In the great field of armed politics in Europe, every now and again
there arises a situation which everybody agrees must inevitably result
in war. Yet just when the newspapers have reached their highest state
of excitement, and “sensational incidents” and “significant occurrences”
are crowding one another in the hurly-burly of alarmist despatches with
utmost impressiveness, somehow the cloud passes away, and the sun comes
out again--and nothing has happened.
The sun did not precisely shine for Horace Boyce in the weeks which now
ensued, but at least the crisis that had threatened to engulf him was
curiously delayed. Mr. Tenney did not even ask him, on that dreaded
Monday, what decision he had arrived at. A number of other Mondays went
by, and still no demand was made upon him to announce his choice. On the
few occasions when he met his father’s partner, it was the pleasure of
that gentleman to talk on other subjects.
The young man began to regain his equanimity. The February term of Oyer
and Terminer had come and gone, and Horace was reasonably satisfied with
the forensic display he had made. It would have been much better, he
knew, if he had not been worried about the other thing; but, as it was,
he had won two of the four cases in which he appeared, had got on well
with the judge, who invited him to dinner at the Dearborn House, and
had been congratulated on his speeches by quite a number of lawyers. His
foothold in Thessaly was established.
Matters about the office had not gone altogether to his liking, it was
true. For some reason, Reuben seemed all at once to have become more
distant and formal with him. Horace could not dream that this arose from
the discoveries his partner had made at the milliner’s shop, and so put
the changed demeanor down vaguely to Reuben’s jealousy of his success
in court. He was sorry that this was so, because he liked Reuben
personally, and the silly fellow ought to be glad that he had such a
showy and clever partner, instead of sulking. Horace began to harbor the
notion that a year of this partnership would probably be enough for him.
The Citizens’ Club had held two meetings, and Horace felt that the
manner in which he had presided and directed the course of action at
these gatherings had increased his hold upon the town. Nearly fifty
men had now joined the club, and next month they were to discuss the
question of a permanent habitation. They all seemed to like him
as president, and nebulous thoughts about being the first mayor of
Thessaly, when the village should get its charter, now occasionally
floated across the young man’s mind.
He had called at the Minster house on each Tuesday since that
conversation with Miss Kate, and now felt himself to be on terms almost
intimate with the whole household. He could not say, even to himself,
that his suit had progressed much; but Miss Kate seemed to like him, and
her mother, whom he also had seen at other times on matters of business,
was very friendly indeed.
Thus affairs stood with the rising young lawyer at the beginning of
March, when he one day received a note sent across by hand from Mr.
Tenney, asking him to come over at once to the Dearborn House, and meet
him in a certain room designated by number.
Horace was conscious of some passing surprise that Tenney should make
appointments in private rooms of the local hotel, but as he crossed the
street to the old tavern and climbed the stairs to the apartment named,
it did not occur to him that the summons might signify that the crisis
which had darkened the first weeks of February was come again.
He found Tenney awaiting him at the door, and after he had perfunctorily
shaken hands with him, discovered that there was another man inside,
seated at the table in the centre of the parlor, under the chandelier.
This man was past middle-age, and both his hair and the thick, short
beard which covered his chin and throat were nearly white. Horace noted
first that his long upper lip was shaven, and this grated upon him
afresh as one of the least lovely of provincial American customs. Then
he observed that this man had eyes like Tenney’s in expression, though
they were blue instead of gray; and as this resemblance came to him,
Tenney spoke:
“Judge Wendover, this is the young man we’ve been talking about--Mr.
Horace Boyce, son of my partner, the General, you know.”
The mysterious New Yorker had at last appeared on the scene, then. He
did not look very mysterious, or very metropolitan either, as he rose
slowly and reached his hand across the table for Horace to shake. It was
a fat and inert hand, and the Judge himself, now that he stood up, was
seen to be also fat and dumpy in figure, with a bald head, noticeably
high at the back of the skull, and a loose, badly fitted suit of
clothes.
“Sit down,” he said to Horace, much as if that young man had been a
stenographer called in to report a conversation. Horace took the chair
indicated, not over pleased.
“I haven’t got much time,” the Judge continued, speaking apparently to
the papers in front of him. “There’s a good deal to do, and I’ve got to
catch that 5.22 train.”
“New Yorkers generally do have to catch trains,” remarked Horace. “So
far as I could see, the few times I’ve been there of late years, that is
always the chief thing on their minds.”
Judge Wendover looked at the young man for the space of a second, and
then turned to Tenney and said abruptly:
“I suppose he knows how the Thessaly Mfg. Company stands? How it’s
stocked?” He pronounced the three letters with a slurring swiftness,
as if to indicate that there was not time enough for the full word
“manufacturing.”
Horace himself answered the question: “Yes, I know. You represent two
hundred and twenty-five to my clients’ one hundred and seventy-five.”
The young man held himself erect and alert in his chair, and spoke
curtly.
“Just so. The capital is four hundred thousand dollars--all paid up.
Well, we need that much more to go on.”
“How ‘go on’? What do you mean?”
“There’s a new nail machine just out which makes our plant worthless. To
buy that, and make the changes, will cost a round four hundred thousand
dollars. Get hold of that machine, and we control the whole United
States market; fail to get it, we go under. That’s the long and short of
it. That’s why we sent for you.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Horace, “but I don’t happen to have four hundred
thousand dollars with me just at the moment. If you’d let me known
earlier, now.”
The Judge looked at him again, with the impersonal point-blank stare
of a very rich and pre-occupied old man. Evidently this young fellow
thought himself a joker.
“Don’t fool,” he said, testily. “Business is business, time is money.
We can’t increase our capital by law, but we can borrow. You haven’t got
any money, but the Minster women have. It’s to their interest to stand
by us. They’ve got almost as much in the concern as we have. I’ve seen
the widow and explained the situation to her. She understands it. But
she won’t back our paper, because her husband on his death-bed made her
promise never to do that for anybody. Curious prejudice these countrymen
have about indorsing notes. Business would stagnate in a day without
indorsing. However, I had another plan. Let her issue four hundred
thousand dollars in bonds on the iron-works. That’s about a third what
they are worth. She’ll consent to that if you talk to her.”
“Oh, _that’s_ where I come in, is it?” said Horace.
“Where else did you suppose?” asked the Judge, puffing for breath, as he
eyed the young man.
No answer was forthcoming, and the New Yorker went on:
“The interest on those bonds will cost her twenty-four thousand dollars
per year for a year or two, but it will make her shares in the Mfg.
Company a real property instead of a paper asset. Besides, I’ve shown
her a way to-day, by going into the big pig-iron trust that is being
formed, of making twice that amount in half the time. Now, she’s going
to talk with you about both these things. Your play is to advise her to
do what I’ve suggested.”
“Why should I?” Horace put the question bluntly.
“I’ll tell you,” answered the Judge, who seemed to like this direct
way of dealing. “You can make a pot of money by it. And that isn’t all.
Tenney and I are not fishing with pin-hooks and thread. We’ve got nets,
young man. You tie up to us, and we’ll take care of you. When you see a
big thing like this travelling your way, hitch on to it. That’s the way
fortunes are made. And you’ve got a chance that don’t come to one young
fellow in ten thousand.”
“I should think he had,” put in Mr. Tenney, who had been a silent but
attentive auditor.
“What will happen if I decline?” asked Horace.
“She will lose her one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars and
a good deal more, and you will lose your business with her and with
everybody else.”
“And your father will lose the precious little he’s got left,” put in
Mr. Tenney.
Horace tried to smile. “Upon my word, you are frank,” he said.
“There’s no time to be anything else,” replied the Judge. “And why
shouldn’t we be? We simply state facts to you. A great commercial
transaction, involving profits to everybody, is outlined before you.
It happens that by my recommendation you are in a place where you can
embarrass its success, for a minute or two, if you have a mind to. But
why in God’s name you should have a mind to, or why you take up time by
pretending to be offish about it, is more than I can make out. Damn it,
sir, you’re not a woman, who wants to be asked a dozen times! You’re a
man, lucky enough to be associated with other men who have their heads
screwed on the right way, and so don’t waste any more time.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Horace, “I haven’t thanked you for
recommending me.”
“You needn’t,” replied the Judge, bluntly. “It was Tenney’s doing. I
didn’t know you from a side of sole-leather. But _he_ thought you were
the right man for the place.”
“I hope you are not disappointed,” Horace remarked, with a questioning
smile.
“A minute will tell me whether I am or not,” the New York man exclaimed,
letting his fat hand fall upon the table. “Come, what is your answer?
Are you with us, or against us?”
“At all events not against you, I should hope.”
“Damn the man! Hasn’t he got a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in him?--Tenney, you’re to
blame for this,” snapped Wendover, pulling his watch from the fob in his
tightened waistband, and scowling at the dial. “I’ll have to run, as it
is.”
He rose again from his chair, and bent a sharp gaze upon Horace’s face.
“Well, young man,” he demanded, “what is your answer?”
“I think I can see my way to obliging you,” said Horace, hesitatingly.
“But, of course, I want to know just how I am to stand in the--”
“That Tenney will see to,” said the Judge, swiftly. He gathered up the
papers on the table, thrust them into a portfolio with a lock on it,
which he gave to Tenney, snatched his hat, and was gone, without a word
of adieu to anybody.
“Great man of business, that!” remarked the hardware merchant, after a
moment of silence.
Horace nodded assent, but his mind had not followed the waddling figure
of the financier. It was dwelling perplexedly upon the outcome of this
adventure upon which he seemed to be fully embarked, and trying to
establish a conviction that it would be easy to withdraw from it at
will, later on.
“He can make millions where other men only see thousands, and they
beyond their reach,” pursued Tenney, in an abstracted voice. “When he’s
your friend, there isn’t anything you can’t do; and he’s as straight
as a string, too, so long as he likes a man. But he’s a terror to have
ag’in you.”
Horace sat closeted with Tenney for a long time, learning the details of
the two plans which had been presented to Mrs. Minster, and which he
was expected to support. The sharpest scrutiny could detect nothing
dishonest in them. Both involved mere questions of expediency--to loan
money in support of one’s stock, and to enter a trust which was to raise
the price of one’s wares--and it was not difficult for Horace to argue
himself into the belief that both promised to be beneficial to his
client.
At the close of the interview Horace said plainly to his companion that
he saw no reason why he should not advise Mrs. Minster to adopt both of
the Judge’s recommendations. “They seem perfectly straightforward,” he
added.
“Did you expect anything else, knowing me all this while?” asked Tenney,
reproachfully.