THE STORY OF JOSEPH
Mr. Bingle went home in a taxi-cab, completely done up.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Back in 1885, Joseph Hooper, disgraced, disowned by his family and as
poor Job's turkey, made a brief but sufficiently explicit will in which
he named his beloved nephew Thomas Singleton Bingle as his sole heir.
He drew it up on the surface of a fresh, unused postal card, and had it
properly witnessed by the bailiff who came to Bingle's apartment to
demand his appearance before a court to show cause why he should not
consider himself in contempt for having disregarded the order to pay
monthly sums in the shape of alimony to his late but unlamented wife.
In looking about for the second witness, he observed a levying deputy
sheriff in the act of carrying off his last and only possession of
value, to wit: a gold-headed cane that had been left to him by his
father. With a fine sense of irony, he persuaded the aforesaid deputy
sheriff to affix his signature to the will, and then remarked with deep
sarcasm that he had "put his house in order" so far as it was in his
power to do so. Inasmuch as the deputy sheriff was making way with what
looked to be his entire estate, saving the clothes upon his back and
the post-card (which he had taken the precaution to address to his
lawyers, thereby securing its protection by the United States
Government), Mr. Hooper's last will and testament as uttered on the
16th day of October, 1885, was necessarily brief and succinct. It
merely said:
"I hereby revoke any former will I may have made prior to this date,
and now bequeath to my beloved nephew, Thomas Singleton Bingle, my
entire fortune, which at this time appears to be not my face but my
figure. I therefore bequeath to him my physical person, and vest in him
the right to chuck it into the river, or to dispose of it for medical
purposes, as he may see fit, provided however that I shall first have
been declared sufficiently dead by competent judges. I also bequeath to
him any property, great or small, that may be in my possession at the
time of my demise, even though it be no more than the collar-button
with which he so kindly supplied me this morning, and which I shall
always retain as a mark of his devotion, knowing well what it means for
a man to deprive himself of a cherished belonging."
This was written in a very fine, cramped hand, and there was ample room
at the bottom for his own signature and those of the witnesses,
although it must be said that the elegant symmetry of the document was
destroyed by the bulging scrawl of the bailiff, whose name was Abraham
Kosziemanowski and who had to turn the final two syllables down at a
sharp angle in order to get the whole of his signature on the card.
Bradlee, Sigsbee & Oppenheim, on the receipt of this jocose instrument,
immediately communicated with their once magnificent client, who
laconically instructed them to put it away in a very safe place as it
might come in handy some time. To their own and to his subsequent
surprise, they DID put it away in a safe place, but forgot all about it
until he walked in upon them fifteen years afterwards and revealed
himself as the great and only Joseph H. Grimwell.
Having once disinherited his children, he was then in the mood to
reconsider his act, being alive to the fact that his days were
numbered. But he went about the business with the sagacity of an old
dog who has been kicked hard by some one who was not his master.
Instead of proclaiming himself to be the Midas-like Joseph Grimwell, he
appeared before his son and daughters, as poor old Joseph Hooper, their
long lost father, as poor--nay, even poorer than when he went away, for
he had lost the rugged health that was his only possession at the
beginning of his vicissitudes.
Assuming a condition of abject, though genteel poverty, he went to each
of them in turn. He wanted to give them a chance to reconsider, as he
had done. But they would have none of him! Vastly dismayed by the
failure of his nice little scheme to trick them into filial
responsibility, he was on the point of shouting his denunciations from
the house-tops when he suddenly remembered Tom Bingle: he wondered if
Tom would receive him--an old derelict--with open arms.
He presented himself, with his battered valise, at the door of Thomas
Bingle's apartment--and was given a warm, even hearty reception!
And it was on that day--at that very hour, so to speak--that Thomas
Bingle became a fabulously rich man without the slightest effort or
intention on his part.
Mr. Hooper one day recalled to mind the postal-card will. If his memory
served him right there was something jocose and undignified about
it--something that would not look well in the public prints. He visited
the offices of his lawyers, recovered the amazing instrument, and
forthwith set about to make a new will, bereft of certain grewsome
stipulations but quite as sweeping in purpose as the other had been. In
fact, he left his fortune--as he had done before--to his beloved
nephew, Thomas Singleton Bingle, with three precautionary bequests to
his son and daughters, providing against the contests that were sure to
follow. He bequeathed the sum of one thousand dollars to each of his
children, and he signed his name once more as Joseph H. Hooper--for the
first time in fourteen years.
His wanderings as a tramp--in his own account of himself he used the
word "tramp" with a shocking lack of pride--led him inevitably into the
far Northwest. Men were doing things up there. The country fairly
seethed with the activity of live, virile men who were taking the first
staunch grip upon the tricky wheel of fortune and were turning it to
their own account. Every man was building; no man complained of
conditions, for conditions were so new and so ready to hand that he who
found fault was merely lessening his own chance to secure his share of
the vast resources that spread before him, welcoming the greedy fingers
of him who courted the future and shunned the past. All men lived in
the present out there in the great stretches, and all men were strong
and eager.
Joseph Hooper caught the fever that infected the West. He shook off the
fetters that bound him to a far from enchanted East, and began to
squirm with the first tickling sensations of an ambition that had never
really made itself felt, even in the old days of successful achievement
among men who were content to tread the beaten and commonplace highway
toward riches. The spirit of the West gripped him in its great,
enveloping hands, picked him out of the slough and set him down again,
plump upon his two feet, high and dry, prodding him violently all the
while with a spur that would not permit him to stop or to take a step
backward, with the natural result that he moved forward--slowly,
dazedly at first, and then with a mighty rush.
He had one advantage over most of the men who were being driven
helter-skelter by the grateful lash of the West: he was a trained
money-getter. Back of him were generations of shrewd business men,
while dormant in his own being was the half-stunned thing called
natural ability. The simple shrewdness of Joseph Hooper, combined with
a certain hitherto unconfessed lack of respect for the Golden Rule, to
say nothing of a vain-glorious desire to kick the world that had kicked
him, soon produced opportunities that paved the way for his
rehabilitation.
Without a dollar to his name, with nothing in the shape of resources
save a self-sufficient nerve and an infinite eastern contempt for these
struggling westerners, he began to promote things!
The field was fresh and fertile. Inside of two years he reaped a
half-dozen harvests--and replanted as he went along! First, he promoted
a street railway in a place called Mockawock; then it became necessary
for some one to establish reasons for the existence of such a thing as
a car-line in a town that could be traversed on foot, from one end to
the other, in less than eight minutes; so he began to promote the
organisation of a wagon factory at one extreme and a pickle works at
the other, possessing the far-sightedness to put them so far away from
each other that if one wanted to go to the pickle works from the wagon
factory, or vice versa, he would have to go by trolley unless he
possessed the hardiness of an ox and was not dismayed by the vastness
of the city limits. For like all towns in the great Northwest,
Mockawock had its limits and they were wide enough to make New York or
Chicago appear cramped by comparison. One could walk for hours in a
straight line south from the public square in Mockawock and still not
be "out in the country," figuratively speaking, although he might not
see a house or a human being--unless he turned his head--after the
first ten minutes. He could also walk west or north in the same futile
effort to get out of the "city" into the "country," but he could not
walk east for more than two city blocks. Mockawock happened to be
situated on the shores of Lake Superior and not even the most boastful
citizen would have contended that the city limits reached far in that
direction.
And, having successfully promoted such enterprises in Mockawock as
would tend to convince the citizens that some day the city limits would
have to be extended, he very wisely took the gains acquired in the sale
of options, the disposal of franchises, the surrender of equities, and
all such, and slipped away to the vast forests in the north, where he
bought timber-land by the section.
Another town required stirring up by this time, so he descended upon
it, backed by the reputation gained at Mockawock and, before the
citizens could say Jack Robinson, he had skilfully promoted a number of
enterprises, including a belt railroad, an electric lighting plant, and
a new evening newspaper, all of which fairly set the town by the ears
and made him one of the most important figures in the upper Lake region.
Once more he slipped off into the forests and took unto himself
additional sections of virgin timber at inconceivably low prices. Other
men made much of the wheat-field and the town-lot, but Joseph Hooper
saw fortune in the forests. Again and again he increased his timber
land holdings. People thought he was buying up town-sites and smiled
smugly among themselves as they discussed the dreadful shock he was to
have when the time came for him to begin clearing away the timber!
All this time he was known as Joseph H. Grimwell. There was no such
person as Joseph Hooper. That discredited individual had died, so to
speak, by the wayside, a vagabond. New York had lost track of him; his
family believed him to be dead--or in prison! It is barely possible
that he ought to have been incarcerated for some of his skilfully
manipulated enterprises, but that has nothing to do with this
narrative. It is relevant to dwell only upon the contention that riches
come swiftly to him who makes use of both hands without caring whether
the left knows what the right is doing or the other way about. At any
rate, Joseph Grimwell was a better man than Joseph Hooper ever had
been, and he was a wiser man in many respects than Solomon the historic.
In brief, there came a day when his timber turned to gold. The name of
Grimwell became a household word. It even penetrated to the secret
crannies of Wall Street. Men who did not know oak from soft pine began
to plead with him to be "let in on the ground floor." Gentlemen who sat
in mahogany offices and worshipped at unseen shrines, took notice of
this man of the West who was getting more than his share of the
pillage. Promoters sought him out and haggled with him--haggled with
the prince of promoters! They tried to let him into the secret of
making money!
Fortune may not always favour the brave, but it continues to do a
little something every now and then for the bold. In Joseph Grimwell's
case, it overlooked the fact that he was neither brave nor bold but
rewarded him for being interestingly tricky. Out of sheer respect for
his cleverness in acquiring all of the timber land available, Fortune
set about to outdo him in productiveness. It suddenly remembered that
it had placed three rich copper deposits in separate and distinct parts
of his land and kindly directed him to the spots.
Now, copper can be turned into gold quite as readily as ice, or beef,
or hops, or any of the products of man's experimentation, just as one
can make hay while the sun shines, even though his field of activity
lies at the bottom of an oil-well. Mr. Grimwell made gold out of his
copper, just as he made it out of oak and pine and ash, and when he
came to be three score years and ten he had so many dollars that, like
Old Mother Hubbard, he didn't know what to do with them.
It suddenly dawned upon him that there was no one to whom he could
leave this vast accumulation unless he made peace with his past.
He sold out all of his holdings, reducing everything to coin of the
realm, and once more became a wanderer in search of a place to lay his
head. With fourteen or fifteen millions of dollars in his purse, so to
speak, he slunk into New York, a beggar still and hungrier than he had
ever been in his life.
Then he tried out the plan that failed. His lawyer and his doctor alone
knew that Joseph Grimwell and Joseph Hooper were one and the same
person, and they were pledged to secrecy. One of them drew up his will
and the other made death as easy as possible for him. His nephew, poor
wretch, buried him in a grave alongside a devoted sister, froze his
ears while doing so--and lost his job in the bank besides!
The new will was read in the offices of Bradlee, Sigsbee & Oppenheim on
the day following Mr. Bingle's first ride in a taxi-cab. The heir was
too bewildered to attend the meeting arranged for the same afternoon,
and it had to be postponed. As a matter of fact, he sent word to the
lawyers that his wife was too ill to come down that afternoon but would
doubtless be better on the following day. When informed that his wife's
presence was unnecessary and that his cousins were even then on their
way down town and that there was no way to head them off, he blandly
inquired if it wouldn't be possible to postpone the whole matter for a
week or two, assuring the gentlemen that he wouldn't, for all the
world, disturb Mrs. Bingle, who appeared to be sleeping comfortably for
the first time in twenty-four hours. In fact, he informed them that he
thought it would be a mistake to break the news to her while her cold
was so bad; as for himself, he didn't mind waiting a week or two--not
in the least--if it was all the same to Mr. Sigsbee.
It was Melissa who broke the news to Mrs. Bingle, and it was at once
apparent that it was not a mistake to do so. The good lady improved so
rapidly that she sent for the expensive Dr. Fiddler, dismissing the
cheap Dr. Smith, and by seven o'clock that evening declared that she
had never felt better in all of her life.
"I suppose you'll fire me now, Mr. Bingle," Melissa had said
dejectedly. "With all that money, you'll be wanting high-priced
servants."
"Quite so," said Mr. Bingle magnificently. "Much higher-priced,
Melissa."
"You'll never find any one that loves you more than I do," began
Melissa, on the verge of tears.
"Allow me," interrupted Mr. Bingle, with a sweep of the hand. "The
highest priced servant in our employ is to be Melissa Taylor, which is
you, my girl. We shall probably keep two or three servants--if we can
find anything for them to do--but none of 'em shall receive as much as
you, Melissa. Put that in your pipe and smoke it."
"I--I wasn't asking for a raise, sir," murmured Melissa, in
considerable distress.
"You get it without asking," said Mr. Bingle. It should be remembered
that he was still very much dazed and bewildered.
"Maybe you'll be having a butler and a regular chef. They come pretty
high, sir," advised Melissa, spilling a little of Mrs. Bingle's tea on
the counterpane. "Oh, excuse me, Mrs. Bingle."
"Never mind, Melissa," said Mr. Bingle. "I guess we can afford to spill
a little tea if we like. I've no doubt that a butler would spill a
great deal. It doesn't matter what we have to pay him--if we have
him--you shall have five dollars a month more than he gets. That's
settled."
The least important person at the "reading of the will" was the little
man who sat hunched up in a chair and gazed about him with perplexed
eyes, occasionally touching his sore ears with tender fingers, and
always regretting the act for the reason that it called the attention
of his cousins to something that appeared to gratify them a great deal
more than the actual business at hand. In fact, he never quite got over
that miserable hour of inspection on their part. He never ceased to
regret the condition of his ears on that stupendous occasion. What
might have been a really impressive hour in his life was spoiled by the
certainty that every one was paying more attention to his misfortune
than to his fortune.
Of course, the conditions of the will were pretty well known to the
three children of Joseph Hooper, hours before they were read to them.
They knew that their detestable father had practically disinherited
them, but they were not prepared for the staggering baseness employed
by the old man in giving his reasons for cutting them off. To their
chagrin, mortification, even shame, they were compelled to listen to at
least a dozen letters that they had written to their father during the
period covered by his supposed degeneracy. The originals of these
letters, stained, dirty, frazzled but incontrovertibly genuine, were
attached to the instrument, and were referred to in certain specific
recommendations incorporated in the body of the will itself.
Old Joseph had preserved the letters of his children. They were
emphatic evidences of their attitude toward him from first to last.
There was no such thing as going behind them. It might be possible to
produce proof that the testator was unsound of mind, but it would never
be possible to wipe out the written declarations of his mentally
perfect son and daughters. In these delectable missives they completely
disowned him as a father; they raked him fore and aft; they riddled him
with a hundred shafts of scorn; they repeatedly said that they never
wanted to see his face again; they put him out of their lives and
urgently requested him to put them out of his; they expected nothing of
him and they certainly did not want him to expect anything of them; and
so on and so forth. And in spite of all these bitter rebukings, old
Joseph had come back to New York ready and willing to let bygones be
bygones if they would only meet him half way.
Geoffrey declared in so many words that his father had played a scurvy
trick on all of them. He managed to give utterance to this violent
opinion before his attorney could check his unnecessary eloquence.
After that, Geoffrey, subdued and desolate, kept extremely quiet and
suffered considerably under the convicting gaze of his sisters and
their husbands, all of whom were inclined to disown him there and then
as a brother for his reckless implication that their father was as sane
as any of them.
Thomas Singleton Bingle was to receive, in round figures, fifteen
million dollars under the will of his uncle, after the funeral expenses
and all just debts had been paid. It was really quite staggering. If
Thomas Singleton Bingle had not been so completely wrapped up in his
ears, it is certain that he would have acted as any other intelligent
human being would have acted at a time like this. He would have gone
stark, staring mad.
But wait! After all, he DID become a bit daffy. Observing the
desolated, crushed attitude of his three cousins, his honest heart
smote him sorely. He piped up from the depths of his chair and
announced that all he wanted out of the estate was the amount that he
had actually expended in caring for Uncle Joe during the past few
months. He would be satisfied with that and--But he got no farther. Mr.
Sigsbee hastened to remind him that he hadn't anything to say about it.
He didn't have a voice in the matter. And then Angela and Elizabeth
scornfully observed that it was a pretty time to talk about that sort
of thing, after he had so skilfully succeeded in influencing their
poor, mentally unbalanced father to make a will like this one.
Right heroically, Mr. Bingle declared that he was willing to give all
of his inheritance to any deserving charity, or charities, reserving,
if no one objected, a sufficient amount to enable him to purchase a
little farm on which he could spend the rest of his days and not have
to go on forever as a bookkeeper in a bank.
"Bosh!" said Geoffrey Hooper, glaring at his rich cousin.
"Ridiculous!" cried Angela and Elizabeth, transfixing Mr. Bingle with
glittering eyes.
"Very well," said Mr. Bingle, arising hastily. "Let it be bosh and
ridiculous, just as you like. I would have been willing to take this
small amount, just as I have said, and, what's more, I might have been
willing to divide the estate into four equal parts--if Mr. Sigsbee
would let me do it--but now I'll be damned if I'll do anything for
either of you. You don't deserve a nickel, not one of you. You had your
chance and you didn't take it. I fed and clothed and housed your father
and I stood ready to spend my last dollar to make his last few days on
earth comfortable and easy. I buried him. I went to his funeral. I took
the chance of losing my job by doing so. I froze my ears--oh, look at
'em! I don't care. And now you--you three! You can go to the devil,
with my compliments as well as Uncle Joe's. Come along, Mary! Let's get
out of this. We've got fifteen million dollars coming to us, and we
don't have to sit here and be insulted by people to whom we have
offered charity. Good day, Mr. Sigsbee. If you want me for anything,
you'll find me at the bank. Now, be sure you wrap your throat up
carefully, Mary. Don't take any chances. You look as though you were
overheated."
Mr. Sigsbee followed them into the corridor, where he shook hands with
the indignant heir.
"Your troubles have just begun, Mr. Bingle," he said, with a genial
smile.
"How's that?"
"We'll have a long, bitter fight on our hands, but--we'll win. There
will be a contest, you see."
"All right," said Mr. Bingle, his eyes snapping. "I'm ready. I stood by
Uncle Joe when he was alive, you can bet your last dollar I'm not going
back on him now that he's dead."
That evening, sitting over the crackling grate fire, Mr. Bingle broke a
long period of silence by remarking to his wife:
"I dare say we can afford to adopt one or two, Mary, with all this
money we're going to have."