A TRIFLE
Few men were less given to dreaming than James Carbhoy. Usually he had
no spare time on his hands for such a pastime. Dreams? Well, perhaps
he occasionally let imagination run riot amidst seas of amazing
figures, but that was all. All other dreams left him cold. Now it was
different.
He was reclining in an old-fashioned rocker chair outside the front
door of his prison. The air of the valley was soft and balmy, the sun
was setting, and a wealth of ever-changing colors tinted the distant
mountain-tops; a wonderful sense of peace and security reigned
everywhere. So, somehow, he found himself dreaming.
He filled the chair almost to overflowing and reveled in its comfort,
just as he reveled in the comfort even of his prison. His hands were
clasped behind his iron-gray head, and he drank deeply of the pleasant,
perfumed air. His captivity had already exceeded three weeks, and the
first irritation of it had long since passed, leaving in its place a
philosophic resignation characteristic of the man. He no longer strove
seriously to solve the problem of his detention. During the first days
of his captivity he had thought hard, and the contemplation of possible
disaster to many enterprises resulting from this enforced absence had
troubled him seriously, but as the days wore on and no word came from
his captors his resignation quietly set in, and gradually a pleasant
peace reigned in place of stormy feelings.
James Carbhoy possessed a considerable humor for a man who spent his
life in multiplying, subtracting and adding numerals which represented
the sum of his gains and losses in currency, and perhaps it was this
which so largely helped him. His temperament should undoubtedly have
been at once harsh, sternly unyielding and bitterly avaricious. In
reality it was none of these things. It was his lot to cause money to
make money, and the work of it was something in the nature of an
amusement. He was warm-hearted and human; he loved battle and the
spirit of competition. Then, too, he possessed a deplorable love for
the knavery of modern financial methods. This was the underlying
temperament which governed all his actions, and a warm, human
kindliness saved him from many of the pitfalls into which such a
temperament might well have trapped him.
As he sat there basking in the evening sunlight he felt that on the
whole he rather owed his captors a debt of gratitude for introducing
him to a side of life which otherwise he might never have come into
contact with. He knew at the same time that such a feeling was just as
absurd as that the spirit of fierce resentment had so easily died down
within him. All his interests were dependent upon his own efforts for
success, and here he was shut up, a prisoner, with these very affairs,
for all he knew, going completely to the dogs.
His conflicting feelings made him smile, and here it was that his humor
served him. After all, what did it matter? He knew that some one had
bested him. It was not the first time in his life that he had been
bested. Not by any means. But always in such cases he had ultimately
made up the leeway and gained on the reach. Well, he supposed he would
do so again. So he rested content and submitted to the pleasant
surroundings of his captivity.
There was one feature of his position, however, which he seriously did
resent. It was a feature which even his humor could not help him to
endure with complacency. It was the simple presence of a Chinaman near
him. He cordially detested Chinamen--so much so that, in all his great
financial undertakings, he did not possess one cent of interest in any
Chinese enterprise.
Hip-Lee was maddeningly ubiquitous. There was no escape from him. If
the millionaire's fellow prisoner, the pretty teamstress, entered his
room to wait on him--and their captors seemed to have forced such
service upon her--Hip-Lee was her shadow. If he himself elected to go
for a walk through the valley--a freedom accorded him from the
first--there was not a moment but what a glance over his shoulder would
have revealed the lurking, silent, furtive figure in its blue smock,
watchful of his every movement, while apparently occupied in anything
but that peculiar form of pastime. James Carbhoy resented this
surveillance bitterly. Nor did he doubt that beneath that simple blue
smock a long knife was concealed, and, probably, a desire for murder.
However, nothing of this was concerning him now. The hour was the hour
of peace. The perfection of the scene he was gazing upon had cast its
spell about him, and he was dreaming--really dreaming of nothing. The
joy of living was upon him, and, for the time being, nothing else
mattered.
In the midst of his dreaming the sound of a footstep coming round the
angle of the building to his right roused him to full alertness. He
glanced round quickly and withdrew his hands from behind his head.
Mechanically he drew his cigar-case from an inner pocket and selected a
cigar. But he was expectant and curious, his feelings inspired by his
knowledge that Hip-Lee always moved soundlessly.
His eyes were upon the limits of the house when the intruder
materialized. Promptly a wave of pleasurable relief swept over him as
he beheld the pretty figure of his fellow captive. But he gave no
sign, for the reason that the girl was obviously unaware of his
presence, and it yet remained to be seen if the yellow-faced reptile,
Hip-Lee, was at hand as usual.
He watched her silently. He was struck, too, by her expression of rapt
appreciation of the scene before her, which added further to his
reluctance to break the spell of her enjoyment. But as the hated blue
smock did not make its appearance, the man could no longer resist
temptation. The opportunity was too good to miss.
"It's some scene," he said in a tone calculated not to startle her, his
gray eyes twinkling genially.
But Hazel was startled. She was startled more than she cared about.
Her one object was always to avoid contact with Gordon's father, except
under the watchful eyes, of Hip-Lee. She feared that keen, incisive
brain she knew to lie behind his steady gray eyes. She feared
questions her wit was not ready enough to answer without disaster to
the plans of her fellow conspirators.
She hated the part she was forced to play, but she was also determined
to play it with all her might. She must act now, and act well. So,
with a resolute effort, she faced her victim.
"I--I just didn't know you were here, sir," she said truthfully, while
her eyes lied an added alarm. "But--but talk low, or the----"
"You're worrying over that mongrel Chink," said Carbhoy quickly. "I
expected to see his leather features following you around. I guess
he's got ears as long as an ass, and just about twice as sharp. Say,
I'm going to kill that mouse-colored serpent one of these times if he
don't quit his games. Say----"
He broke off, studying the girl's pretty face speculatively. There was
no doubt her eyes wore a hunted expression--she intended them to.
"They treating you--right?" he demanded.
Hazel's effort was better than she knew as she strove for pathos.
"Oh, yes, I s'pose so," she said hopelessly. "I'm let alone, and--I
get good food. It--it isn't that."
"What is it?"
The man's question came sharply.
Hazel turned her face to the hills and sighed. The movement was well
calculated.
"It's my folks." Then, with a dramatic touch, "Say, Mr. Carbhoy, do
you guess we'll ever--get out of this? Do you think we'll get back to
our folks? Sometimes I--oh, it's awful!"
Her words carried conviction, and the man was taken in.
"Say," he said quickly, "I'm making a big guess we'll get out
later--when things are fixed. This is not a ransom. But it
means--dollars."
He lit his cigar, and its aroma pleasantly scented the air.
Hazel sighed with intense feeling--to disguise her inclination to laugh.
"Yes, sir," she said hopelessly. "One hundred thousand dollars."
Gordon's father smiled back at her.
"I'd hate to think I was held up for less," he said. "It would sort of
wound my vanity."
The girl could have hugged him for the serenity of his attitude.
Nothing seemed to disturb him. She felt that Gordon had every reason
for his devotion to his father, and ought to be well ashamed of himself
for submitting him to the outrage which had been perpetrated.
"Who--who do you think has done this?" she hazarded hesitatingly.
"Slosson?"
"Maybe. Though----"
"Slosson should have met you himself," the girl declared emphatically.
"He certainly should," replied Carbhoy, with cold emphasis. "He'll
need to explain that--later. Say, how did you come to be driving me?"
Hazel suddenly felt cold in the warm air.
"I was just engaged to, because Mr. Slosson couldn't go himself. You
see, father has a spare team, and I do a goodish bit of driving. You
see, we need to do 'most anything to get money here."
"Yes, that's the way of things." The man's eyes were twinkling again,
and Hazel began to hope that she was once more on firm ground.
Nor was she disappointed when the man went on.
"I guess we're all out after--dollars," he said reflectively. Then he
removed his cigar and luxuriously emitted a thin spiral smoke from
between his pursed lips. "It don't seem the sort of work a girl like
you should be at, though. Still, why not? It's a great play--chasing
dollars. It's the best thing in life--wholesome and human. I've
always felt that way about it, and as I've piled up the years and got a
peek into motives and things I've felt more sure that
competition--that's fixing things right for ourselves out of the
general scrum of life--is the life intended for us by the Creator."
Hazel nodded.
"Life is competition," she observed, with a wise little smile.
"Sure. That's why human nature is dishonest--has to be."
There was a question in the girl's eyes which the millionaire was
prompt to detect.
"Sure it's dishonest. Can you show me a detail of human nature which
is truly honest? Say, I've watched it all my life, I've built every
sort of construction on it. Wherever I have built in the belief that
honesty is the foundation of human nature things have dropped with a
smash. Now I know, and my faith is none the less. Human nature is
dishonest. It's only a question of degree. I'm dishonest. You're
dishonest. But in your case it's only in the higher ethical sense.
You wouldn't steal a pocket-book. You wouldn't commit murder. But put
yourself into competition with a girl friend baking a swell layer cake,
calculated to disturb the digestion of an ostrich. Say, you'd resort
to any old trick you could think of to fix her where you wanted her."
Hazel laughed.
"I wouldn't shoot her up, but--I'd do all I knew to beat her."
"Just so."
"After what's happened to us here I guess human nature isn't going to
find a champion in me," Hazel went on. "Still, it's pretty hard to
lose your faith in human nature that way."
"Lose? Who said 'lose'?" cried the man, with a cordial laugh. "Not I.
If I suddenly found it 'honest,' why, I'd hate to go on living. Human
nature's got to be just as it is. Honesty lies in Nature. That's the
honesty that folks talk about and dream about. It isn't practicable in
human life. Dishonesty is the leavening that makes honesty, in the
abstract, palatable. Say, think of it--if we were all honest like
idealists talk of. What would we have worth living for? Do you know
what would happen? Why, we'd all be sitting around making hymns for
everybody else to sing, till there was such an almighty hullabaloo we'd
all get crazy and have to sign a petition to get it stopped. We'd all
be fixed up in a sort of white suit that wouldn't ever need a laundry,
and every blamed citizen would start right in to turn the world into a
sort of hell by always telling the truth. Just think what it would
mean if you had to tell some friend of yours what you thought of her
for sneaking your latest beau."
"It certainly would be liable to cause a deal of trouble," laughed
Hazel.
"Trouble? I should say." The millionaire chuckled softly as he
returned his cigar to his mouth. "Say, I was reading the obituary of a
preacher--my wife's favorite--the other day. He lost his grip on life
and fell through. That reporter boy was bright, and I wondered when I
was reading what he'd have said if he'd spoke the truth as he saw it.
To read that obituary you'd think that preacher feller was the greatest
saint ever lived. I felt I could have wept over that poor feller, the
talk was so elegant and poetic. I just felt the worst worm ever lived
beside that preacher. I felt I ought to spend the last five dollars I
had to fix his grave up with pure white lilies, if I had to go without
food to do it. It was fine. But the writer never said a word about
that preacher living in a swell house in Fifth Avenue, and the $20,000
he took every year for his job, and the elegant automobile he chased
around to the houses of his rich congregation in. If he'd died in the
slums on the east side I guess that newspaper wouldn't ever have heard
of him, and that writer wouldn't have got dollars for the pretty
language it was his job to scratch together for such an occasion."
"It doesn't sound nice put that way," sighed Hazel. "I suppose it's
all competition even trying to make folks live right. I suppose that
preacher was successful in his calling--the same as you are in yours.
I suppose his human nature was no different to other folks'."
"That's it. Life's splendidly dishonest and a perfect sham. Come to
think of it, Ananias must have been all sorts of a great man to be
singled out of a world of liars. On the other hand, he'd have had some
rival in the feller who first accused George Washington of never lying.
Psha! life's a great play, and I'd hate it to be different from what it
is. We're all just as dishonest as we can be and still keep out of
penitentiary: which makes me feel mighty sorry for them that don't.
From the fisherman to the Sunday-school teacher we're all liars, and if
you charged us with it we'd deny it, or worse, and thereby add further
proof to the charge. I've thought a deal over this hold-up, and it
seems to me those guys bluffed us some."
"You mean about the--ransom," said Hazel, the last sign of amusement
dying swiftly out of her eyes.
"Why, yes." The millionaire smoked in silence for some moments. Then
quite suddenly he removed the cigar from between his lips. "Maybe you
don't know I'm working on a big land scheme in these parts. It seems
to me some bright gang intend to roll me for my wad. I don't guess
Slosson's in it."
"Then who is it, sir?" demanded the girl, with unconscious sharpness.
The man's steady eyes surveyed her through their half-closed lids. He
shook his head.
"I can't just say--yet. We'll find out in good time." His smile was
quietly confident. "Anyway, for the moment some one's got the drop on
me, and I'll just have to sit around. But--it's pretty tough on you,
Miss--Miss----"
"Mallinsbee," said Hazel, without thinking.
"Mallinsbee?"
The man's gray eyes became suddenly alert, and Hazel felt like killing
herself. She believed, in that one unguarded moment, she had ruined
everything. She held her breath and turned quickly towards the setting
sun, lest her face should betray her.
Then her terror passed as she heard the quiet, kindly laugh of the man
as he began speaking again.
"Well, Miss Mallinsbee, here we are, and here we've just got to stay.
I came here to get the best of a deal. We're all out to do some one or
something, somehow or somewhere. It don't much matter who. And when a
man acts right he don't squeal when the other feller's on top. He just
sits around till it's his move, and then he'll try and get things back.
I'm not squealing. It's my turn to sit around--that's all. Meanwhile,
with the comforts at my disposal--good wines, good cigars and mountain
air--I'm having some vacation. If it weren't for that darned Chink
with his detestable blue suit I'd----"
"Hush!" Hazel had turned and held up a warning finger.
In response the man glanced sharply about him. There, sure enough,
standing silent and immovable at the corner of the building, was the
hated vision of blue with its crowning features of dull yellow.
James Carbhoy flung himself back in his rocker. All the humor and
pleasure had been banished from his strong face, and only disgust
remained.
"Oh, hell!" he exclaimed, and flung his cigar with all his force in the
direction of the intruder.