Another object of their assaults was Frederick Grierson, who by this time
had emerged from obscurity as a small dealer in real estate into a
manipulator of blocks and corners.
"I suppose you think it's a lawyer's business to demand an ethical bill
of health of every client," I said. "I won't stand up for all of
Tallant's career, of course, but Mr. Wading has a clear right to take his
cases. As for Grierson, it seems to me that's a matter of giving a dog a
bad name. Just because his people weren't known here, and because he has
worked up from small beginnings. To get down to hard-pan, you fellows
don't believe in democracy,--in giving every man a chance to show what's
in him."
"Democracy is good!" exclaimed Perry. "If the kind of thing we're coming
to is democracy, God save the state!"...
On the other hand I found myself drawing closer to Ralph Hambleton,
sometimes present at these debates, as the only one of my boyhood friends
who seemed to be able to "deal with conditions as he found them." Indeed,
he gave one the impression that, if he had had the making of them, he
would not have changed them.
"What the deuce do you expect?" I once heard him inquire with
good-natured contempt. "Business isn't charity, it's war.
"There are certain things," maintained Perry, stoutly, "that gentlemen
won't do."
"Gentlemen!" exclaimed Ralph, stretching his slim six feet two: We were
sitting in the Boyne Club. "It's ungentlemanly to kill, or burn a town or
sink a ship, but we keep armies and navies for the purpose. For a man
with a good mind, Perry, you show a surprising inability to think things,
out to a logical conclusion. What the deuce is competition, when you come
down to it? Christianity? Not by a long shot! If our nations are
slaughtering men and starving populations in other countries,--are
carried on, in fact, for the sake of business, if our churches are filled
with business men and our sky pilots pray for the government, you can't
expect heathen individuals like me to do business on a Christian
basis,--if there is such a thing. You can make rules for croquet, but not
for a game that is based on the natural law of the survival of the
fittest. The darned fools in the legislatures try it occasionally, but we
all know it's a sop to the 'common people.' Ask Hughie here if there ever
was a law put on the statute books that his friend Watling couldn't get
'round'? Why, you've got competition even among the churches. Yours,
where I believe you teach in the Sunday school, would go bankrupt if it
proclaimed real Christianity. And you'll go bankrupt if you practise it,
Perry, my boy. Some early, wide-awake, competitive, red-blooded bird will
relieve you of the Boyne Street car line."
It was one of this same new and "fittest" species who had already
relieved poor Mr. McAlery Willett of his fortune. Mr. Willett was a
trusting soul who had never known how to take care of himself or his
money, people said, and now that he had lost it they blamed him. Some had
been saved enough for him and Nancy to live on in the old house, with
careful economy. It was Nancy who managed the economy, who accomplished
remarkable things with a sum they would have deemed poverty in former
days. Her mother had died while I was at Cambridge. Reverses did not
subdue Mr. Willett's spirits, and the fascination modern "business" had
for him seemed to grow in proportion to the misfortunes it had caused
him. He moved into a tiny office in the Durrett Building, where he
appeared every morning about half-past ten to occupy himself with heaven
knows what short cuts to wealth, with prospectuses of companies in Mexico
or Central America or some other distant place: once, I remember, it was
a tea, company in which he tried to interest his friends, to raise in the
South a product he maintained would surpass Orange Pekoe. In the
afternoon between three and four he would turn up at the Boyne Club, as
well groomed, as spruce as ever, generally with a flower in his
buttonhole. He never forgot that he was a gentleman, and he had a
gentleman's notions of the fitness of things, and it was against his
principles to use, a gentleman's club for the furtherance of his various
enterprises.
"Drop into my office some day, Dickinson," he would say. "I think I've
got something there that might interest you!"
He reminded me, when I met him, that he had always predicted I would get
along in life....
The portrait of Nancy at this period is not so easily drawn. The decline
of the family fortunes seemed to have had as little effect upon her as
upon her father, although their characters differed sharply. Something of
that spontaneity, of that love of life and joy in it she had possessed in
youth she must have inherited from McAlery Willett, but these qualities
had disappeared in her long before the coming of financial reverses. She
was nearing thirty, and in spite of her beauty and the rarer distinction
that can best be described as breeding, she had never married. Men
admired her, but from a distance; she kept them at arm's length, they
said: strangers who visited the city invariably picked her out of an
assembly and asked who she was; one man from New York who came to visit
Ralph and who had been madly in love with her, she had amazed many people
by refusing, spurning all he might have given her. This incident seemed a
refutation of the charge that she was calculating. As might have been
foretold, she had the social gift in a remarkable degree, and in spite of
the limitations of her purse the knack of dressing better than other
women, though at that time the organization of our social life still
remained comparatively simple, the custom of luxurious and expensive
entertainment not having yet set in.
The more I reflect upon those days, the more surprising does it seem that
I was not in love with her. It may be that I was, unconsciously, for she
troubled my thoughts occasionally, and she represented all the qualities
I admired in her sex. The situation that had existed at the time of our
first and only quarrel had been reversed, I was on the highroad to the
worldly success I had then resolved upon, Nancy was poor, and for that
reason, perhaps, prouder than ever. If she was inaccessible to others,
she had the air of being peculiarly inaccessible to me--the more so
because some of the superficial relics of our intimacy remained, or
rather had been restored. Her very manner of camaraderie seemed
paradoxically to increase the distance between us. It piqued me. Had she
given me the least encouragement, I am sure I should have responded; and
I remember that I used occasionally to speculate as to whether she still
cared for me, and took this method of hiding her real feelings. Yet, on
the whole, I felt a certain complacency about it all; I knew that
suffering was disagreeable, I had learned how to avoid it, and I may have
had, deep within me, a feeling that I might marry her after all.
Meanwhile my life was full, and gave promise of becoming even fuller,
more absorbing and exciting in the immediate future.
One of the most fascinating figures, to me, of that Order being woven,
like a cloth of gold, out of our hitherto drab civilization,--an Order
into which I was ready and eager to be initiated,--was that of Adolf
Scherer, the giant German immigrant at the head of the Boyne Iron Works.
His life would easily lend itself to riotous romance. In the old country,
in a valley below the castle perched on the rack above, he had begun life
by tending his father's geese. What a contrast to "Steeltown" with its
smells and sickening summer heat, to the shanty where Mrs. Scherer took
boarders and bent over the wash-tub! She, too, was an immigrant, but
lived to hear her native Wagner from her own box at Covent Garden; and he
to explain, on the deck of an imperial yacht, to the man who might have
been his sovereign certain processes in the manufacture of steel hitherto
untried on that side of the Atlantic. In comparison with Adolf Scherer,
citizen of a once despised democracy, the minor prince in whose dominions
he had once tended geese was of small account indeed!
The Adolf Scherer of that day--though it is not so long ago as time
flies--was even more solid and impressive than the man he afterwards
became, when he reached the dizzier heights from which he delivered to an
eager press opinions on politics and war, eugenics and woman's suffrage
and other subjects that are the despair of specialists. Had he stuck to
steel, he would have remained invulnerable. But even then he was
beginning to abandon the field of production for that of exploitation:
figuratively speaking, he had taken to soap, which with the aid of water
may be blown into beautiful, iridescent bubbles to charm the eye. Much
good soap, apparently, has gone that way, never to be recovered.
Everybody who was anybody began to blow bubbles about that time, and the
bigger the bubble the greater its attraction for investors of hard-earned
savings. Outside of this love for financial iridescence, let it be
called, Mr. Scherer seemed to care little then for glitter of any sort.
Shortly after his elevation to the presidency of the Boyne Iron Works he
had been elected a member of the Boyne Club,--an honour of which, some
thought, he should have been more sensible; but generally, when in town,
he preferred to lunch at a little German restaurant annexed to a saloon,
where I used often to find him literally towering above the cloth,--for
he was a giant with short legs,--his napkin tucked into his shirt front,
engaged in lively conversation with the ministering Heinrich. The chef at
the club, Mr. Scherer insisted, could produce nothing equal to Heinrich's
sauer-kraut and sausage. My earliest relationship with Mr. Scherer was
that of an errand boy, of bringing to him for his approval papers which
might not be intrusted to a common messenger. His gruffness and brevity
disturbed me more than I cared to confess. I was pretty sure that he eyed
me with the disposition of the self-made to believe that college
educations and good tailors were the heaviest handicaps with which a
young man could be burdened: and I suspected him of an inimical attitude
toward the older families of the city. Certain men possessed his
confidence; and he had built, as it were, a stockade about them, sternly
keeping the rest of the world outside. In Theodore Watling he had a
childlike faith.
Thus I studied him, with a deliberation which it is the purpose of these
chapters to confess, though he little knew that he was being made the
subject of analysis. Nor did I ever venture to talk with him, but held
strictly to my role of errand boy,--even after the conviction came over
me that he was no longer indifferent to my presence. The day arrived,
after some years, when he suddenly thrust toward me a big, hairy hand
that held the document he was examining.
"Who drew this, Mr. Paret!" he demanded.
Mr. Ripon, I told him.
The Boyne Works were buying up coal-mines, and this was a contract
looking to the purchase of one in Putman County, provided, after a
certain period of working, the yield and quality should come up to
specifications. Mr. Scherer requested me to read one of the sections,
which puzzled him. And in explaining it an idea flashed over me.
"Do you mind my making a suggestion, Mr. Scherer?" I ventured.
"What is it?" he asked brusquely.
I showed him how, by the alteration of a few words, the difficulty to
which he had referred could not only be eliminated, but that certain
possible penalties might be evaded, while the apparent meaning of the
section remained unchanged. In other words, it gave the Boyne Iron Works
an advantage that was not contemplated. He seized the paper, stared at
what I had written in pencil on the margin, and then stared at me.
Abruptly, he began to laugh.
"Ask Mr. Wading what he thinks of it?"
"I intended to, provided it had your approval, sir," I replied.
"You have my approval, Mr. Paret," he declared, rather cryptically, and
with the slight German hardening of the v's into which he relapsed at
times. "Bring it to the Works this afternoon."
Mr. Wading agreed to the alteration. He looked at me amusedly.
"Yes, I think that's an improvement, Hugh," he said. I had a feeling that
I had gained ground, and from this time on I thought I detected a change
in his attitude toward me; there could be no doubt about the new attitude
of Mr. Scherer, who would often greet me now with a smile and a joke, and
sometimes went so far as to ask my opinions.... Then, about six months
later, came the famous Ribblevale case that aroused the moral indignation
of so many persons, among whom was Perry Blackwood.
"You know as well as I do, Hugh, how this thing is being manipulated," he
declared at Tom's one Sunday evening; "there was nothing the matter with
the Ribblevale Steel Company--it was as right as rain before Leonard
Dickinson and Grierson and Scherer and that crowd you train with began to
talk it down at the Club. Oh, they're very compassionate. I've heard 'em.
Dickinson, privately, doesn't think much of Ribblevale paper, and Pugh"
(the president of the Ribblevale) "seems worried and looks badly. It's
all very clever, but I'd hate to tell you in plain words what I'd call
it."
"Go ahead," I challenged him audaciously. "You haven't any proof that the
Ribblevale wasn't in trouble."
"I heard Mr. Pugh tell my father the other day it was a d--d outrage. He
couldn't catch up with these rumours, and some of his stockholders were
liquidating."
"You, don't suppose Pugh would want to admit his situation, do you?" I
asked.
"Pugh's a straight man," retorted Perry. "That's more than I can say for
any of the other gang, saving your presence. The unpleasant truth is that
Scherer and the Boyne people want the Ribblevale, and you ought to know
it if you don't." He looked at me very hard through the glasses he had
lately taken to wearing. Tom, who was lounging by the fire, shifted his
position uneasily. I smiled, and took another cigar.
"I believe Ralph is right, Perry, when he calls you a sentimentalist. For
you there's a tragedy behind every ordinary business transaction. The
Ribblevale people are having a hard time to keep their heads above water,
and immediately you smell conspiracy. Dickinson and Scherer have been
talking it down. How about it, Tom?"
But Tom, in these debates, was inclined to be noncommittal, although it
was clear they troubled him.
"Oh, don't ask me, Hughie," he said.
"I suppose I ought to cultivate the scientific point of view, and look
with impartial interest at this industrial cannibalism," returned Perry,
sarcastically. "Eat or be eaten that's what enlightened self-interest has
come to. After all, Ralph would say, it is nature, the insect world over
again, the victim duped and crippled before he is devoured, and the
lawyer--how shall I put it?--facilitating the processes of swallowing and
digesting...."
There was no use arguing with Perry when he was in this vein....
Since I am not writing a technical treatise, I need not go into the
details of the Ribblevale suit. Since it to say that the affair, after a
while, came apparently to a deadlock, owing to the impossibility of
getting certain definite information from the Ribblevale books, which had
been taken out of the state. The treasurer, for reasons of his own,
remained out of the state also; the ordinary course of summoning him
before a magistrate in another state had naturally been resorted to, but
the desired evidence was not forthcoming.
"The trouble is," Mr. Wading explained to Mr. Scherer, "that there is no
law in the various states with a sufficient penalty attached that will
compel the witness to divulge facts he wishes to conceal."
It was the middle of a February afternoon, and they were seated in deep,
leather chairs in one corner of the reading room of the Boyne Club. They
had the place to themselves. Fowndes was there also, one leg twisted
around the other in familiar fashion, a bored look on his long and sallow
face. Mr. Wading had telephoned to the office for me to bring them some
papers bearing on the case.
"Sit down, Hugh," he said kindly.
"Now we have present a genuine legal mind," said Mr. Scherer, in the
playful manner he had adopted of late, while I grinned appreciatively and
took a chair. Mr. Watling presently suggested kidnapping the Ribblevale
treasurer until he should promise to produce the books as the only way
out of what seemed an impasse. But Mr. Scherer brought down a huge fist
on his knee.
"I tell you it is no joke, Watling, we've got to win that suit," he
asserted.
"That's all very well," replied Mr. Watling. "But we're a respectable
firm, you know. We haven't had to resort to safe-blowing, as yet."
Mr. Scherer shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say it were a matter of
indifference to him what methods were resorted to. Mr. Watling's eyes met
mine; his glance was amused, yet I thought I read in it a query as to the
advisability, in my presence, of going too deeply into the question of
ways and means. I may have been wrong. At any rate, its sudden effect was
to embolden me to give voice to an idea that had begun to simmer in my
mind, that excited me, and yet I had feared to utter it. This look of my
chief's, and the lighter tone the conversation had taken decided me.
"Why wouldn't it be possible to draw up a bill to fit the situation?" I
inquired.
Mr. Wading started.
"What do you mean?" he asked quickly.
All three looked at me. I felt the blood come into my face, but it was
too late to draw back.
"Well--the legislature is in session. And since, as Mr. Watling says,
there is no sufficient penalty in other states to compel the witness to
produce the information desired, why not draw up a bill and--and have it
passed--" I paused for breath--"imposing a sufficient penalty on home
corporations in the event of such evasions. The Ribblevale Steel Company
is a home corporation."
I had shot my bolt.... There followed what was for me an anxious silence,
while the three of them continued to stare at me. Mr. Watling put the
tips of his fingers together, and I became aware that he was not
offended, that he was thinking rapidly.
"By George, why not, Fowndes?" he demanded.
"Well," said Fowndes, "there's an element of risk in such a proceeding I
need not dwell upon."
"Risk!" cried the senior partner vigorously. "There's risk in everything.
They'll howl, of course. But they howl anyway, and nobody ever listens to
them. They'll say it's special legislation, and the Pilot will print
sensational editorials for a few days. But what of it? All of that has
happened before. I tell you, if we can't see those books, we'll lose the
suit. That's in black and white. And, as a matter of justice, we're
entitled to know what we want to know."
"There might be two opinions as to that," observed Fowndes, with his
sardonic smile.
Mr. Watling paid no attention to this remark. He was already deep in
thought. It was characteristic of his mind to leap forward, seize a
suggestion that often appeared chimerical to a man like Fowndes and turn
it into an accomplished Fact. "I believe you've hit it, Hugh," he said.
"We needn't bother about the powers of the courts in other states. We'll
put into this bill an appeal to our court for an order on the clerk to
compel the witness to come before the court and testify, and we'll
provide for a special commissioner to take depositions in the state where
the witness is. If the officers of a home corporation who are outside of
the state refuse to testify, the penalty will be that the ration goes
into the hands of a receiver."
Fowndes whistled.
"That's going some!" he said.
"Well, we've got to go some. How about it, Scherer?"
Even Mr. Scherer's brown eyes were snapping.
"We have got to win that suit, Watling."
We were all excited, even Fowndes, I think, though he remained
expressionless. Ours was the tense excitement of primitive man in chase:
the quarry which had threatened to elude us was again in view, and not
unlikely to fall into our hands. Add to this feeling, on my part, the
thrill that it was I who had put them on the scent. I had all the
sensations of an aspiring young brave who for the first time is admitted
to the councils of the tribe!
"It ought to be a popular bill, too," Mr. Schemer was saying, with a
smile of ironic appreciation at the thought of demagogues advocating it.
"We should have one of Lawler's friends introduce it."
"Oh, we shall have it properly introduced," replied Mr. Wading.
"It may come back at us," suggested Fowndes pessimistically. "The Boyne
Iron Works is a home corporation too, if I am not mistaken."
"The Boyne Iron Works has the firm of Wading, Fowndes and Ripon behind
it," asserted Mr. Scherer, with what struck me as a magnificent faith.
"You mustn't forget Paret," Mr. Watling reminded him, with a wink at me.
We had risen. Mr. Scherer laid a hand on my arm.
"No, no, I do not forget him. He will not permit me to forget him."
A remark, I thought, that betrayed some insight into my character... Mr.
Watling called for pen and paper and made then and there a draft of the
proposed bill, for no time was to be lost. It was dark when we left the
Club, and I recall the elation I felt and strove to conceal as I
accompanied my chief back to the office. The stenographers and clerks
were gone; alone in the library we got down the statutes and set to work.
to perfect the bill from the rough draft, on which Mr. Fowndes had
written his suggestions. I felt that a complete yet subtle change had
come over my relationship with Mr. Watling.
In the midst of our labours he asked me to call up the attorney for the
Railroad. Mr. Gorse was still at his office.
"Hello! Is that you, Miller?" Mr. Watling said. "This is Wading. When can
I see you for a few minutes this evening? Yes, I am leaving for
Washington at nine thirty. Eight o'clock. All right, I'll be there."
It was almost eight before he got the draft finished to his satisfaction,
and I had picked it out on the typewriter. As I handed it to him, my
chief held it a moment, gazing at me with an odd smile.
"You seem to have acquired a good deal of useful knowledge, here and
there, Hugh," he observed.
"I've tried to keep my eyes open, Mr. Watling," I said.
"Well," he said, "there are a great many things a young man practising
law in these days has to learn for himself. And if I hadn't given you
credit for some cleverness, I shouldn't have wanted you here. There's
only one way to look at--at these matters we have been discussing, my
boy, that's the common-sense way, and if a man doesn't get that point of
view by himself, nobody can teach it to him. I needn't enlarge upon it"
"No, sir," I said.
He smiled again, but immediately became serious.
"If Mr. Gorse should approve of this bill, I'm going to send you down to
the capital--to-night. Can you go?"