The story, as James Willoughby Parkhurst wrote it, and even as the
_Planet_ printed it, was a masterpiece. It was far more interesting than
a fake. The truth often may be stranger than fiction, but it is seldom
so exciting. With the generous desire to repay Jerningham's hospitality
with kindness, to say nothing of an eye for the picturesque, the
reporter made his victim an Admirable Crichton. Parkhurst's
Jerningham was very distinguished-looking, which every woman knows is
better for a man than being handsome. He not only was “probably the
richest man in the world,” but a fine linguist--indeed, a philologist.
You saw Jerningham digging in his gravel-bank by day---spadeful after
spadeful of clear gold-dust--and at nights reading Aristophanes in the
original by the flickering and malodorous light of seal-fat lamps.
On the same day that Jerningham learned that his own wealth was
practically inexhaustible, and decided to limit his income in order that
gold might not be demonetized, he--the philologist in him--discovered
also amazing analogies between certain Eskimo and Aleutian words and
their equivalents in Tibetan. This and a monograph on “Totemism in
the Light of Its Undoubted Babylonian Origin,” he would read in London
before the Royal Society. Of Jerningham's ancestry the article said that
the erudite Croesus was “of the Long Island Jerninghams.”
At three separate and distinct places in the article, each time
differently worded, but the intention and purpose thereof being the
same, the writer said that for generosity, lavish extravagance, capacity
for spending, and deep-rooted belief that there was no difference
between gold coins and stage money, the learned Klondiker was a
combination of Monte Cristo, Boni de Castellane, Coal-Oil Johnny, and
Alcibiades--only more so. But his feverish efforts were all in vain--he
only grew richer! If he decided to give a million to a newsboy who was
polite, that same moment he would be sure to get a cablegram from one of
his superintendents that the vein had widened to three miles and the
assays jumped to three hundred thousand dollars a ton.
Parkhurst finished by saying that Jerningham had no use for women. In
divers countries world-famous sirens had sung to him--in vain. He
was the kind that registered zero, even though plunged to the chin in
Vesuvian lava. So the dear things might as well save time, breath, and
muscular exertion; he would have none of them, no matter what their age,
color of hair, temperament, accomplishments, or even faces might be.
He was arrow-proof and Cupid had given up trying. Still, there must be
One--somewhere!
When J. Willoughby Parkhurst went to the Hotel Brabant on Monday morning
in the hope of a second-day story, he was not sure how Jerningham would
take his masterpiece. He was going so early in the hope of shunting
off the head-line artists of the afternoon papers, for all that he had
begged Stewart to fix it so that nobody got to Jerningham before the
_Planet_ man turned up.
As he entered the lobby he saw in a corner lounge five reporters
from the yellows, three photographers from same, a professor from the
Afternoon Three-Center, and a “psychological portraitist,” feminine and
fat, but dressed with unusual care and even piquancy, from a magazine.
He saw Jemingham's finish--not!
The competitors were too busy talking to see J. Willoughby Parkhurst,
author of the day's sensation, walk up to the desk and greet Stewart
affectionately. They did not see J. W. P. turn sharply, approach a
well-built, square-shouldered man, with an outdoor complexion, who had
just emerged from the elevator, and shake hands warmly.
After one and a half seconds of dialogue, consisting of “Good morning!”
and “Good morning!” J. Willoughby cleverly realized that Mr. Alfred
Jemingham could not possibly have read the article. On general
principles he took the Klondiker to one end of the corridor, out of
sight of the other reporters.
“I am very anxious to make arrangements to store my gold in some bank's
vaults. I don't know any bank--that is, I have no account in any; and I
wondered if I needed to be introduced.”
Jemingham looked anxiously at Parkhurst.
“Of course!” said J. Willoughby, and immediately looked alarmed. “Of
course! They are very particular--very! The good ones, you know. A man's
bank is like a man's club--it can give him a social standing or it can
prove he hasn't any.” He looked at his Klondike friend with a frown of
anxiety.
“I never thought of that side of it. But I can see there is much in what
you say. I should like to put the gold in the VanTwiller Trust Company.”
“Fine! I think I can help you. I'll call up our Wall Street man and he
will make the trust company take it--unless he thinks there is another
still better. Let's go to your room and telephone from there; and we'll
tell Stewart to tell the telephone operator not to bother us--what?”
J. Willoughby intended that Jemingham should be the sole and exclusive
property of the _Planet_. From Jerningham's sumptuous room he called up
the office, ordered a corps of photographers to the battlefield to take
pictures of sundry loads of gold on trucks on their way to the great
vaults, escorted by the _Planet's_ special commissioner in one of the
armored automobiles which the _Planet_ supplied to its bright young men.
Then he called up Amos F. Kidder, the _Planet's_ financial editor;
and Kidder, who, of course, knew the president of the VanTwiller
Trust Company, Mr. Ashton Welles, hustled thitherward and made all
arrangements, including the securing of the trucks owned by Tommy
O'Loughlin, who did all the gold-trucking for W. H. Garrettson &
Company, Wolff, Herzog & Company, and other gold-shipping banking firms.
Photographers were duly stationed at the various points by which the
aureate procession would pass.
Mr. J. Willoughby Parkhurst had the boxes of gold-dust taken out by the
ash-and-cinder exit, caused his fellow-reporters to be “tipped off” by
hall-boys that the gold would be taken away at twelve-thirty sharp to
the Metropolitan National Bank vaults, and then took Jerningham in the
_Planet's_ automobile and followed the trucks.
In Wall Street Parkhurst introduced Jerningham to the waiting Kidder,
and Kidder introduced Jerningham to the waiting Mr. Welles. The gold was
carried down to the vaults. Jerningham separated twenty boxes from the
heap.
“I'd like to have these cashed,” he said, with that delightful humor of
all very rich men. And everybody within hearing laughed, as everybody
always laughs at the so-delightful humor of all very rich men. There was
not a clerk in the trust company who did not repeat the historic remark
at home that night.
Word of what was happening went about, and soon the great little narrow
street was blocked by people who wished to see six or eight millions go
into a place where there were one hundred and fifty. But there was this
difference--the one hundred and fifty already there would stay there;
but a handful or two of the six or eight might be distributed among
those present by the latest Coal-Oil Johnny from the Klondike. The hope
of a stray nugget or two kept two thousand busy people about the doors
of the VanTwiller Trust Company nearly two hours.
As for Jerningham, the trust company was to send the twenty boxes of
gold-dust to the Assay Office and credit Mr. Jerninghan's account with
the proceeds of the sale thereof. Two days later Mr. Alfred Jerningham
had to his credit in the VanTwiller Trust Company $1,115,675.28; and
in the vaults boxes containing, as per his most conservative estimates,
gold-dust valued at six millions and a half. And everybody knew
it--the Planet saw to that. Great potentialities in that golden fame of
Jerningham's--what?