THE train rushed eastward, but Tommy's thoughts reached New York first.
He did it by considering the task that Thompson had given him to do. He
read the typewritten statement very carefully, studied the statistics of
growth and profits and values, and fervently blessed Thompson, who had
taken pains clearly to indicate the significance of each item so that
nobody could fail to understand.
From that Tommy passed on to an elaborate dramatization of his own
stock-selling campaign. He rehearsed his speeches to the fathers of the
friends who ought to become stockholders of the Tecumseh Motor Company.
He heard his own arguments very distinctly indeed, but when he came to
listen to theirs he was not so successful. To be on the safe side,
he assumed that he had to overcome indifference, distrust, and the
exasperating conservatism of old people. It did not occur to him that
greed must also be overcome, for he concerned himself with his own
inexperience. He felt certain that his own training under Thompson
would not be regarded with admiration by Eastern capitalists. And yet in
Dayton Thompson was believed to be shrewd and far-seeing, and had built
up a successful business, and was about to do much more. And Tommy was
one of Thompson's business Experiments.
“I'll show them!” he said aloud. And in his determination there was
quite as much loyalty to Thompson as resolve to demonstrate the worth of
Thomas F. Leigh.
Having definitely made up his mind to succeed, he began once more at the
beginning. He must get RIvington and his other friends to arrange for
Meetings with their fathers. The speeches would say themselves when the
time came. It all depended upon what manner of men the fathers were. And
then he began to think of his own father.
The human mind works curiously. In order to think about his father Tommy
found himself compelled to think about himself. The secret had driven
him to Dayton. It had taken away his happiness, and in exchange had
given to him Thompson, Byrnes, Grosvenor, Nevin, La Grange, and the men
in the shop--more real friends than he had in New York. It had given to
him not only something to do, but something to do gladly.
The friends and the work had increased his own power to fight. He must
always fight everybody, everything that antagonized his friends and his
work. After all, what was the secret but the wonderful story of an old
man's unreasoning love for his only son, of a loyalty to his wife so
steadfast that death had but made it stronger?
Well, as soon as the money was paid back the first thing Tommy would do
would be to tell Thompson all about it. Then Tommy could be proud of his
father's deed before all men, who would understand. A man who would do
such a thing for a son was a big man. To make such a sacrifice for a son
who was not worthy of it--that would be the tragedy!
“I'll show them!” again muttered Tommy, through his teeth. And that was
exactly how Tommy came back to his starting-point. He would place the
two thousand shares of stock! He would be all business. And yet he
regretted that all he had said in his telegram to his father was, “Will
arrive in New York to-morrow on business.” But he was glad he had signed
it as a loving son would sign it, “Tommy”!
When he arrived he felt that he had been absent from New York so long
that he really was no longer a part of the life of the town. He had a
sense almost of provincialism. He did not quite belong.
He did not thrill, as he had expected, at the familiar sights and the
typical noises and the characteristic odors. The New-Yorkers he saw were
unmistakably New-Yorkers, but they were utter strangers to him.
It was an old Daytonian who rang the bell of his house. But Maggie, who
opened the door, also opened her mouth at the sight of him and kept it
open. And it was not a Daytonian who shouted, delightedly:
“Hello, Margarita! How be you?”
He was so glad to see her in the house where he was bom, so full of the
joy of home-coming, that Dayton utterly vanished from the map of his
soul.
“Where is he?” he asked her.
“Up-stairs in the lib'ry,” answered Maggie, quite proudly. Then, as by
an afterthought, she said, very calmly, “Ye're lookin' well.”
“So are you!” he said, and gave her a hug. “How's your steady?”
It was the old, old joke. But she whispered unsmilingly in reply, “He's
waitin' fer ye in th' lib'ry.”
Tommy ran up the stairs three steps at a time. He was going to empty
himself of his love and the oceans of his youth upon his father. Mr.
Leigh was standing beside the table on which were the family Bible, the
ivory paper-cutter, and the silver-framed photograph of Tommy's mother.
The photograph was not in the center, as usual, but near the edge of
the table; and it was not facing the old man, but the door through which
Tommy must enter.
“Hello, dad!” cried Tommy.
Mr. Leigh held his left hand behind his back, where Tommy could not see
that it was clenched so tightly that the knuckles showed cream-white,
like bare bones. The right hand he extended toward Tommy.
“How do you do, Thomas?” said Mr. Leigh, quietly. His face was
impassive, but his eyes were very bright. A little older, he seemed to
Tommy. Not grayer or more wrinkled or feebler, Simply older, as though
it came from something within, Tommy shook his father's hand vehemently.
He held it tightly while he answered: “If I felt any better I'd make my
will, knowing it couldn't last. And you are pretty well yourself?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Leigh, simply. Then: “I am very glad to see you, my son.
Do you wish to spruce up before dinner? I'll wait.”
“I sha'n't keep you a minute,” said Tommy, and left the room feeling not
so much disappointed as dazed by his own inability to empty himself of
all the love he had firmly intended to pour upon his father's head.
And then, possibly because of the instinctive craving for a reason, he
recalled that his father seemed more aged.
“Worry!” thought Tommy. He felt a pang of pity that changed sharply into
fear. “Poor dad!” he thought, and then the fear spurred him into the
fighting mood. He would stand by his father. He would assure him of his
loyalty. They would fight together.
He found Mr. Leigh leaning back in his armchair before the table on
which stood the silver-framed photograph of Tommy's mother. There was
a suggestion of weariness in the old man's attitude, but on Tommy's
entrance he rose quickly to his feet and, without looking at Tommy,
said:
“Dinner is ready, Thomas.”
They left the library together, but at the head of the stairs Mr. Leigh
stepped aside to let Tommy go first. Tommy obeyed instinctively. The old
man followed.
“It feels good to be back, dad,” said Tommy. “It seems to me that I
really have not been away from this house more than a day or two.” He
turned his head to look at his father's face, and stumbled so that he
almost fell.
Mr. Leigh, his face terror-stricken, reached out his hand to catch his
son. “Tom--” he gasped.
Then as Tommy recovered himself his father remarked, quietly, “You
should not try to do two things at once, Thomas.”
Tommy could see that Maggie had strongly impressed upon the cook the
fact that Master Thomas had favorite dishes; but neither she nor his
father made any allusions to them. It made Tommy almost smile. The
reason he didn't was that part of him did not at all feel like smiling.
They must have cost money that his father wished to save. So, instead,
he talked of Dayton and his friends, and his desire to have his father
know them, at which his father nodded gravely. But when Tommy said:
“Now, Mr. Thompson wanted me to come to New York to--”
Mr. Leigh interrupted. “After dinner, Thomas, you will tell me all about
it while you smoke.”
“I don't smoke,” said Tommy, with the proud humility of a martyr. But
his father said nothing, and Tommy wondered whether the old man, not
being himself a smoker, understood.
After dinner, in order that his father might understand the situation
as it was, Tommy spoke in detail about Thompson--an elaborate character
sketch to which his father listened gravely, nodding appreciatively from
time to time. Occasionally Mr. Leigh frowned, and Tommy, seeing this,
explained how those were the new business ideals of the great West,
where Americanism was more robust than in the East--as though Tommy
himself had been born and brought up west of the Rockies.
“And so I am going to try to place the two thousand shares of Tecumseh
stock among personal friends. I'm going to see Rivington Willetts
to-morrow morning--”
“Wait. Before you seek to interest investors you ought to be thoroughly
familiar with the finances of the company, and I scarcely think your
work or your training has given you the necessary knowledge.”
“I shall try to interest friends only, or their fathers. And I know as
much as there is to know, since I have the figures in black and white--”
“The vender's figures, Thomas,” interjected Mr. Leigh in a warning
voice.
“Thompson's figures,” corrected Tommy, in the voice of a supreme-court
justice citing authorities. He took from his pocket the statement which
the president of the Tecumseh Motor Company had given to him..
“Here, father, read this.”
While Mr. Leigh read the statement Tommy in turn tried to read his
father's face. But he could not see conviction setting itself on Mr.
Leigh's features. When Mr. Leigh finished reading he simply said:
“Now the figures.”
Tommy silently handed him the sheets with the vital statistics.
Mr. Leigh looked them over, and Tommy was amazed at the change in the
old man's face. It took on an alertness, a look of shrewd comprehension
which Tommy never before had seen on it. Then he remembered that his
father was an accountant, doubtless an expert at figures. And then he
remembered also what his father had been able to do through being an
expert at figures.
The reaction made Tommy feel faint and cold.
Mr. Leigh leisurely folded the sheets together and silently returned
them to his son.
“Well?” said Tommy, not knowing that he spoke sharply because the secret
had come to life again in this room. “What do you think of it now?”
“Did Mr. Thompson himself prepare these figures?”
“Yes--at least I think so. Why?”
“It is a remarkable statement, prepared by an expert for the sole
benefit of laymen who don't know anything about accounts, which is
something that expert accountants are not usually able to do, since they
do not work for the ignorant. A highly intelligent exhibit, because it
is easily intelligible and withal free from technical subterfuges. I can
vouch for its honesty. But I do not think you can interest capital with
this literature, Thomas.”
“But you haven't grasped the point, father. I am not looking for
capital, but for friends--”
“With capital. It is the same, as far as concerns the owners of the
capital.”
Tommy had feared the same thing, and also had feared to believe it.
“I must do it somehow,” said Tommy, very earnestly.
“I naturally wish you to succeed, Thomas,” said Mr. Leigh, very quietly.
After a pause he added, almost diffidently: “Possibly, I--I might be
able to help you, my son--”
“I must do it myself,” interjected Tommy, quickly. “I--I must.”
Mr. Leigh seemed on the point of saying something that Tommy might not
like to hear, but checked himself and finally said: “I hope you may
succeed. It will be difficult work and--But you must be tired from your
traveling?”
He looked at Tommy doubtfully, and Tommy, who wished to be alone with
his thoughts and his new heartache, said:
“I am, rather; but I thought I'd take a look at the evening papers. I'll
go out and get them.”
“You will find them in the library--all of them.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, I--I had forgotten which was your favorite.” The old man would not
look at his son. Presently he finished: “I'll read the _Post_. Come, my
son.”
They went up-stairs. Tommy tried to read. He looked at all the papers,
but not even the football gossip held his attention. From time to time
he looked up, to see his father absorbed in the editorial page of the
_Post_. This was evidently a part of his daily routine. Tommy saw him
sitting all alone in the gloomy little room called the library, because
it had been so christened by his mother long years before. Day in and
day out the old man had sat in this room, alone with his thoughts, with
the consciousness of loving vows kept at such a cost!
“Father!” irrepressibly cried Tommy.
“Yes?” said Mr. Leigh, emotionlessly. Even in the way in which he
laid down his paper on his lap there was that curious leisureliness of
senility that somehow savored less of age-feebleness than of years and
years of unchanging habit.
“I am going to bed. I want to feel particularly fit to-morrow.” Tommy
stood there waiting for something, he knew not what exactly--something
that might give him the emotional relief he was not fully conscious he
needed.
“Good night, Thomas,” said Mr. Leigh, and resumed his newspaper.