Young Mr. Boyce was spared the trouble of going to Florida, and
relieved from the embarrassment of inventing lies to his partner
about the trip, which was even more welcome. Only a few days after the
interview with Mrs. Minster, news came of the unexpected death of Lawyer
Clarke, caused by one of those sudden changes of temperature at sunset
which have filled so many churchyards in that sunny clime. His executors
were both resident in Thessaly, and at a word from Mrs. Minster they
turned over to Horace the box containing the documents relating to her
affairs. Only one of these executors, old ’Squire Gedney, expressed
any comment upon Mrs. Minster’s selection, at least in Horace’s hearing.
This Gedney was a slovenly and mumbling old man, the leading
characteristics of whose appearance were an unshaven jaw, a general
shininess and disorder of apparel, and a great deal of tobacco-juice.
It was still remembered that in his youth he had promised to be an
important figure at the bar and in politics. His failure had been
exceptionally obvious and complete, but for some occult reason Thessaly
had a soft corner in its heart for him, even when his estate bordered
upon the disreputable, and for many years had been in the habit of
electing him to be one of its justices of the peace. The functions of
this office he avowedly employed in the manner best calculated to insure
the livelihood which his fellow-citizens expected him to get out of it.
His principal judicial maxim was never to find a verdict against the
party to a suit who was least liable to pay him his costs. If justice
could be made to fit with this rule, so much the better for justice.
But, in any event, the ’squire must look out primarily for his costs.
He made no concealment of this theory and practice; and while some
citizens who took matters seriously were indignant about it, the great
majority merely laughed and said the old man had got to live somehow,
and voted good-naturedly for him next time.
If Calvin Gedney owed much to the amiability and friendly feeling of his
fellow-townsmen, he repaid the debt but poorly in kind. No bitterer or
more caustic tongue than his wagged in all Dearborn County. When he was
in a companiable mood, and stood around in the cigar store and talked
for the delectation of the boys of an evening, the range and scope of
his personal sneers and sarcasms would expand under the influence of
applauding laughter, until no name, be it never so honored, was sacred
from his attack, save always one--that of Minster. There was a popular
understanding that Stephen Minster had once befriended Gedney, and that
that accounted for the exception; but this was rendered difficult of
credence by the fact that so many other men had befriended Gedney, and
yet now served as targets for his most rancorous jeers. Whatever the
reason may have been, however, the ’squire’s affection for the memory
of Stephen Minster, and his almost defiant reverence for the family he
had left behind, were known to all men, and regarded as creditable to
him.
Perhaps this was in some way accountable for the fact that the ’squire
remained year after year in old Mr. Clarke’s will as an executor,
long after he had ceased to be regarded as a responsible person by the
village at large, for Mr. Clarke also was devoted to the Minsters. At
all events, he was so named in the will, in conjunction with a non-legal
brother of the deceased, and it was in this capacity that he addressed
some remarks to Mr. Horace Boyce when he handed over to him the Minster
papers. The scene was a small and extremely dirty chamber off the
justice’s court-room, furnished mainly by a squalid sofa-bed, a number
of empty bottles on the bare floor, and a thick overhanging canopy of
cobwebs.
“Here they are,” said the ’squire, expectorating indefinitely among
the bottles, “and God help ’em! What it all means beats me.”
“I guess you needn’t worry, Cal,” answered Horace lightly, in the easily
familiar tone which Thessaly always adopted toward its unrespected
magistrate. “You’d better come out and have a drink; then you’ll see
things brighter.”
“Damn your impudence, you young cub!” shouted the ’squire, flaming up
into sudden and inexplicable wrath. “Who are you calling ‘Cal’? By the
Eternal, when I was your age, I’d have as soon bitten off my tongue as
dared call a man of my years by his Christian name! I can remember your
great-grandfather, the judge, sir. I was admitted before he died; and I
tell you, sir, that if it had been possible for me to venture upon such
a piece of cheek with him, he’d have taken me over his knee, by Gawd!
and walloped me before the whole assembled bar of Dearborn County!”
The old man had worked himself up into a feverish reminiscence of his
early stump-speaking days, and he trembled and spluttered over his
concluding words with unwonted excitement.
Horace felt disposed to laugh. People always did laugh at “Cal” Gedney,
and laugh most when he grew strenuous.
“You’d better get the drink first,” he said, putting the box under his
arm, “and _then_ free your mind.”
“I’ll see you food for worms, first!” shouted the ’squire, still
furiously. “You’ve got your papers, and I’ve got my opinion, and that’s
all there is ’twixt you and me. There’s the door that the carpenters
made, and I guess they were thinking of you when they made it.”
“Upon my word, you’re amusing this morning, ’squire,” said Horace,
looking with aroused interest at the vehement justice. “What’s the
matter with you? Don’t your clothes fit you? Come around to the house
and I’ll rig you up in some new ones.”
The ’squire began with a torrent of explosive profanity, framed in
gestures which almost threatened personal violence. All at once he
stopped short, looked vacantly at the floor, and then sat down on his
bed, burying his face in his hands. From the convulsive clinching of his
fingers among the grizzled, unkempt locks of hair, and the heaving of
his chest, Horace feared he was going to have a fit, and, advancing, put
a hand on his shoulder.
The ’squire shook it off roughly, and raised his haggard,
deeply-furrowed face. It was a strong-featured countenance still, and
had once been handsome as well, but what it chiefly said to Horace now
was that the old man couldn’t stand many more such nights of it as this
last had evidently been.
“Come, ’squire, I didn’t want to annoy you. I’m sorry if I did.”
“You insulted me,” said the old man, with a dignity which quavered into
pathos as he added: “I’ve got so low now, by Gawd, that even you can
insult me!”
Horace smiled at the impracticability of all this. “What the deuce is it
all about, anyway?” he asked. “What have you got against me? I’ve always
been civil to you, haven’t I?”
“You’re no good,” was the justice’s concise explanation.
The young man laughed outright. “I daresay you’re right,” he said,
pleasantly, as one humors a child. “_Now_ will you come out and have a
drink?”
“I’ve not been forty-four years at the bar for nothing--”
“I should think not! Whole generations of barkeepers can testify to
that.”
“I can tell,” went on the old man, ignoring the jest, and rising from
the bed as he spoke; “I can tell when a man’s got an honest face. I
can tell when he means to play fair. And I wouldn’t trust you one inch
farther, Mr. Horace Boyce, than I could throw a bull by the tail. I tell
you that, sir, straight to your teeth.”
Horace, still with the box snugly under his arm, had sauntered out into
the dark and silent courtroom. He turned now, half smiling, and said:
“Third and last call--_do_ you want a drink?”
The old man’s answer was to slam the door in his face with a noise
which rang in reverberating echoes through the desolate hall of justice.
Horace, still smiling, went away.
*****
The morning had lapsed into afternoon, and succeeding hours had brought
the first ashen tints of dusk into the winter sky, before the young man
completed his examination of the Minster papers. He had taken them to
his own room in his father’s house, sending word to the office that he
had a cold and would not come down that day; and it was behind a locked
door that he had studied the documents which stood for millions. On a
sheet of paper he made certain memoranda from time to time, and now that
the search was ended, he lighted a fresh cigar, and neatly reduced these
to a little tabular statement:
[Illustration: 0196]
When Horace had finished this he felt justified in helping himself
to some brandy and soda. It was the most interesting and important
computation upon which he had ever engaged, and its noble proportions
grew upon him momentarily as he pondered them and sipped his drink. More
than two and a quarter millions lay before his eyes, within reach of his
hand. Was it not almost as if they were his? And of course this did not
represent everything. There was sundry village property that he knew
about; there would be bank accounts, minor investments and so on, quite
probably raising the total to nearly or quite two millions and a half.
Oh, to think of it!
And he had only put things down at par values. The telegraph stock was
quoted at a trifle less, just now, but if there had been any Minster
Iron-works stock for sale, it would command a heavy premium. The
scattering investments, too, which yielded an average of five per cent.,
must be worth a good deal more than their face. What he didn’t like
about the thing was that big block of Thessaly Manufacturing Company
stock. That seemed to be earning nothing at all; he could find no record
of dividends, or, in truth, any information whatever about it. Where had
he heard about that company before? The name was curiously familiar to
his mind; he had been told something about it--by whom?
All at once it flashed upon him. That was the company of which the
mysterious Judge Wendover was president. Tenney had talked about it;
Tenney had told him that he would hear a good deal about it before long.
As these reflections rose in the young man’s mind, the figures which
he had written down on the paper seemed to diminish in size and
significance. It was a queer notion, but he couldn’t help feeling that
the millions had somehow moved themselves farther back, out of his
reach. The thought of these two men--of the gray-eyed, thin-lipped,
abnormally smart Tenney, and of that shadowy New York financier who
shared his secrets--made him nervous. They had a purpose, and he was
more or less linked to it and to them, and Heaven only knew where he
might be dragged in the dark. He finished his glass and resolved that
he would no longer remain in the dark. To-morrow he would see Tenney and
Mrs. Minster and Reuben, and have a clear understanding all around.
There came sharp and loud upon his door a peremptory knocking, and
Horace with a swift movement slipped the paper on which he had made the
figures into the box, and noiselessly closed the cover. Then he opened
the door, and discovered before him a man whom for the instant, in the
dim light of the hall, he did not recognize. The man advanced a
step, and then Horace saw that it was--strangely changed and unlike
himself--his father!
“I didn’t hear you come in,” said the young man, vaguely confused by the
altered appearance of the General, and trying in some agitation of mind
to define the change and to guess what it portended.
“They told me you were here,” said the father, moving lumpishly forward
into the room, and sinking into a chair. “I’m glad of it. I want to talk
to you.”
His voice had suddenly grown muffled, as if with age or utter weariness.
His hands lay palm upward and inert on his fat knees, and he buried his
chin in his collar helplessly. The gaze which he fastened opaquely upon
the waste-paper basket, and the posture of his relaxed body, suggested
to Horace a simple explanation. Evidently this was the way his
delightful progenitor looked when he was drunk. It was not a nice sight.
“Wouldn’t it be better to go to bed now, and talk afterward?” said the
young man, with asperity.
The General looked up at his son. He clearly understood the purport of
the question, and gathered his brows at first in a half-scowl. Then the
humor of the position appealed to him, and he smiled instead--a grim
and terrifying smile which seemed to darken rather than illumine his
purplish face.
“Did you think I was drunk, that you should say that?” he asked, with
the ominous smile still on his lips. He added, more slowly, and with
something of his old dignity: “No--I’m merely ruined!”
“It has come, has it?” The young man heard himself saying these words,
but they sounded as if they had issued from other lips than his. He had
schooled himself for a fortnight to realize that his father was actually
insolvent, yet the shock seemed to find him all unprepared.
“Then you expected it? You knew about it?”
“Tenney told me last month that it must come, sooner or later.”
The General offered an invocation as to Mr. Tenney’s present existence
and future state which, solemnly impressive though it was, may not be
set down here.
“So I say, too, if you like,” answered Horace, beginning to pace the
room. “But that will hardly help us just now. Tell me just what has
happened.”
“Sit down, then: you make me nervous, tramping about like that. The
villain simply asked me to step into the office for a minute, and then
took out his note-book, cool as a cucumber. ‘I thought I’d call your
attention to how things stand between us.’ he said, as if I’d been a
country customer who was behindhand with his paper. Then the scoundrel
calmly went on to say that my interest in the partnership was worth less
than nothing; that I already owed him more than the interest would come
to, if the business were sold out, and that he would like to know what I
proposed to do about it. By Heaven! that’s what he said to me, and I sat
there and listened to him.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him what I thought of him. He hasn’t heard so much straight,
solid truth about himself before since he was weaned, I’ll bet!”
“But what good was that? He isn’t the sort who minds that kind of thing.
What did you tell him you would do?”
“Break his infernal skull for him if he ever spoke to me again!”
Horace almost smiled, as he felt how much older he was than this
red-faced, white-haired boy, who could fight and drink and tell funny
stories, world without end, but was powerless to understand business
even to the extent of protecting his interest in a hardware store. But
the tendency to smile was painfully short-lived; the subject was too
serious.
“Well, tell _me_, then, what you are going to do!”
“Good God!” broke forth the General, raising his head again. “What _can_
I do! Crawl into a hole and die somewhere, I should think. I don’t see
anything else. But before I do, mark me, I’ll have a few minutes alone
with that scoundrel, in his office, in the street, wherever I can find
him; and if I don’t fix him up so that his own mother won’t know him,
then my name isn’t ‘Vane’ Boyce!”
“Tut-tut,” said the prudent lawyer of the family. “Men don’t die because
they fail in the hardware business, and this isn’t Kentucky. We don’t
thrash our enemies up here in the North. Do you want me to see Tenney?”
“I suppose so--if you can stomach a talk with the whelp. He said
something, too, about talking it over with you, but I was too raving mad
to listen. Have you had any dealings with him?”
“Nothing definite. We’ve discussed one or two little things--in the
air--that is all.”
The General rose and helped himself to some neat brandy from his son’s
_liqueur_-stand. “Well, if you do--you hear me--he’ll singe you clean as
a whistle. By God, he won’t leave so much as a pin-feather on you!”
Horace smiled incredulously. “I rather think I can take care of Mr.
Schuyler Tenney,” said he, with a confident front. “I’ll go down and see
him now, if you like, and don’t you worry yourself about it. I daresay
I can straighten it out all right. The best thing you can do is to
say nothing at all about your affairs to anybody. It might complicate
matters if he heard that you had been publicly proclaiming your
intention of beating him into a jelly. I don’t know, but I can fancy
that he might not altogether like that. And, above all things, don’t get
down on your luck. I guess we can keep our heads above water, Tenney or
no Tenney.”
The young man felt that it was distinctly decent of him to thus assume
responsibility for the family, and did not look to see the General take
it so much as a matter of course. But that distinguished soldier had
quite regained his spirits, and smacked his lips over a second glass of
brandy with smiling satisfaction, as if Tenney had already been turned
out of the hardware store, neck and crop.
“All right! You go ahead, and let him have it from the shoulder. Give
him one for me, while you’re about it,” he said, with his old robust
voice and hearty manner all come back again. The elasticity of this
stout man’s temperament was a source of perpetual wonderment to his
slender son.
Yet Horace, too, had much the same singular capacity for shaking off
trouble, and he saw matters in quite a hopeful light as he strode along
down toward Main Street. Clearly Tenney had only meant to frighten the
General.
He found his father’s partner in the little office boxed off the store,
and had a long talk with him--a talk prolonged, in fact, until after
business hours. When he reflected upon this conversation during his
homeward journey, he could recall most distinctly that he had told
Tenney everything about the Minsters which the search of the papers
revealed. Somehow, the rest of the talk had not seemed to be very
important. Tenney had laughed lightly when the question of the General
came up, and said: “Oh, you needn’t bother about that. I only wanted him
to know how things stood. He can go on as long as he likes; that is,
of course, if you and I continue to work together.” And Horace had said
that he was much obliged, and would be glad to work with Mr. Tenney--and
really that had been the sum of the whole conversation.
Or yes, there had been one other thing. Tenney had said that it would
be best now to tell Reuben Tracy that Mrs. Minster had turned over her
affairs to him--temporarily, at least--but not to discuss them with him
at all, and not to act as if he thought they were of special importance.
Horace felt that this could easily be done. Reuben was the least
suspicious man in the world, and the matter might be so stated to him
that he would never give it a second thought.
The General received over the supper-table the tidings that no evil
was intended to him, much as his son had expected him to; that is, with
perfectly restored equanimity. He even admitted that Tenney was within
his rights to speak as he did, and that there should be no friction
provoked by any word or act of his.
“I don’t like the man, you know,” he said, between mouthfuls, “but it’s
just as well that I should stick by him. He’s skinned me dry, and my
only chance is now to keep friendly with him, in the hope that when he
begins skinning other people he’ll let me make myself good out of the
proceeds.”
This worldly wisdom, emanating from such an unlikely source, surprised
the young man, and he looked up with interest to his father’s face,
red-shining under the lamplight.
“I mean what I say,” continued the General, who ate with unfailing gusto
as he talked. “Tenney as much as said that to me himself, awhile ago.”
Horace nodded with comprehension. He had thought the aphorism too
concise and strong for his father’s invention.
“And I could guess with my eyes shut how he’s going to do it,” the
elder Boyce went on. “He’s got a lot of the stock of the Thessaly
Manufacturing Company, the one that’s built the rolling mills in
connection with the Minster iron-works, and the rest of the stock is
held in New York; and some fine day the New Yorkers will wake up and
find themselves cleaned out. Oh, I know Mr. Tenney’s little ways!”
The General wagged his round head upon its thick neck with complacency
at his superior insight, but Horace finished his supper in silence. He
did not see very far into the millstone yet, but already he guessed that
the stockholders who were to be despoiled lived in Thessaly and not New
York. A strange, amorphous vision of the looting of the millions arose
like a mirage between him and the shaded lamplight, and he looked into
its convolving vortex half in terror, half in trembling fascination.
Suddenly he felt himself impelled to say--why he could not tell--“I
might as well speak to you about it. It is my ambition to marry Miss
Kate Minster. I think I shall succeed.”
The General almost upset his chair in his eagerness to rise, lean over
the table, and shake hands with his son.