in the morning.”

I felt an emptiness when the train pulled out. I did love my family,

after all! I would go back to the deserted house, and I could not bear

to look in at the nursery door, at the little beds with covers flung

over them. Why couldn't I appreciate these joys when I had them?

One evening, as we went home in an open street-car together, after such

a departure, Tom blurted out:--“Hugh, I believe I care for your family

as much as for my own. I often wonder if you realize how wonderful these

children are! My boys are just plain ruffians--although I think they're

pretty decent ruffians, but Matthew has a mind--he's thoughtful--and

an imagination. He'll make a name for himself some day if he's steered

properly and allowed to develop naturally. Moreton's more like my boys.

And as for Chickabiddy!--” words failed him.

I put my hand on his knee. I actually loved him again as I had loved

and yearned for him as a child,--he was so human, so dependable. And why

couldn't this feeling last? He disapproved--foolishly, I thought--of

my professional career, and this was only one of his limitations. But

I knew that he was loyal. Why hadn't I been able to breathe and be

reasonably happy in that atmosphere of friendship and love in which I

had been placed--or rather in which I had placed myself?... Before the

summer was a day or two older I had grown accustomed to being alone,

and enjoyed the liberty; and when Maude and the children returned in the

autumn, similarly, it took me some days to get used to the restrictions

imposed by a household. I run the risk of shocking those who read this

by declaring that if my family had been taken permanently out of my

life, I should not long have missed them. But on the whole, in those

years my marriage relation might be called a negative one. There were

moments, as I have described, when I warmed to Maude, moments when I

felt something akin to a violent antagonism aroused by little mannerisms

and tricks she had. The fact that we got along as well as we did

was probably due to the orthodox teaching with which we had been

inoculated,--to the effect that matrimony was a moral trial, a

shaking-down process. But moral trials were ceasing to appeal to people,

and more and more of them were refusing to be shaken down. We didn't cut

the Gordian knot, but we managed to loosen it considerably.

I have spoken of a new species of titans who inhabited the giant

buildings in Wall Street, New York, and fought among themselves for

possession of the United States of America. It is interesting to note

that in these struggles a certain chivalry was observed among the

combatants, no matter how bitter the rivalry: for instance, it was

deemed very bad form for one of the groups of combatants to take the

public into their confidence; cities were upset and stirred to the

core by these conflicts, and the citizens never knew who was doing

the fighting, but imagined that some burning issue was at stake that

concerned them. As a matter of fact the issue always did concern them,

but not in the way they supposed.

Gradually, out of the chaotic melee in which these titans were engaged

had emerged one group more powerful than the rest and more respectable,

whose leader was the Personality to whom I have before referred. He and

his group had managed to gain control of certain conservative fortresses

in various cities such as the Corn National Bank and the Ashuela

Telephone Company--to mention two of many: Adolf Scherer was his ally,

and the Boyne Iron Works, Limited, was soon to be merged by him into a

greater corporation still. Leonard Dickinson might be called his local

governor-general. We manned the parapets and kept our ears constantly to

the ground to listen for the rumble of attacks; but sometimes they burst

upon us fiercely and suddenly, without warning. Such was the assault on

the Ashuela, which for years had exercised an apparently secure monopoly

of the city's telephone service, which had been able to ignore with

complacency the shrillest protests of unreasonable subscribers. Through

the Pilot it was announced to the public that certain benevolent

“Eastern capitalists” were ready to rescue them from their thraldom if

the city would grant them a franchise. Mr. Lawler, the disinterestedness

of whose newspaper could not be doubted, fanned the flame day by day,

sent his reporters about the city gathering instances of the haughty

neglect of the Ashuela, proclaiming its instruments antiquated compared

with those used in more progressive cities, as compared with the very

latest inventions which the Automatic Company was ready to install

provided they could get their franchise. And the prices! These, too,

would fall--under competition. It was a clever campaign. If the city

would give them a franchise, that Automatic Company--so well named!

would provide automatic instruments. Each subscriber, by means of a

numerical disk, could call up any other, subscriber; there would be no

central operator, no listening, no tapping of wires; the number of

calls would be unlimited. As a proof of the confidence of these Eastern

gentlemen in our city, they were willing to spend five millions, and

present more than six hundred telephones free to the city departments!

What was fairer, more generous than this! There could be no doubt that

popular enthusiasm was enlisted in behalf of the “Eastern Capitalists,”

who were made to appear in the light of Crusaders ready to rescue a

groaning people from the thrall of monopoly. The excitement approached

that of a presidential election, and became the dominant topic at

quick-lunch counters and in street-cars. Cheap and efficient service!

Down with the Bastille of monopoly!

As counsel for the Ashuela, Mr. Ogilvy sent for me, and by certain

secret conduits of information at my disposal I was not long in

discovering the disquieting fact that a Mr. Orthwein, who was described

as a gentleman with fat fingers and a plausible manner, had been in town

for a week and had been twice seen entering and emerging from Monahan's

saloon. In short, Mr. Jason had already been “seen.” Nevertheless I

went to him myself, to find him for the first time in my experience

absolutely non-committal.

“What's the Ashuela willing to do?” he demanded.

I mentioned a sum, and he shook his head. I mentioned another, and still

he shook his head.

“Come 'round again,” he said...

I was compelled to report this alarming situation to Ogilvy and

Dickinson and a few chosen members of a panicky board of directors.

“It's that damned Grannis crowd,” said Dickinson, mentioning an

aggressive gentleman who had migrated from Chicago to Wall Street some

five years before in a pink collar.

“But what's to be done?” demanded Ogilvy, playing nervously with a gold

pencil on the polished table. He was one of those Americans who in a

commercial atmosphere become prematurely white, and today his boyish,

smooth-shaven face was almost as devoid of colour as his hair. Even

Leonard Dickinson showed anxiety, which was unusual for him.

“You've got to fix it, Hugh,” he said.

I did not see my way, but I had long ago learned to assume the unruffled

air and judicial manner of speaking that inspires the layman with almost

superstitious confidence in the lawyer....

“We'll find a way out,” I said.

Mr. Jason, of course, held the key to the situation, and just how I

was to get around him was problematical. In the meantime there was the

public: to permit the other fellow to capture that was to be lacking in

ordinary prudence; if its votes counted for nothing, its savings were

desirable; and it was fast getting into a state of outrage against

monopoly. The chivalry of finance did not permit of a revelation that

Mr. Grannis and his buccaneers were behind the Automatic, but it was

possible to direct and strengthen the backfire which the Era and other

conservative newspapers had already begun. Mr. Tallant for delicate

reasons being persona non grata at the Boyne Club, despite the fact that

he had so many friends there, we met for lunch in a private room at the

new hotel, and as we sipped our coffee and smoked our cigars we planned

a series of editorials and articles that duly appeared. They made

a strong appeal to the loyalty of our citizens to stand by the home

company and home capital that had taken generous risks to give them

service at a time when the future of the telephone business was by no

means assured; they belittled the charges made by irresponsible and

interested “parties,” and finally pointed out, not without effect, that

one logical consequence of having two telephone companies would be to

compel subscribers in self-defence to install two telephones instead of

one. And where was the saving in that?

“Say, Paret,” said Judah B. when we had finished our labours; “if you

ever get sick of the law, I'll give you a job on the Era's staff. This

is fine, the way you put it. It'll do a lot of good, but how in hell are

you going to handle Judd?...”

For three days the inspiration was withheld. And then, as I was

strolling down Boyne Street after lunch gazing into the store windows it

came suddenly, without warning. Like most inspirations worth anything,

it was very simple. Within half an hour I had reached Monahan's saloon

and found Mr. Jason out of bed, but still in his bedroom, seated

meditatively at the window that looked over the alley.

“You know the crowd in New York behind this Automatic company as well

as I do, Jason,” I said. “Why do you want to deal with them when we've

always been straight with you, when we're ready to meet them and go one

better? Name your price.”

“Suppose I do--what then,” he replied. “This thing's gone pretty

far. Under that damned new charter the franchise has got to be bid

for--hasn't it? And the people want this company. There'll be a howl

from one end of this town to the other if we throw 'em down.”

“We'll look out for the public,” I assured him, smiling.

“Well,” he said, with one of his glances that were like flashes, “what

you got up your sleeve?”

“Suppose another telephone company steps in, and bids a little higher

for the franchise. That relieves, your aldermen of all responsibility,

doesn't it?”

“Another telephone company!” he repeated.

I had already named it on my walk.

“The Interurban,” I said.

“A dummy company?” said Mr. Jason.

“Lively enough to bid something over a hundred thousand to the city for

its franchise,” I replied.

Judd Jason, with a queer look, got up and went to a desk in a

dark corner, and after rummaging for a few moments in one of the

pigeon-holes, drew forth a glass cylinder, which he held out as he

approached me.

“You get it, Mr. Paret,” he said.

“What is it?” I asked, “a bomb!”

“That,” he announced, as he twisted the tube about in his long fingers,

holding it up to the light, “is the finest brand of cigars ever made in

Cuba. A gentleman who had every reason to be grateful to me--I won't

say who he was--gave me that once. Well, the Lord made me so's I can't

appreciate any better tobacco than those five-cent 'Bobtails' Monahan's

got downstairs, and I saved it. I saved it for the man who would put

something over me some day, and--you get it.”

“Thank you,” I said, unconsciously falling in with the semi-ceremony of

his manner. “I do not flatter myself that the solution I have suggested

did not also occur to you.”

“You'll smoke it?” he asked.

“Surely.”

“Now? Here with me?”

“Certainly,” I agreed, a little puzzled. As I broke the seal, pulled out

the cork and unwrapped the cigar from its gold foil he took a stick and

rapped loudly on the floor. After a brief interval footsteps were

heard on the stairs and Mike Monahan, white aproned and scarlet faced,

appeared at the door.

“Bobtails,” said Mr. Jason, laconically.

“It's them I thought ye'd be wanting,” said the saloon-keeper, holding

out a handful. Judd Jason lighted one, and began smoking reflectively.

I gazed about the mean room, with its litter of newspapers and reports,

its shabby furniture, and these seemed to have become incongruous, out

of figure in the chair facing me keeping with the thoughtful figure in

the chair facing me.

“You had a college education, Mr. Paret,” he remarked at length.

“Yes.”

“Life's a queer thing. Now if I'd had a college education, like you, and

you'd been thrown on the world, like me, maybe I'd be livin' up there on

Grant Avenue and you'd be down here over the saloon.”

“Maybe,” I said, wondering uneasily whether he meant to imply a

similarity in our gifts. But his manner remained impassive, speculative.

“Ever read Carlyle's 'French Revolution'?” he asked suddenly.

“Why, yes, part of it, a good while ago.”

“When you was in college?”

“Yes.”

“I've got a little library here,” he said, getting up and raising the

shades and opening the glass doors of a bookcase which had escaped my

attention. He took down a volume of Carlyle, bound in half calf.

“Wouldn't think I cared for such things, would you?” he demanded as he

handed it to me.

“Well, you never can tell what a man's real tastes are until you know

him,” I observed, to conceal my surprise.

“That's so,” he agreed. “I like books--some books. If I'd had an

education, I'd have liked more of 'em, known more about 'em. Now I can

read this one over and over. That feller Carlyle was a genius, he could

look right into the bowels of the volcano, and he was on to how men and

women feet down there, how they hate, how they square 'emselves when

they get a chance.”

He had managed to bring before me vividly that terrible, volcanic flow

on Versailles of the Paris mob. He put back the book and resumed his

seat.

“And I know how these people fed down here, below the crust,” he went

on, waving his cigar out of the window, as though to indicate the whole

of that mean district. “They hate, and their hate is molten hell. I've

been through it.”

“But you've got on top,” I suggested.

“Sure, I've got on top. Do you know why? it's because I hated--that's

why. A man's feelings, if they're strong enough, have a lot to do with

what he becomes.”

“But he has to have ability, too,” I objected.

“Sure, he has to have ability, but his feeling is the driving power if

he feels strong enough, he can make a little ability go a long way.”

I was struck by the force of this remark. I scarcely recognized Judd

Jason. The man, as he revealed himself, had become at once more sinister

and more fascinating.

“I can guess how some of those Jacobins felt when they had the

aristocrats in the dock. They'd got on top--the Jacobins, I mean. It's

human nature to want to get on top--ain't it?” He looked at me and

smiled, but he did not seem to expect a reply. “Well, what you call

society, rich, respectable society like you belong to would have made

a bum and a criminal out of me if I hadn't been too smart for 'em, and

it's a kind of satisfaction to have 'em coming down here to Monahan's

for things they can't have without my leave. I've got a half Nelson on

'em. I wouldn't live up on Grant Avenue if you gave me Scherer's new

house.”

I was silent.

“Instead of starting my career in college, I started in jail,” he went

on, apparently ignoring any effect he may have produced. So subtly, so

dispassionately indeed was he delivering himself of these remarks that

it was impossible to tell whether he meant their application to be

personal, to me, or general, to my associates. “I went to jail when I

was fourteen because I wanted a knife to make kite sticks, and I stole a

razor from a barber. I was bitter when they steered me into a lockup in

Hickory Street. It was full of bugs and crooks, and they put me in

the same cell with an old-timer named 'Red' Waters; who was one of the

slickest safe-blowers around in those days. Red took a shine to me,

found out I had a head piece, and said their gang could use a clever

boy. If I'd go in with him, I could make all kinds of money. I guess

I might have joined the gang if Red hadn't kept talking--about how

the boss of his district named Gallagher would come down and get him

out,--and sure enough Gallagher did come down and get him out. I thought

I'd rather be Gallagher than Red--Red had to serve time once in a while.

Soon as he got out I went down to Gallagher's saloon, and there was

Red leaning over the bar. 'Here's a smart kid! he says, 'He and me were

room-mates over in Hickory Street.' He got to gassing me, and telling me

I'd better come along with him, when Gallagher came in. 'What is it ye'd

like to be, my son?' says he. A politician, I told him. I was through

going to jail. Gallagher had a laugh you could hear all over the place.

He took me on as a kind of handy boy around the establishment, and by

and by I began to run errands and find out things for him. I was boss of

that ward myself when I was twenty-six.... How'd you like that cigar?”

I praised it.

“It ought to have been a good one,” he declared. “Well, I don't want to

keep you here all afternoon telling you my life story.”

I assured him I had been deeply interested.

“Pretty slick idea of yours, that dummy company, Mr. Paret. Go ahead and

organize it.” He rose, which was contrary to his custom on the departure

of a visitor. “Drop in again. We'll talk about the books.”...

I walked slowly back reflecting on this conversation, upon the motives

impelling Mr. Jason to become thus confidential; nor was it the most

comforting thought in the world that the artist in me had appealed to

the artist in him, that he had hailed me as a breather. But for the

grace of God I might have been Mr. Jason and he Mr. Paret: undoubtedly

that was what he had meant to imply... And I was forced to admit that he

had succeeded--deliberately or not--in making the respectable Mr. Paret

just a trifle uncomfortable.

In the marble vestibule of the Corn National Bank I ran into Tallant,

holding his brown straw hat in his hand and looking a little more

moth-eaten than usual.

“Hello, Paret,” he said “how is that telephone business getting along?”

“Is Dickinson in?” I asked.

Tallant nodded.

We went through the cool bank, with its shining brass and red mahogany,

its tiled floor, its busy tellers attending to files of clients, to

the president's sanctum in the rear. Leonard Dickinson, very spruce and

dignified in a black cutaway coat, was dictating rapidly to a woman,

stenographer, whom he dismissed when he saw us. The door was shut.

“I was just asking Paret about the telephone affair,” said Mr. Tallant.

“Well, have you found a way out?” Leonard Dickinson looked questioningly

at me.

“It's all right,” I answered. “I've seen Jason.”

“All right!” they both ejaculated at once.

“We win,” I said.

They stood gazing at me. Even Dickinson, who was rarely ruffled, seemed

excited.

“Do you mean to say you've fixed it?” he demanded.

I nodded. They stared at me in amazement.

“How the deuce did you manage it?”

“We organize the Interurban Telephone Company, and bid for the

franchise--that's all.”

“A dummy company!” cried Tallant. “Why, it's simple as ABC!”

Dickinson smiled. He was tremendously relieved, and showed it.

“That's true about all great ideas, Tallant,” he said. “They're simple,

only it takes a clever man to think of them.”

“And Jason agrees?” Tallant demanded.

I nodded again. “We'll have to outbid the Automatic people. I haven't

seen Bitter yet about the--about the fee.”

“That's all right,” said Leonard Dickinson, quickly. “I take off my

hat to you. You've saved us. You can ask any fee you like,” he added

genially. “Let's go over to--to the Ashuela and get some lunch.” He had

been about to say the Club, but he remembered Mr. Tallant's presence in

time. “Nothing's worrying you, Hugh?” he added, as we went out, followed

by the glances of his employees.

“Nothing,” I said....

XVIX.

Making money in those days was so ridiculously easy! The trouble was to

know how to spend it. One evening when I got home I told Maude I had a

surprise for her.

“A surprise?” she asked, looking up from a little pink smock she was

making for Chickabiddy.

“I've bought that lot on Grant Avenue, next to the Ogilvys'.”

She dropped her sewing, and stared at me.

“Aren't you pleased?” I asked. “At last we are going to have a house of

our very own. What's the matter?”

“I can't bear the thought of leaving here. I'm so used to it. I've grown

to love it. It's part of me.”

“But,” I exclaimed, a little exasperated, “you didn't expect to live

here always, did you? The house has been too small for us for years.

I thought you'd be delighted.” (This was not strictly true, for I had

rather expected some such action on her part.) “Most women would. Of

course, if it's going to make such a difference to you as that, I'll

sell the lot. That won't be difficult.”

I got up, and started to go into my study. She half rose, and her sewing

fell to the floor.

“Oh, why are we always having misunderstandings? Do sit down a minute,

Hugh. Don't think I'm not appreciative,” she pleaded. “It was--such a

shock.”

I sat down rather reluctantly.

“I can't express what I think,” she continued, rather breathlessly, “but

sometimes I'm actually frightened, we're going through life so fast in

these days, and it doesn't seem as if we were getting the real things

out of it. I'm afraid of your success, and of all the money you're

making.”

I smiled.

“I'm not so rich yet, as riches go in these days, that you need be

alarmed,” I said.

She looked at me helplessly a moment.

“I feel that it isn't--right, somehow, that you'll pay for it, that

we'll pay for it. Goodness knows, we have everything we want, and more

too. This house--this house is real, and I'm afraid that won't be a

home, won't be real. That we'll be overwhelmed with--with things!”...

She was interrupted by the entrance of the children. But after dinner,

when she had seen them to bed, as was her custom, she came downstairs

into my study and said quietly:--“I was wrong, Hugh. If you want to

build a house, if you feel that you'd be happier, I have no right to

object. Of course my sentiment for this house is natural, the children

were born here, but I've realized we couldn't live here always.”

“I'm glad you look at it that way,” I replied. “Why, we're already

getting cramped, Maude, and now you're going to have a governess I don't

know where you'd put her.”

“Not too large, a house,” she pleaded. “I know you think I'm silly, but

this extravagance we see everywhere does make me uneasy. Perhaps it's

because I'm provincial, and always shall be.”

“Well, we must have a house large enough to be comfortable in,” I said.

“There's no reason why we shouldn't be comfortable.” I thought it as

well not to confess my ambitions, and I was greatly relieved that she

did not reproach me for buying the lot without consulting her. Indeed, I

was grateful for this unanticipated acquiescence, I felt nearer to her,

than I had for a long time. I drew up another chair to my desk.

“Sit down and we'll make a few sketches, just for fun,” I urged.

“Hugh,” she said presently, as we were blacking out prospective rooms,

“do you remember all those drawings and plans we made in England, on our

wedding trip, and how we knew just what we wanted, and changed our minds

every few days? And now we're ready to build, and haven't any ideas at

all!”

“Yes,” I answered--but I did not look at her.

“I have the book still--it's in the attic somewhere, packed away in a

box. I suppose those plans would seem ridiculous now.”

It was quite true,--now that we were ready to build the home that had

been deferred so long, now that I had the money to spend without stint

on its construction, the irony of life had deprived me of those strong

desires and predilections I had known on my wedding trip. What a joy it

would have been to build then! But now I found myself: wholly lacking in

definite ideas as to style and construction. Secretly, I looked forward

to certain luxuries, such as a bedroom and dressing-room and warm tiled

bathroom all to myself bachelor privacies for which I had longed. Two

mornings later at the breakfast table Maude asked me if I had thought of

an architect.

“Why, Archie Lammerton, I suppose. Who else is there? Have you anyone

else in mind?”

“N-no,” said Maude. “But I heard of such a clever man in Boston, who

doesn't charge Mr. Lammerton's prices; and who designs such beautiful

private houses.”

“But we can afford to pay Lammerton's prices,” I replied, smiling. “And

why shouldn't we have the best?”

“Are you sure--he is the best, Hugh?”

“Everybody has him,” I said.

Maude smiled in return.

“I suppose that's a good reason,” she answered.

“Of course it's a good reason,” I assured her. “These people--the people

we know--wouldn't have had Lammerton unless he was satisfactory. What's

the matter with his houses?”

“Well,” said Maude, “they're not very original. I don't say they're not

good, in away, but they lack a certain imagination. It's difficult for

me to express what I mean, 'machine made' isn't precisely the idea, but

there should be a certain irregularity in art--shouldn't there? I saw a

reproduction in one of the architectural journals of a house in Boston

by a man named Frey, that seemed to me to have great charm.”

Here was Lucia, unmistakably.

“That's all very well,” I said impatiently, “but when one has to live in

a house, one wants something more than artistic irregularity. Lammerton

knows how to build for everyday existence; he's a practical man, as well

as a man of taste, he may not be a Christopher Wrenn, but he understands

conveniences and comforts. His chimneys don't smoke, his windows are

tight, he knows what systems of heating are the best, and whom to go

to: he knows what good plumbing is. I'm rather surprised you don't

appreciate that, Maude, you're so particular as to what kind of rooms

the children shall have, and you want a schoolroom-nursery with all the

latest devices, with sun and ventilation. The Berringers wouldn't have

had him, the Hollisters and Dickinsons wouldn't have had him if his work

lacked taste.”

“And Nancy wouldn't have had him,” added Maude, and she smiled once

more.

“Well, I haven't consulted Nancy, or anyone else,” I replied--a little

tartly, perhaps. “You don't seem to realize that some fashions may have

a basis of reason. They are not all silly, as Lucia seems to think. If

Lammerton builds satisfactory houses, he ought to be forgiven for being

the fashion, he ought to have a chance.” I got up to leave. “Let's see

what kind of a plan he'll draw up, at any rate.”

Her glance was almost indulgent.

“Of course, Hugh. I want you to be satisfied, to be pleased,” she said.

“And you?” I questioned, “you are to live in the house more than I.”

“Oh, I'm sure it will turn out all right,” she replied. “Now you'd

better run along, I know you're late.”

“I am late,” I admitted, rather lamely. “If you don't care for

Lammerton's drawings, we'll get another architect.”

Several years before Mr. Lammerton had arrived among us with a Beaux

Arts moustache and letters of introduction to Mrs. Durrett and others.

We found him the most adaptable, the most accommodating of young

men, always ready to donate his talents and his services to private

theatricals, tableaux, and fancy-dress balls, to take a place at a

table at the last moment. One of his most appealing attributes was his

“belief” in our city,--a form of patriotism that culminated, in later

years, in “million population” clubs. I have often heard him declare,

when the ladies had left the dining-room, that there was positively no

limit to our future growth; and, incidentally, to our future wealth.

Such sentiments as these could not fail to add to any man's popularity,

and his success was a foregone conclusion. Almost before we knew it he

was building the new Union Station of which he had foreseen the need,

to take care of the millions to which our population was to be swelled;

building the new Post Office that the unceasing efforts of Theodore

Watling finally procured for us: building, indeed, Nancy's new house,

the largest of our private mansions save Mr. Scherer's, a commission

that had immediately brought about others from the Dickinsons and the

Berringers.... That very day I called on him in his offices at the top

of one of our new buildings, where many young draftsmen were bending

over their boards. I was ushered into his private studio.

“I suppose you want something handsome, Hugh,” he said, looking at me

over his cigarette, “something commensurate with these fees I hear you

are getting.”

“Well, I want to be comfortable,” I admitted.

We lunched at the Club together, where we talked over the requirements.

When he came to dinner the next week and spread out his sketch on the

living-room table Maude drew in her breath.

“Why, Hugh,” she exclaimed in dismay, “it's as big as--as big as the

White House!”

“Not quite,” I answered, laughing with Archie. “We may as well take our

ease in our old age.”

“Take our ease!” echoed Maude. “We'll rattle 'round in it. I'll never

get used to it.”

“After a month, Mrs. Paret, I'll wager you'll be wondering how you ever

got along without it,” said Archie.

It was not as big as the White House, yet it could not be called small.

I had seen, to that. The long facade was imposing, dignified, with a

touch of conventionality and solidity in keeping with my standing in the

city. It was Georgian, of plum-coloured brick with marble trimmings and

marble wedges over the ample windows, some years later I saw the house

by Ferguson, of New York, from which Archie had cribbed it. At one end,

off the dining-room, was a semicircular conservatory. There was a small

portico, with marble pillars, and in the ample, swift sloping roof

many dormers; servants' rooms, Archie explained. The look of anxiety

on Maude's face deepened as he went over the floor plans, the

reception-room; dining room to seat thirty, the servants' hall;

and upstairs Maude's room, boudoir and bath and dress closet, my

“apartments” adjoining on one side and the children's on the other, and

the guest-rooms with baths....

Maude surrendered, as one who gives way to the inevitable. When the

actual building began we both of us experienced, I think; a certain mild

excitement; and walked out there, sometimes with the children, in the

spring evenings, and on Sunday afternoons. “Excitement” is, perhaps, too

strong a word for my feelings: there was a pleasurable anticipation

on my part, a looking forward to a more decorous, a more luxurious

existence; a certain impatience at the delays inevitable in building.

But a new legal commercial enterprise of magnitude began to absorb me

at his time, and somehow the building of this home--the first that we

possessed was not the event it should have been; there were moments when

I felt cheated, when I wondered what had become of that capacity for

enjoyment which in my youth had been so keen. I remember indeed, one

grey evening when I went there alone, after the workmen had departed,

and stood in the litter of mortar and bricks and boards gazing at the

completed front of the house. It was even larger than I had imagined it

from the plans; in the Summer twilight there was an air about it,--if

not precisely menacing, at least portentous, with its gaping windows

and towering roof. I was a little tired from a hard day; I had the

odd feeding of having raised up something with which--momentarily

at least--I doubted my ability to cope: something huge, impersonal;

something that ought to have represented a fireside, a sanctuary, and

yet was the embodiment of an element quite alien to the home; a restless

element with which our American atmosphere had, by invisible degrees,

become charged. As I stared at it, the odd fancy seized me that the

building somehow typified my own career.... I had gained something, in

truth, but had I not also missed something? something a different home

would have embodied?

Maude and the children had gone, to the seaside.

With a vague uneasiness I turned away from the contemplation of those

walls. The companion mansions were closed, their blinds tightly drawn;

the neighbourhood was as quiet as the country, save for a slight but

persistent noise that impressed itself on my consciousness. I walked

around the house to spy in the back yard; a young girl rather stealthily

gathering laths, and fragments of joists and flooring, and loading

them into a child's express-wagon. She started when she saw me. She was

little, more than a child, and the loose calico dress she wore seemed

to emphasize her thinness. She stood stock-still, staring at me with

frightened yet defiant eyes. I, too, felt a strange timidity in her

presence.

“Why do you stop?” I asked at length.

“Say, is this your heap?” she demanded.

I acknowledged it. A hint of awe widened her eyes. Then site glanced at

the half-filled wagon.

“This stuff ain't no use to you, is it?”

“No, I'm glad to have you take it.”

She shifted to the other foot, but did not continue her gathering.

An impulse seized me, I put down my walkingstick and began picking up

pieces of wood, flinging them into the wagon. I looked at her again,

rather furtively; she had not moved. Her attitude puzzled me, for it

was one neither of surprise nor of protest. The spectacle of the

“millionaire” owner of the house engaged in this menial occupation gave

her no thrills. I finished the loading.

“There!” I said, and drew a dollar bill out of my pocket and gave it to

her. Even then she did not thank me, but took up the wagon tongue and

went off, leaving on me a disheartening impression of numbness, of

life crushed out. I glanced up once more at the mansion I had built for

myself looming in the dusk, and walked hurriedly away....

One afternoon some three weeks after we had moved into the new house,

I came out of the Club, where I had been lunching in conference with

Scherer and two capitalists from New York. It was after four o'clock,

the day was fading, the street lamps were beginning to cast sickly

streaks of jade-coloured light across the slush of the pavements. It was

the sight of this slush (which for a brief half hour that morning

had been pure snow, and had sent Matthew and Moreton and Biddy into

ecstasies at the notion of a “real Christmas”), that brought to my mind

the immanence of the festival, and the fact that I had as yet bought no

presents. Such was the predicament in which I usually found myself on

Christmas eve; and it was not without a certain sense of annoyance at

the task thus abruptly confronting me that I got into my automobile and

directed the chauffeur to the shopping district. The crowds surged along

the wet sidewalks and overflowed into the street, and over the heads of

the people I stared at the blazing shop-windows decked out in Christmas

greens. My chauffeur, a bristly-haired Parisian, blew his horn

insolently, men and women jostled each other to get out of the way,

their holiday mood giving place to resentment as they stared into the

windows of the limousine. With the American inability to sit still I

shifted from one corner of the seat to another, impatient at the slow

progress of the machine: and I felt a certain contempt for human beings,

that they should make all this fuss, burden themselves with all these

senseless purchases, for a tradition. The automobile stopped, and I

fought my way across the sidewalk into the store of that time-honoured

firm, Elgin, Yates and Garner, pausing uncertainly before the very

counter where, some ten years before, I had bought an engagement ring.

Young Mr. Garner himself spied me, and handing over a customer to a

tired clerk, hurried forward to greet me, his manner implying that my

entrance was in some sort an event. I had become used to this aroma of

deference.

“What can I show you, Mr. Paret?” he asked.

“I don't know--I'm looking around,” I said, vaguely, bewildered by the

glittering baubles by which I was confronted. What did Maude want? While

I was gazing into the case, Mr. Garner opened a safe behind him, laying

before me a large sapphire set with diamonds in a platinum brooch; a

beautiful stone, in the depths of it gleaming a fire like a star in an

arctic sky. I had not given Maude anything of value of late. Decidedly,

this was of value; Mr. Garner named the price glibly; if Mrs. Paret

didn't care for it, it might be brought back or exchanged. I took it,

with a sigh of relief. Leaving the store, I paused on the edge of the

rushing stream of humanity, with the problem of the children's gifts

still to be solved. I thought of my own childhood, when at Christmastide

I had walked with my mother up and down this very street, so changed

and modernized now; recalling that I had had definite desires, desperate

ones; but my imagination failed me when I tried to summon up the

emotions connected with them. I had no desires now: I could buy anything

in reason in the whole street. What did Matthew and Moreton want? and

little Biddy? Maude had not “spoiled” them; but they didn't seem to have

any definite wants. The children made me think, with a sudden softening,

of Tom Peters, and I went into a tobacconist's and bought him a box of

expensive cigars. Then I told the chauffeur to take me to a toy-shop,

where I stood staring through a plate-glass window at the elaborate

playthings devised for the modern children of luxury. In the centre

was a toy man-of-war, three feet in length, with turrets and guns, and

propellers and a real steam-engine. As a boy I should have dreamed about

it, schemed for it, bartered my immortal soul for it. But--if I gave

it to Matthew, what was there for Moreton? A steam locomotive caught my

eye, almost as elaborate. Forcing my way through the doors, I captured

a salesman, and from a state bordering on nervous collapse he became

galvanized into an intense alertness and respect when he understood my

desires. He didn't know the price of the objects in question. He brought

the proprietor, an obsequious little German who, on learning my name,

repeated it in every sentence. For Biddy I chose a doll that was all but

human; when held by a young woman for my inspection, it elicited murmurs

of admiration from the women shoppers by whom we were surrounded. The

proprietor promised to make a special delivery of the three articles

before seven o'clock....

Presently the automobile, after speeding up the asphalt of Grant Avenue,

stopped before the new house. In spite of the change that house had made

in my life, in three weeks I had become amazingly used to it; yet I had

an odd feeling that Christmas eve as I stood under the portico with

my key in the door, the same feeling of the impersonality of the place

which I had experienced before. Not that for one moment I would have

exchanged it for the smaller house we had left. I opened the door. How

often, in that other house, I had come in the evening seeking quiet, my

brain occupied with a problem, only to be annoyed by the romping of the

children on the landing above. A noise in one end of it echoed to the

other. But here, as I entered the hall, all was quiet: a dignified,

deep-carpeted stairway swept upward before me, and on either side were

wide, empty rooms; and in the subdued light of one of them I saw a dark

figure moving silently about--the butler. He came forward to relieve

me, deftly, of my hat and overcoat. Well, I had it at last, this

establishment to which I had for so long looked forward. And yet that

evening, as I hesitated in the hall, I somehow was unable to grasp that

it was real and permanent, the very solidity of the walls and doors

paradoxically suggested transientness, the butler a flitting ghost. How

still the place was! Almost oppressively still. I recalled oddly a story

of a peasant who, yearning for the great life, had stumbled upon an

empty palace, its tables set with food in golden dishes. Before two days

had passed he had fled from it in horror back to his crowded cottage and

his drudgery in the fields. Never once had the sense of possession of

the palace been realized. Nor did I feel that I possessed this house,

though I had the deeds of it in my safe and the receipted bills in my

files. It eluded me; seemed, in my bizarre mood of that evening, almost

to mock me. “You have built me,” it seemed to say, “but I am stronger

than you, because you have not earned me.” Ridiculous, when the years

of my labour and the size of my bank account were considered! Such,

however, is the verbal expression of my feeling. Was the house empty,

after all? Had something happened? With a slight panicky sensation I

climbed the stairs, with their endless shallow treads, to hurry through

the silent hallway to the schoolroom. Reassuring noises came faintly

through the heavy door. I opened it. Little Biddy was careening round

and round, crying out:--“To-morrow's Chris'mas! Santa Claus is coming

tonight.”

Matthew was regarding her indulgently, sympathetically, Moreton rather

scornfully. The myth had been exploded for both, but Matthew still

hugged it. That was the difference between them. Maude, seated on the

floor, perceived me first, and glanced up at me with a smile.

“It's father!” she said.

Biddy stopped in the midst of a pirouette. At the age of seven she was

still shy with me, and retreated towards Maude.

“Aren't we going to have a tree, father?” demanded Moreton,

aggressively. “Mother won't tell us--neither will Miss Allsop.”

Miss Allsop was their governess.

“Why do you want a tree?” I asked.

“Oh, for Biddy,” he said.

“It wouldn't be Christmas without a tree,” Matthew declared, “--and

Santa Claus,” he added, for his sister's benefit.

“Perhaps Santa Claus, when he sees we've got this big house, will think

we don't need anything, and go on to some poorer children,” said Maude.

“You wouldn't blame him if he did that,--would you?”

The response to this appeal cannot be said to have been enthusiastic....

After dinner, when at last all of them were in bed, we dressed the tree;

it might better be said that Maude and Miss Allsop dressed it, while I

gave a perfunctory aid. Both the women took such a joy in the process,

vying with each other in getting effects, and as I watched them eagerly

draping the tinsel and pinning on the glittering ornaments I wondered

why it was that I was unable to find the same joy as they. Thus it had

been every Christmas eve. I was always tired when I got home, and after

dinner relaxation set in.

An electrician had come while we were at the table, and had fastened on

the little electric bulbs which did duty as candles.

“Oh,” said Maude, as she stood off to survey the effect, “isn't it

beautiful! Come, Miss Allsop, let's get the presents.”

They flew out of the room, and presently hurried back with their arms

full of the usual parcels: parcels from Maude's family in Elkington,

from my own relatives, from the Blackwoods and the Peterses, from Nancy.

In the meantime I had had my own contributions brought up, the man of

war, the locomotive, the big doll. Maude stood staring.

“Hugh, they'll be utterly ruined!” she exclaimed.

“The boys might as well have something instructive,” I replied, “and as

for Biddy--nothing's too good for her.”

“I might have known you wouldn't forget them, although you are so

busy.”....

We filled the three stockings hung by the great fireplace. Then, with

a last lingering look at the brightness of the tree, she stood in the

doorway and turned the electric switch.

“Not before seven to-morrow morning, Miss Allsop,” she said. “Hugh, you

will get up, won't you? You mustn't miss seeing them. You can go back to

bed again.”

I promised.

Evidently, this was Reality to Maude. And had it not been one of

my dreams of marriage, this preparing for the children's Christmas,

remembering the fierce desires of my own childhood? It struck me, after

I had kissed her good night and retired to my dressing-room, that fierce

desires burned within me still, but the objects towards which their

flames leaped out differed. That was all. Had I remained a child, since

my idea of pleasure was still that of youth? The craving far excitement,

adventure, was still unslaked; the craving far freedom as keen as ever.

During the whole of my married life, I had been conscious of an inner

protest against “settling down,” as Tom Peters had settled down. The

smaller house from which we had moved, with its enforced propinquity,

hard emphasized the bondage of marriage. Now I had two rooms to myself,

in the undisputed possession of which I had taken a puerile delight. On

one side of my dressing-room Archie Lammerton had provided a huge

closet containing the latest devices for the keeping of a multitudinous

wardrobe; there was a reading-lamp, and the easiest of easy-chairs,

imported from England, while between the windows were shelves of

Italian walnut which I had filled with the books I had bought while at

Cambridge, and had never since opened. As I sank down in my chair

that odd feeling of uneasiness, of transience and unreality, of

unsatisfaction I had had ever since we had moved suddenly became

intensified, and at the very moment when I had gained everything I

had once believed a man could desire! I was successful, I was rich, my

health had not failed, I had a wife who catered to my wishes, lovable

children who gave no trouble and yet--there was still the void to be

filled, the old void I had felt as a boy, the longing for something

beyond me, I knew not what; there was the strange inability to taste any

of these things, the need at every turn for excitement, for a stimulus.

My marriage had been a disappointment, though I strove to conceal this

from myself; a disappointment because it had not filled the requirements

of my category--excitement and mystery: I had provided the setting

and lacked the happiness. Another woman Nancy--might have given me the

needed stimulation; and yet my thoughts did not dwell on Nancy that

night, my longings were not directed towards her, but towards the

vision of a calm, contented married happiness I had looked forward to

in youth,--a vision suddenly presented once more by the sight of Maude's

simple pleasure in dressing the Christmas tree. What restless, fiendish

element in me prevented my enjoying that? I had something of the fearful

feeling of a ghost in my own house and among my own family, of a spirit

doomed to wander, unable to share in what should have been my own, in

what would have saved me were I able to partake of it. Was it too late

to make that effort?... Presently the strains of music pervaded my

consciousness, the chimes of Trinity ringing out in the damp night the

Christmas hymn, Adeste Fideles. It was midnight it was Christmas. How

clear the notes rang through the wet air that came in at my window! Back

into the dim centuries that music led me, into candle-lit Gothic chapels

of monasteries on wind-swept heights above the firs, and cathedrals

in mediaeval cities. Twilight ages of war and scourge and stress and

storm--and faith. “Oh, come, all ye Faithful!” What a strange thing,

that faith whose flame so marvellously persisted, piercing the gloom;

the Christmas myth, as I had heard someone once call it. Did it possess

the power to save me? Save me from what? Ah, in this hour I knew. In

the darkness the Danger loomed up before me, vague yet terrible, and I

trembled. Why was not this Thing ever present, to chasten and sober me?

The Thing was myself.

Into my remembrance, by what suggestion I know not, came that March

evening when I had gone to Holder Chapel at Harvard to listen to a

preacher, a personality whose fame and influence had since spread

throughout the land. Some dim fear had possessed me then. I recalled

vividly the man, and the face of Hermann Krebs as I drew back from the

doorway....

When I awoke my disquieting, retrospective mood had disappeared, and

yet there clung to me, minus the sanction of fear or reward or revealed

truth, a certain determination to behave, on this day at least, more

like a father and a husband: to make an effort to enter into the spirit

of the festival, and see what happened. I dressed in cheerful haste,

took the sapphire pendant from its velvet box, tiptoed into the still

silent schoolroom and hung it on the tree, flooding on the electric

light that set the tinsel and globes ablaze. No sooner had I done this

than I heard the patter of feet in the hallway, and a high-pitched

voice--Biddy's--crying out:--“It's Santa Claus!”

Three small, flannel-wrappered figures stood in the doorway.

“Why, it's father!” exclaimed Moreton.

“And he's all dressed!” said Matthew.

“Oh-h-h!” cried Biddy, staring at the blazing tree, “isn't it

beautiful!”

Maude was close behind them. She gave an exclamation of delighted

surprise when she saw me, and then stood gazing with shining eyes at

the children, especially at Biddy, who stood dazzled by the glory of the

constellation confronting her.... Matthew, too, wished to prolong the

moment of mystery. It was the practical Moreton who cried:--“Let's see

what we've got!”

The assault and the sacking began. I couldn't help thinking as I watched

them of my own wildly riotous, Christmas-morning sensations, when all

the gifts had worn the aura of the supernatural; but the arrival of

these toys was looked upon by my children as a part of the natural order

of the universe. At Maude's suggestion the night before we had placed my

presents, pieces de resistance, at a distance from the tree, in the hope

that they would not be spied at once, that they would be in some sort a

climax. It was Matthew who first perceived the ship, and identified it,

by the card, as his property. To him it was clearly wonderful, but no

miracle. He did not cry out, or call the attention of the others to it,

but stood with his feet apart, examining it, his first remark being

a query as to why it didn't fly the American flag. It's ensign was

British. Then Moreton saw the locomotive, was told that it was his, and

took possession of it violently. Why wasn't there more track? Wouldn't

I get more track? I explained that it would go by steam, and he began

unscrewing the cap on the little boiler until he was distracted by the

man-of-war, and with natural acquisitiveness started to take possession

of that. Biddy was bewildered by the doll, which Maude had taken up and

was holding in her lap. She had had talking dolls before, and dolls

that closed their eyes; she recognized this one, indeed, as a sort of

super-doll, but her little mind was modern, too, and set no limits on

what might be accomplished. She patted it, but was more impressed by the

raptures of Miss Allsop, who had come in and was admiring it with some

extravagance. Suddenly the child caught sight of her stocking, until now

forgotten, and darted for the fireplace.

I turned to Maude, who stood beside me, watching them.

“But you haven't looked on the tree yourself,” I reminded her.

She gave me an odd, questioning glance, and got up and set down the

doll. As she stood for a moment gazing at the lights, she seemed very

girlish in her dressing-gown, with her hair in two long plaits down her

back.

“Oh, Hugh!” She lifted the pendant from the branch and held it up.

Her gratitude, her joy at receiving a present was deeper than the

children's!

“You chose it for me?”

I felt something like a pang when I thought how little trouble it had

been.

“If you don't like it,” I said, “or wish to have it changed--”

“Changed!” she exclaimed reproachfully. “Do you think I'd change it?

Only--it's much too valuable--”

I smiled.... Miss Allsop deftly undid the clasp and hung it around

Maude's neck.

“How it suits you, Mrs. Paret!” she cried....

This pendant was by no means the only present I had given Maude in

recent years, and though she cared as little for jewels as for dress she

seemed to attach to it a peculiar value and significance that disturbed

and smote me, for the incident had revealed a love unchanged and

unchangeable. Had she taken my gift as a sign that my indifference was

melting?

As I went downstairs and into the library to read the financial page of

the morning newspaper I asked myself, with a certain disquiet, whether,

in the formal, complicated, and luxurious conditions in which we now

lived it might be possible to build up new ties and common interests.

I reflected that this would involve confessions and confidences on

my part, since there was a whole side of my life of which Maude knew

nothing. I had convinced myself long ago that a man's business career

was no affair of his wife's: I had justified that career to myself: yet

I had always had a vague feeling that Maude, had she known the details,

would not have approved of it. Impossible, indeed, for a woman to grasp

these problems. They were outside of her experience.

Nevertheless, something might be done to improve our relationship,

something which would relieve me of that uneasy lack of unity I felt

when at home, of the lassitude and ennui I was wont to feel creeping

over me on Sundays and holidays....

XX.

I find in relating those parts of my experience that seem to be of

most significance I have neglected to tell of my mother's death, which

occurred the year before we moved to Grant Avenue. She had clung the

rest of her days to the house in which I had been born. Of late years

she had lived in my children, and Maude's devotion to her had been

unflagging. Truth compels me to say that she had long ceased to be a

factor in my life. I have thought of her in later years.

Coincident with the unexpected feeling of fruitlessness that came to

me with the Grant Avenue house, of things achieved but not realized or

appreciated, was the appearance of a cloud on the business horizon; or

rather on the political horizon, since it is hard to separate the two

realms. There were signs, for those who could read, of a rising popular

storm. During the earliest years of the new century the political

atmosphere had changed, the public had shown a tendency to grow

restless; and everybody knows how important it is for financial

operations, for prosperity, that the people should mind their own

business. In short, our commercial-romantic pilgrimage began to meet

with unexpected resistance. It was as though the nation were entering

into a senseless conspiracy to kill prosperity.

In the first place, in regard to the Presidency of the United States,

a cog had unwittingly been slipped. It had always been recognized--as I

have said--by responsible financial personages that the impulses of

the majority of Americans could not be trusted, that these--who had

inherited illusions of freedom--must be governed firmly yet with

delicacy; unknown to them, their Presidents must be chosen for them,

precisely as Mr. Watling had been chosen for the people of our state,

and the popular enthusiasm manufactured later. There were informal

meetings in New York, in Washington, where candidates were discussed;

not that such and such a man was settled upon,--it was a process of

elimination. Usually the affair had gone smoothly. For instance, a while

before, a benevolent capitalist of the middle west, an intimate of Adolf

Scherer, had become obsessed with the idea that a friend of his was

the safest and sanest man for the head of the nation, had convinced his

fellow-capitalists of this, whereupon he had gone ahead to spend his

energy and his money freely to secure the nomination and election of

this gentleman.

The Republican National Committee, the Republican National Convention

were allowed to squabble to their hearts' content as to whether Smith,

Jones or Brown should be nominated, but it was clearly understood that

if Robinson or White were chosen there would be no corporation campaign

funds. This applied also to the Democratic party, on the rare occasions

when it seemed to have an opportunity of winning. Now, however, through

an unpardonable blunder, there had got into the White House a President

who was inclined to ignore advice, who appealed over the heads of the

“advisers” to the populace; who went about tilting at the industrial

structures we had so painfully wrought, and in frequent blasts of

presidential messages enunciated new and heretical doctrines; who

attacked the railroads, encouraged the brazen treason of labour unions,

inspired an army of “muck-rakers” to fill the magazines with the wildest

and most violent of language. State legislatures were emboldened to

pass mischievous and restrictive laws, and much of my time began to

be occupied in inducing, by various means, our courts to declare these

unconstitutional. How we sighed for a business man or a lawyer in the

White House! The country had gone mad, the stock-market trembled,

the cry of “corporation control” resounded everywhere, and everywhere

demagogues arose to inaugurate “reform campaigns,” in an abortive

attempt to “clean up politics.” Down with the bosses, who were the tools

of the corporations!

In our own city, which we fondly believed to be proof against the

prevailing madness, a slight epidemic occurred; slight, yet momentarily

alarming. Accidents will happen, even in the best regulated political

organizations,--and accidents in these days appeared to be the rule.

A certain Mr. Edgar Greenhalge, a middle-aged, mild-mannered and

inoffensive man who had made a moderate fortune in wholesale drugs, was

elected to the School Board. Later on some of us had reason to suspect

that Perry Blackwood--with more astuteness than he had been given credit

for--was responsible for Mr. Greenhalge's candidacy. At any rate, he was

not a man to oppose, and in his previous life had given no hint that he

might become a trouble maker. Nothing happened for several months.

But one day on which I had occasion to interview Mr. Jason on a little

matter of handing over to the Railroad a piece of land belonging to the

city, which was known as Billings' Bowl, he inferred that Mr. Greenhaige

might prove a disturber of that profound peace with which the city

administration had for many years been blessed.

“Who the hell is he?” was Mr. Jason's question.

It appeared that Mr. G.'s private life had been investigated, with

disappointingly barren results; he was, seemingly, an anomalistic being

in our Nietzschean age, an unaggressive man; he had never sold any drugs

to the city; he was not a church member; nor could it be learned that

he had ever wandered into those byways of the town where Mr. Jason might

easily have got trace of him: if he had any vices, he kept them locked

up in a safe-deposit box that could not be “located.” He was very

genial, and had a way of conveying disturbing facts--when he wished to

convey them--under cover of the most amusing stories. Mr. Jason was not

a man to get panicky. Greenhalge could be handled all right, only--what

was there in it for Greenhalge?--a nut difficult for Mr. Jason to crack.

The two other members of the School Board were solid. Here again the

wisest of men was proved to err, for Mr. Greenhalge turned out to have

powers of persuasion; he made what in religious terms would have been

called a conversion in the case of another member of the board,

an hitherto staunch old reprobate by the name of Muller, an

ex-saloon-keeper in comfortable circumstances to whom the idea of public

office had appealed.

Mr. Greenhalge, having got wind of certain transactions that interested

him extremely, brought them in his good-natured way to the knowledge of

Mr. Gregory, the district attorney, suggesting that he investigate. Mr.

Gregory smiled; undertook, as delicately as possible, to convey to

Mr. Greenhalge the ways of the world, and of the political world

in particular, wherein, it seemed, everyone was a good fellow. Mr.

Greenhalge was evidently a good fellow, and didn't want to make trouble

over little things. No, Mr. Greenhalge didn't want to make trouble;

he appreciated a comfortable life as much as Mr. Gregory; he told the

district attorney a funny story which might or might not have had an

application to the affair, and took his leave with the remark that he

had been happy to make Mr. Gregory's acquaintance. On his departure

the district attorney's countenance changed. He severely rebuked a

subordinate for some trivial mistake, and walked as rapidly as he could

carry his considerable weight to Monahan's saloon.... One of the things

Mr. Gregory had pointed out incidentally was that Mr. Greenhalge's

evidence was vague, and that a grand jury wanted facts, which might be

difficult to obtain. Mr. Greenhalge, thinking over the suggestion,

sent for Krebs. In the course of a month or two the investigation

was accomplished, Greenhalge went back to Gregory; who repeated his

homilies, whereupon he was handed a hundred or so typewritten pages of

evidence.

It was a dramatic moment.

Mr. Gregory resorted to pleading. He was sure that Mr. Greenhalge didn't

want to be disagreeable, it was true and unfortunate that such things

were so, but they would be amended: he promised all his influence to

amend them. The public conscience, said Mr. Gregory, was being aroused.

Now how much better for the party, for the reputation, the fair name of

the city if these things could be corrected quietly, and nobody indicted

or tried! Between sensible and humane men, wasn't that the obvious way?

After the election, suit could be brought to recover the money. But Mr.

Greenhalge appeared to be one of those hopeless individuals without a

spark of party loyalty; he merely continued to smile, and to suggest

that the district attorney prosecute. Mr. Gregory temporized, and

presently left the city on a vacation. A day or two after his second

visit to the district attorney's office Mr. Greenhalge had a call

from the city auditor and the purchasing agent, who talked about

their families,--which was very painful. It was also intimated to Mr.

Greenhalge by others who accosted him that he was just the man for

mayor. He smiled, and modestly belittled his qualifications....

Suddenly, one fine morning, a part of the evidence Krebs had gathered

appeared in the columns of the Mail and State, a new and enterprising

newspaper for which the growth and prosperity of our city were

responsible; the sort of “revelations” that stirred to amazement and

wrath innocent citizens of nearly every city in our country: politics

and “graft” infesting our entire educational system, teachers and

janitors levied upon, prices that took the breath away paid to favoured

firms for supplies, specifications so worded that reasonable bids were

barred. The respectable firm of Ellery and Knowles was involved.

In spite of our horror, we were Americans and saw the humour of

the situation, and laughed at the caricature in the Mail and State

representing a scholar holding up a pencil and a legend under it, “No,

it's not gold, but it ought to be.”

Here I must enter into a little secret history. Any affair that

threatened the integrity of Mr. Jason's organization was of serious

moment to the gentlemen of the financial world who found that

organization invaluable and who were also concerned about the fair name

of their community; a conference in the Boyne Club decided that the city

officials were being persecuted, and entitled therefore to “the very

best of counsel,”--in this instance, Mr. Hugh Paret. It was also thought

wise by Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Gorse, and Mr. Grierson, and by Mr. Paret

himself that he should not appear in the matter; an aspiring young

attorney, Mr. Arbuthnot, was retained to conduct the case in public.

Thus capital came to the assistance of Mr. Jason, a fund was raised,

and I was given carte blanche to defend the miserable city auditor and

purchasing agent, both of whom elicited my sympathy; for they were stout

men, and rapidly losing weight. Our first care was to create a delay in

the trial of the case in order to give the public excitement a chance to

die down. For the public is proverbially unable to fix its attention

for long on one object, continually demanding the distraction that our

newspapers make it their business to supply. Fortunately, a murder was

committed in one of our suburbs, creating a mystery that filled the

“extras” for some weeks, and this was opportunely followed by the

embezzlement of a considerable sum by the cashier of one of our state

banks. Public interest was divided between baseball and the tracking of

this criminal to New Zealand.

Our resentment was directed, not so much against Commissioner Greenhalge

as against Krebs. It is curious how keen is the instinct of men like

Grierson, Dickinson, Tallant and Scherer for the really dangerous

opponent. Who the deuce was this man Krebs? Well, I could supply them

with some information: they doubtless recalled the Galligan, case; and

Miller Gorse, who forgot nothing, also remembered his opposition in the

legislature to House Bill 709. He had continued to be the obscure legal

champion of “oppressed” labour, but how he had managed to keep body and

soul together I knew not. I had encountered him occasionally in court

corridors or on the street; he did not seem to change much; nor did he

appear in our brief and perfunctory conversations to bear any resentment

against me for the part I had taken in the Galligan affair. I avoided

him when it was possible.... I had to admit that he had done a

remarkably good piece of work in collecting Greenhalge's evidence, and

how the erring city officials were to be rescued became a matter of

serious concern. Gregory, the district attorney, was in an abject funk;

in any case a mediocre lawyer, after the indictment he was no help at

all. I had to do all the work, and after we had selected the particular

“Railroad” judge before whom the case was to be tried, I talked it

over with him. His name was Notting, he understood perfectly what was

required of him, and that he was for the moment the chief bulwark on

which depended the logical interests of capital and sane government for

their defence; also, his re-election was at stake. It was indicated

to newspapers (such as the Mail and State) showing a desire to keep

up public interest in the affair that their advertising matter might

decrease; Mr. Sherrill's great department store, for instance, did not

approve of this sort of agitation. Certain stationers, booksellers

and other business men had got “cold feet,” as Mr. Jason put it, the

prospect of bankruptcy suddenly looming ahead of them,--since the Corn

National Bank held certain paper....

In short, when the case did come to trial, it “blew up,” as one of our

ward leaders dynamically expressed it. Several important witnesses were

mysteriously lacking, and two or three school-teachers had suddenly

decided--to take a trip to Europe. The district attorney was ill,

and assigned the prosecution to a mild assistant; while a sceptical

jury--composed largely of gentlemen who had the business interests of

the community, and of themselves, at heart returned a verdict of “not

guilty.” This was the signal for severely dignified editorials in Mr.

Tallant's and other conservative newspapers, hinting that it might be

well in the future for all well-meaning but misguided reformers to

think twice before subjecting the city to the cost of such trials, and

uselessly attempting to inflame public opinion and upset legitimate

business. The Era expressed the opinion that no city in the United

States was “more efficiently and economically governed than our own.”

“Irregularities” might well occur in every large organization; and it

would better have become Mr. Greenhalge if, instead of hiring an unknown

lawyer thirsting for notoriety to cook up charges, he had called the

attention of the proper officials to the matter, etc., etc. The Pilot

alone, which relied on sensation for its circulation, kept hammering

away for a time with veiled accusations. But our citizens had become

weary....

As a topic, however, this effective suppression of reform was referred

to with some delicacy by my friends and myself. Our interference had

been necessary and therefore justified, but we were not particularly

proud of it, and our triumph had a temporarily sobering effect. It was

about this time, if I remember correctly, that Mr. Dickinson gave the

beautiful stained-glass window to the church....

Months passed. One day, having occasion to go over to the Boyne Iron

Works to get information at first hand from certain officials, and

having finished my business, I boarded a South Side electric car

standing at the terminal. Just before it started Krebs came down the

aisle of the car and took the seat in front of me.

“Well,” I said, “how are you?” He turned in surprise, and thrust his

big, bony hand across the back of the seat. “Come and sit here.”

He came. “Do you ever get back to Cambridge in these days?” I asked

cordially.

“Not since I graduated from newspaper work in Boston. That's a good many

years ago. By the way, our old landlady died this year.”

“Do you mean--?” “Granite Face,” I was about to say. I had forgotten

her name, but that homesick scene when Tom and I stood before our open

trunks, when Krebs had paid us a visit, came back to me. “You've kept in

touch with her?” I asked, in surprise.

“Well,” said Krebs, “she was one of the few friends I had at Cambridge.

I had a letter from the daughter last week. She's done very well, and is

an instructor in biology in one of the western universities.”

I was silent a moment.