In dire dread of facing the anger of his father, who was expected back
from Savannah, for having sold the horse which the Colonel himself was
fond of riding, and being in the lowest dregs of despondency and chagrin
over the humiliating turn his affair with Virginia had taken, Langdon
Chester packed his travelling-bag and hurried off to Atlanta.
There he had a middle-aged bachelor cousin, Chester Sively, who was as
fair an example as one could well find of the antebellum Southern man of
the world carried forward into a new generation and a more active and
progressive environment. Fortunately for him, he had inherited a
considerable fortune, and he was enabled to live in somewhat the same
ease as had his aristocratic forebears. He had a luxurious suite of
rooms in one of the old-fashioned houses in Peachtree Street, where he
always welcomed Langdon as his guest, in return for the hospitality of
the latter during the hunting season on the plantation.
"Another row with the head of the house?" he smiled, as he rose from his
easy-chair at a smoking-table to shake hands with the new arrival, who,
hot and dusty, had alighted from a rickety cab, driven by a sleepy negro
in a battered silk top-hat, and sauntered in, looking anything but
cheerful.
"Why did you think that?" Langdon asked, after the negro had put down
his bag and gone.
"Why? Oh, because it has been brewing for a long time, old chap," Sively
smiled; "and because it is as natural for old people to want to curb the
young as it is for them to forget their own youth. When I was up there
last, Uncle Pres could scarcely talk of anything but your numerous
escapades."
"We didn't actually have the _row_," Langdon sighed, "but it would have
come if I hadn't lit out before he got back from Savannah. The truth
is"--the visitor dropped his eyes--"he has allowed me almost no
pocket-money of late, and, getting in a tight place--debts, you know,
and one thing and another--I let my best horse go at a sacrifice the
other day. Father likes to ride him, and he's going to raise sand about
it. Oh, I couldn't stand it, and so I came away. It will blow over, you
know, but it will do so quicker if I'm here and he's there. Besides, he
is always nagging me about having no profession or regular business, and
if I see a fair opening down here, I'm really going to work."
"You'll never do it in this world." Sively laughed, and his dark eyes
flashed merrily as he pulled at his well-trained mustache. "You can no
more do that sort of thing than a cat-fish can hop about in a bird-cage.
In an office or bank you'd simply pine away and die. Your ancestors
lived in the open air, with other people to work for them, and you are
simply too near that period to do otherwise. I know, my boy, because
I've tried to work. If I didn't have private interests that pin me down
to a sort of routine, I'd be as helpless as you are."
"You are right, I reckon." Langdon reached out to the copper bowl on the
table and took a cigar. "I know, somehow, that the few business openings
I have heard of now and then have simply sickened me. When I get as much
city life as is good for me down here, I like to run back to the
mountains. Up there I can take my pipe and gun and dog and--"
"And enjoy life right; you bet you can," Sively said, enthusiastically.
"Well, after all, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. My life
isn't all it's cracked up to be by men who say they are yearning for it.
Between you and me, I feel like a defunct something or other when I hear
these thoroughly up-to-date chaps talking at the club about their big
enterprises which they are making go by the very skin of their teeth.
Why, I know one fellow under thirty who has got every electric car-line
in the city tied to the tips of his fingers. I know another who is about
to get Northern backing for a new railroad from here to Asheville, which
he started on nothing but a scrap of club writing-paper one afternoon
over a bottle of beer. Then there is that darned chap from up your way,
Luke King. He's a corker. He had little education, I am told, and sprang
from the lowest cracker stock, but he's the sensation of the hour down
here."
"He's doing well, then," Langdon said, a touch of anger in his tone as
he recalled Virginia's reference to King on their last meeting.
"Well? You'd think so. Half the capitalists in Atlanta are daft about
him. They call him a great political, financial, and moral force, with a
brain as big as Abraham Lincoln's. I was an idiot. I had a chance to get
in on the ground-floor when that paper of his started, but I was wise--I
was knowing. When I heard the manager of the thing was the son of one of
your father's old tenants, I pulled down one corner of my eye and turned
him over to my financial rivals. You bet I see my mistake now. The stock
is worth two for one, and not a scrap on the market at that. Do you know
what the directors did the other day? When folks do it for you or me we
will feel flattered. They insured his life for one hundred thousand
dollars, because if he were to die the enterprise wouldn't have a leg to
stand on. You see, it's all in his big brain. I suppose you know
something about his boyhood?"
"Oh yes," Langdon said, testily; "we were near the same age, and met now
and then, but, you know, at that time our house was so full of visitors
that I had little chance to see much of people in the neighborhood, and
then he went West."
"Ah, yes," said Sively, "and that's where his boom started. They are
circulating some odd stories on him down here, but I take them all with
a grain of salt. They say he sold out his Western interests for a good
sum and gave every red cent of it to his poor old mother and
step-father."
"That's a fact," said Langdon. "I happen to know that it is absolutely
true. When he got back he found his folks in a pretty bad shape, and he
bought a good farm for them."
"Well, I call that a brave thing," said the older man--"a thing I
couldn't do to save my neck from the halter. No wonder his editorials
have stirred up the reading public; he means what he says. He's the most
conspicuous man in Atlanta to-day. But, say, you want to go to your
room, and I'm keeping you. Go in and make yourself comfortable. I may
not get to see much of you for two or three days. I have to run out of
town with some men from Boston who are with me in a deal for some coal
and iron land, but I'll see you when I return."
"Oh, I can get along all right, thanks," Langdon said, as Pomp, Sively's
negro man-servant, came for his bag in obedience to his master's ring.
Three days later, on his return to town from a trip to the country,
Sively, not seeing anything of his guest, asked Pomp where he was.
"Don't know whar he is now, boss," the negro said, dryly. "I haint seed
'im since dis mawnin', when he got out o' bed an' had me shave 'im up
an' bresh his clothes. I tell you, Marse Sively, dat man's doin'
powerful funny. He's certainly gone wrong somehow."
"Why, what do you mean?" the bachelor asked, in alarm. "He looked all
right when he got here."
"Huh, I don't know what ails 'im, suh," the negro grunted, "but I kin
see he's actin' curious. Dat fust mawnin' when I went in his room to
clean up an' make de baid I come in easy like to keep fum wakin' 'im,
but, bless you, he was already up, standin' at de window lookin' out in
de street an' actually groanin' to hisse'f like some'n' was wrong wid
his insides. I axed 'im what was de matter, an' if he wants me to
telephone fer de doctor, but he lit in to cussin' me at sech a rate dat
I seed it wasn't any ailment o' de flesh, anyway. He ordered me to go to
de cafe fer his breakfast, an' I fetched 'im what he always did
fancy--fried chicken, eggs on toast, an' coffee wid whipped cream--but,
bless you, he let 'em get stone cold on de table, an' wouldn't touch a
thing but what was in yo' decanter."
"You don't tell me," Sively said, anxiously. "What has he been doing of
evenings? Did he go to the Kimball House dance? I had Colville send him
tickets. The Williamsons asked him to their card-party, too. Did he go?"
"Not a step," Pomp replied. "He had me lay out his claw-hammer coat an'
get it pressed at de tailor-shop dat fust night, and stirred around
considerable, wid several drinks in 'im. He even had me clean his
patent-leather pumps and ordered a cab fum de stable. Said he wasn't
goin' to ride in one o' dem rickety street hacks wid numbers on 'em an'
disgrace you. But, suh, de cab come an' I had everything out clean on de
baid even to a fresh tube-rose for his button-hole. He sat around
smokin' and runnin' fer de decanter ever' now and den, but wouldn't take
off a rag of his old clothes, an' kept walkin' de flo', fust to de
winder an' den back to de lounge, whar he'd throw hisse'f down at full
length an' roll an' toss like he had de cramps. I went to 'im, I did, at
ten o'clock, an' told 'im he was gwine to miss de grand promenade an'
let all de rest of 'em fill up de ladies' cards, but he stared at me,
suh, like he didn't know what I was talkin' about, an' den he come to
his senses, an' told me he wasn't goin' to no dance. He went to de
window an' ordered de cab off. De next mawnin' he had all his nice
dress-suit stuffed in a wad in his valise. It was a sight, I'm here to
tell you, an' he was settin' on de baid smoking. He said he'd had enough
o' dis town, an' believed he'd take de train home; but he didn't, suh.
De next night I was sho' oneasy, an' I watched 'im de best I could
widout makin' 'im mad. He et a bite o' de supper I fetched 'im, and den,
atter dark, he started out on foot. I followed 'im, kase I 'lowed you'd
want me to ef you was here."
"Yes, of course," Sively said; "and where did he go?"
"Nowhar, suh--dat is, he didn't stop a single place. He just walked and
walked everywhar and anywhar. It didn't make no odds to him, jest so he
was movin' his laigs. He must 'a' covered five good miles in de most
zigzag travellin' you ever seed--went clean to de gate o' de Exposition
grounds, an' den back, an' plumb round de Capitol and out Washington
Street, wid me on his scent like a blood-hound after a runaway nigger;
but dar wasn't much danger o' me bein' seen, fer he didn't look round.
Well, he finally turned an' come home an' tumbled in baid about two in
de mawnin'. Yesterday de Williamson ladies an' deir maw driv' up to de
do' an' axed about 'im. Dey said he was down on de list fer dinner at
dey house, an', as he didn't come or send no word, dey 'lowed he was
laid up sick. De lawd knows, I didn't know what to tell 'em. I've got
myse'f in trouble befo' now lyin' fer white men widout knowin' what I
was lyin' about, an' I let dat chance slide, an' told 'em I didn't know
a blessed thing about it. Dey driv' off in a big huff; all three dey
backs was as straight as a ironin'-board."
"Have you any idea where he is now?" Sively inquired, anxiously.
"I think he's over at de club, suh. De waiters in de cafe told me dat he
makes a habit o' loungin' round de back smokin'-room by hisse'f."
"Drinking?"
"No, suh--dat is, not any mo'n he kin tote. He walks straight enough, it
jest seems like it's some'n' wrong in his mind, Marse Sively," and Pomp
touched his black brow significantly.
"Well," Sively said, after a moment's reflection, "order the horses and
trap. If I can find him I'll take him out to the Driving Club. I'm glad
I got back. I'll take him in hand. Between me and you, Pomp, I think
he's had bad news from his father. I'm afraid my uncle has really laid
down the law to him, cut off his spending-money, or something of the
kind."