JONATHAN REUBEN WIX CASTS ASIDE HIS ONLY
HANDICAP AND DISAPPEARS FOR EVER
Just as Jonathan Reuben Wix reached his home, a delivery man was
taking in at the front door a fine dresser trunk. On the porch stood a
new alligator traveling-bag, and a big, new suit-case of thick sole
leather, trimmed profusely with the most expensive knobs and clamps,
and containing as elaborate a toilet set as is made for the use of
men. In the hall he found five big pasteboard boxes from his tailor.
He had the trunk and the suit-case and the traveling-bag delivered up
to his room; the clothing he carried up himself.
That morning he had dressed himself in new linen throughout. Now he
took off the suit he wore and put on one of the new business suits. He
opened half a dozen huge bundles of haberdashery which he had
purchased within the past week, and began packing them in his trunk:
underwear, shirts, socks, collars, cravats, everything brand new and
of the choicest quality. He packed away the other new business suit,
the Prince Albert, the tuxedo, the dress suit--the largest individual
order his tailor had ever received--putting into his trunk and
suit-case and traveling-bag not one thing that he had ever worn
before; nor did he put into any of his luggage a single book or
keepsake, for these things had no meaning to him. When he was
completely dressed and packed he went to his mother's room and knocked
on the door. It was her afternoon for the Women Journalists' Club, and
she was very busy indeed over a paper she was to read on _The Press:
Its Power for Evil_. Naturally, interruptions annoyed her very much.
"Well, what is it, son?" she asked in her level, even tone as he came
into the room. Her impatience was very nicely suppressed, indeed.
"I'm going to New York on the six-thirty," he told her.
"Really, I don't see how I can spare any money until the fifteenth,"
she objected.
"I have plenty of money," he assured her.
"Oh," she replied with evident relief, and glanced longingly back at
her neatly written paper.
"I can even let you have some if you want it," he suggested.
"No, thank you. I have sufficient, I am sure, portioned out to meet
all demands, including the usual small surplus, up to the fifteenth.
It's very nice of you to offer it, however."
"You see," he went on, after a moment's hesitation, "I'm not coming
back."
She turned now, and faced him squarely for the first time.
"You'd better stay here," she told him. "I'm afraid you'll cost me
more away from home than you do in Filmore."
"I shall never cost you a cent," he declared. "I have found out how
to make money."
She smiled in a superior way.
"I am a bit incredulous; but, after all, I don't see why you
shouldn't. Your father at least had that quality, and you should have
inherited something from him besides"--and she paused a trifle--"his
name." She sighed, and then continued: "Very well, son, I suppose you
must carve out your own destiny. You are quite old enough to make the
attempt, and I have been anticipating it for some time. After all, you
really ought to have very little trouble in impressing the world
favorably. You dress neatly," she surveyed him critically, "and you
make friends readily. Shall I see you again before you go?"
"I scarcely think so. I have a little down-town business to look
after, and shall take dinner on the train; so I'll just say good-by
to you now."
He shook hands with her and stooped down, and they kissed each other
dutifully upon the cheek. Mrs. Wix, being advanced, did not believe
in kissing upon the mouth. After he had gone, a fleeting impression
of loneliness weighed upon her as much as any purely sentimental
consideration could weigh. She looked thoughtfully at the closed door,
and a stirring of the slight maternal instinct within her made her
vaguely wistful. She turned, still with that faint tugging within her
breast which she could not understand, and it was purely mechanical
that her eyes, dropping to the surface of the paper, caught the
sentence: "Mental suggestion, unfit for growing minds, is upon every
page." The word "Mental" seemed redundant, and she drew her pen
through it, neatly changing the "s" in "suggestion" to a capital.
A cab drove past Wix as he started down the street and he saw Smalley
in it. He turned curiously. What was Smalley doing there? He stopped
until he saw the cab draw up in front of Gilman's house. He saw
Smalley assist young Gilman out of the cab, and Gilman's mother run
out to meet them. He was thoughtful for a moment over that, then he
shrugged his shoulders and strode on.
On the train that night as he swaggered into the dining-car, owning
it, in effect, and all it contained, he saw, seated alone at a far
table, no less a person than Horace G. Daw, as black and as natty as
ever, and with a mustache grown long enough to curl a little bit at
the ends.
"Hello, old pal," greeted Daw. "Where now?"
"I'm going out alone into the cold, cold world, to make fortunes and
spend them."
"Half of that stunt is a good game," commented Mr. Daw.
Wix chuckled.
"Both ends of it look good to me," he stated. "I've found the recipe
for doing it, and it was you that tipped off the plan."
"I certainly am the grand little tipper-off," agreed Daw, going back
in memory over their last meeting. "You got to that three thousand,
did you?"
"Oh, no," said Wix. "I only used it to get a little more. Our friend
Gilman has his all back again. Of course, I didn't use your plan as it
laid. It was too raw, but it gave me the suggestion from which I doped
out one of my own. I've got to improve my system a little, though. My
rake-off's too small. In the wind-up I handled twenty-one thousand
dollars, and only got away with eight thousand-odd of it for myself."
"You haven't it all with you?" asked Daw, a shade too eagerly.
Wix chuckled, his broad shoulders heaving and his pink face rippling.
"No use, kind friend," said he. "Just dismiss it from your active but
greedy mind. If anybody gets away unduly with a cent of this wad, all
they need to do is to prove it to me, and I'll make them a present of
the balance. No, my dark-complected brother, the bulk of it is in a
safe place in little old New York, where I can go get it as I need it;
but I have enough along to buy, I think. It seems to me you bought
last," and they both grinned at the reminiscence.
"I wasn't thinking of trying to annex any of that coin," lied Mr. Daw
glibly, and changing entirely his attitude toward Mr. Wix as his
admiration grew; "but I was thinking that we might cook up something
together. I'll put up dollar for dollar with you. I've just been
harvesting, myself."
Again Wix chuckled.
"Declined with thanks," he returned. "I don't mind trailing around a
bit with you when we get to New York, and also meeting the carefully
assorted selection of dead-sure-thing geniuses who must belong to your
set, but I'll go no further. For one thing, I don't like the idea of a
partner. It cramps me to split up. For another thing, I wouldn't like
to hook up in business with you. You're not safe enough; you trifle
too much with the law, which is not only foolish but unnecessary."
"Yes?" retorted Daw. "How about this eight thousand or so that you
committed mayhem on Filmore to get?"
"Good, honest money," asserted Wix. "I hate to boast about your
present companion, but I don't owe Filmore a cent. I merely worked up
a business and sold my share in it. Of course, they didn't know I was
selling it, but they'll find out when they go over the records, which
are perfectly straight. If, after buying the chance to go into
business, they don't know what to do with it, it isn't my fault."
A traveling man who had once been in the office of The La Salle Grain
and Stock Brokerage Company for an afternoon's flyer, and who
remembered the cordial ease with which Wix had taken his money, came
over to the table.
"Hello, Wix; how's tricks?" he hailed.
Wix looked up at him blankly but courteously.
"Beg pardon," he returned.
The face of the traveling man fell.
"Aren't you Mr. Wix, of Filmore?"
"I'm afraid not," replied Wix, smiling with great cordiality. "Sorry
to disappoint you, old man."
"Really, I beg your pardon," said the traveling man, perplexed. "It is
the most remarkable resemblance I ever saw. I would have sworn you
were Wix. He used to run a brokerage shop in the Grand Hotel in
Filmore."
"Never was in the town," lied Wix.
The man turned away. Daw looked after him with an amused smile.
"By the way, Wix, what is your name now?"
"By George, I haven't decided! I was too busy getting rid of my only
handicap to think up a substitute. I'll tell you in a minute," and on
the spur of the moment he invented a quite euphonious name, one which
was to last him for a great many years.
"Wallingford," he announced. "How does that hit you? J. Rufus
Wallingford!"