A vague alarm came into her purple-blue eyes. She was on the point of
speaking, but he held up his hand, and said, earnestly:
“Please don't say it. We'll meet in London. You will enjoy the
Continent later on. Now let us go and get your letter of credit, and see
whether you like the stateroom that I ordered reserved.” They did.
On the next day Jerningham's limousine took Miss Keogh and her
hand-luggage to the steamer.-Jerningham was there to see her off.
She had invited a dozen of her friends to do the same, and they were
there--all of them women and most of them frankly envious, for her
stateroom was full of beautiful flowers and baskets of wonderful
fruit--quite as if she already were a millionaire!
As she said good-by to Jerningham there was in her eyes a look of
intelligent, almost cold-blooded, gratitude which seemed to embrace Mr.
Jerningham's kindness, his thoughtfulness, and his bank account.
“I wish you a very pleasant voyage!” he said. “Think over my offer. When
you get to London will you mail these letters for me? Remember, you are
to cable if you need anything, money or advice--or a husband. And cable
at once if Mrs. Deering cables. Good-by! _Bon voyage!_”
When Miss Keogh came to open the package of letters she found in it
thirty-three, stamped with British stamps, on stationery of Thornton's
Hotel'! They were addressed in a woman's handwriting to various business
houses, some of which she recognized as manufacturers of medical goods
and agents of mineral waters of the kind used by people who suffer
from kidney diseases. It made her think that if--between the deluge
of medical prospectuses and Miss Keogh's efforts--Mrs. Deering did
not cable for her only daughter it would be a wonder! Jerningham was
neglecting nothing to succeed.
V
Frank Wolfe's first task in his new and now famous job consisted
of helping Jerningham buy two automobiles. Then, when the weather
permitted, they toured Westchester County and Long Island.
Usually they took along some of Frank's men friends. It was pleasant
work---at the rate of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.
Jerningham did not again refer to his love-affair, and Frank could not
very well allude to it; but it was perfectly plain to the young man that
within a very short time their friendship would be sufficiently strong
to justify Mr. Jerningham in asking Frank to help actively in the search
of the vanished Naida Deering.
One day Mr. Jerningham waited in vain for young Mr. Wolfe. They had
planned to go to Mount Kisco to look at a farm that was offered for
sale, Mr. Jerningham having developed the usual millionaire's desire
to own an estate. At one o'clock the telephone-bell rang. Jerningham
answered in person. He heard a feminine voice say that Mr. Wolfe
regretted that a severe indisposition had prevented him from going
as usual to Mr. Jerningham's rooms, but he hoped to be sufficiently
recovered to have that pleasure on the next day.
Jerningham merely said, “Say I hope it is nothing serious--and ask him,
please, whether there is anything I can do.”
Silence. Then: “He says, 'No--thanks!' It is nothing very serious.”
“Tell him not to come down until he has entirely recovered and to take
good care of himself. Good-by!”
If Mr. Jerningham heard the tinkling music of an irrepressible giggle at
the other end of the wire he did not show it. His face was serious as
he found an address in the telephone-directory. He called up the
Brown Lecture Bureau and made an appointment to see Captain Brown, the
manager, at 3 p.m. At that hour, to the minute, he was ushered into the
private offices of the world-famous manager of the lecture bureau.
“Captain Brown?”
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
“I should like to know what lecturers you have available at the moment,”
said Jerningham.
The Klondiker did not look like the chairman of a church entertainment
committee or like a village philanthropist. So Captain Brown asked:
“Where is the--er--Is it a club?”
“No. It is myself. Here in New York.”
“Well, we provide speakers and lecturers, not exactly entertainers,
to--”
“I know all that. I wish to know whom you could send me to entertain me.
Let me see! Is Commander Finsen, the explorer, here now?”
“Yes.”
“And his terms?”
“It depends upon where it is.”
Evidently Jerningham did not think Captain Brown realized what was
wanted, for he said, earnestly:
“Captain Brown, get this clearly fixed in your mind, if you please: I
am anxious to hear some of your lecturers by myself alone, in my own
apartments. I wish men who have done things--men who are, above
all things, brave and resourceful. I don't want decadent poets, but
explorers, gentlemen adventurers, humanists, or scientists, who have a
knack of imparting their knowledge in such a way as to interest men who
are neither old nor scientific. I am perfectly willing to pay your usual
rate. What's the odds if one of your clients spends an evening with
me or whether he spends it in Norwalk, Connecticut, or Boundbrook, New
Jersey? Do you get me?”
“Oh, perfectly. I might suggest--”
Here the genial manager ceased speaking to smile, grateful that so
unusual a man as Jerningham should condescend to listen. It was a
habit--this thankful smiling--that came from having dealt with geniuses
for thirty years. Then Captain Brown permitted himself to suggest a
dozen or more men who had very interesting stories to tell. Jerningham
asked him to make a memorandum of the men and their specialties, and
agreed to call on Captain Brown when he needed entertainment. After
Captain Brown had given him the names and prices, Jerningham gave his
own name and address.
Captain Brown looked grieved. He read the newspapers. He might have
asked double the fees from the Alaskan Monte Cristo!
On the next day, when Mr. Francis Wolfe showed up with never a trace of
anything but good health on his pleasing face, Jerningham invited him to
spend the next evening in the apartments and hear Finsen tell how he had
discovered the tribe of Antarctic giants, the shortest of whom was seven
feet three inches; and how he had captured alive, thirty-three white
bears. He asked Frank to invite five friends who might be interested,
first, in dining with Jerningham and Commander Finsen, and then in
hearing Finsen spin his yarn.
Frank gladly undertook to find the audience.
So they had a very nice little dinner, with just enough to drink and no
killjoys in activity. And later, in Jerningham's little sitting-room at
the hotel, they heard the great Dane, who was a prosaic viking with
iron muscles and pale-blue eyes that made you uncomfortable for reasons
unknown, tell them all about his remarkable voyage of discovery and his
hunts--no end of things that he could tell them, but could not tell
a mixed audience: perfectly amazing details, of which Frank and his
friends talked for weeks.
Then there was a little midnight supper, at which they all told stories
that left no unpleasant aftereffects.
One day after luncheon Jerningham, who had been in a particularly jovial
mood, suddenly became very serious. He aimed at Frank one of those
searching looks that seemed to go to the young man's soul. Then he said:
“My boy, I'd like to say something to you.”
“Say it.”
“I shall probably hurt your feelings, so you must be prepared to keep
your temper well in hand.”
“You ought to know me better than that by now, Jerningham,” retorted
Frank. He had grown not only to like, but even to admire, this strange
miner.
“Wolfe,” said Jerningham, slowly, “you are one of those unfortunate
chaps who are cruelly handicapped by perennial youth. It is doubtless a
pleasing thing to feel at fifty as you did at twenty. Nevertheless,
it is bad business. It is all very nice to shun responsibility, but it
makes you careless; and you can't expect to saddle consequences on your
guardian after you are twenty-one. A boy of forty can't be trusted to
take care of his own property.”
“I can take care of mine,” laughed Frank, “without any trouble.” His
property was about minus thirty thousand.
“Your property now--yes. But suppose you had a million or two left
you--or even more? Do you know what would happen to those millions, and
do you know what would happen to you?”
“I know--but I won't tell.”
“Will you let me tell you?” asked Jerningham, so earnestly that Frank
almost stopped smiling.
“I'll hear you to the bitter end.”
“The millions would go from your pocket into the pockets of--well, you
know whose pockets! And your life would go into the Big Beyond by the W.
W. route.”
“I bite. What's W. W.?”
“Wine and woman. You would last perhaps five years. You would die a
dipsomaniac at thirty or thereabout. The chief folly of fighting booze
when you are rich is that it renders wealth utterly futile.”
“How?”
“Well, you can get just as drunk on ten dollars a day as you can on one
thousand dollars--with this difference, that in the one case you would
have to get drunk on whisky by yourself and in the other you might get
drunk on vintage champagne in the company of paid parasites. The morning
after is the same in both cases: you don't remember any more of the
ten-dollar jag than of the thousand-dollar orgy! When a drunkard sets
out to squander a million all he really does is to carry a sign on
his back with letters a mile high--the sign reading, 'I am a d------d
fool!”'
Frank took it good-naturedly because he liked Jemingham and because he
was not a millionaire. It really would be asinine to be a millionaire
and try to drink all there was; so he said, amiably:
“Having downed the Demon Rum, then what?”
“I'll put it up to you this way: I have no family and I may never marry.
I certainly won't if I don't find my first and only sweetheart. Suppose
I felt like leaving you some of my money? You are a nice boy, but you
also have been a D. F., and you must admit that no man likes to see his
friend trying to beat all D. F. records. Don't get mad and don't look
indignant! I want to make a proposition to you: I'll agree to deposit to
your account in a trust company one hundred dollars a day for every day
you don't touch a drop! I don't want to reform you. I merely want to
train you--in case! There will be some times when you will forfeit that.
It will amount to paying one hundred dollars for a Martini. It will
become a luxury.”
“Too expensive for me!” said Frank, seriously. “And, my boy, it is more
than being on the water-wagon--it's being able to stay on! Booze is so
foolish! I want to give you some business matters--for you to handle for
me.”
“You know what I know about business--”
“Can't you do as you are told? Don't you know enough to look clever and
say, 'Sign here!' in a frozen voice?”
“Oh yes. But--”
“I know you will miss your evenings at first. But I'll tell you what to
do. I am no killjoy. Well, you spend as many evenings as you wish with
me. Invite as many friends as you please--sex no bar. Will you?”
“Jemingham, you are a nice chap. I'll do it. But you must not think of
that one hundred dollars--”
“Tut-tut! Can't you understand that I want to do it--that I love to see
your bank account grow? Run along now. I want to read Lucretius.”
From that day Francis Wolfe became Jemingham's inseparable companion.
Every night they went to the theater together or else they spent the
evening in Jemingham's rooms, listening to celebrities. Their evenings
soon became famous. Indeed, people began to talk about Frank Wolfe's
reform. Even his fairest and frailest friends, knowing that Frank
forfeited one hundred dollars a day by falling off the water-wagon,
kept him firmly on the seat--and borrowed the hundred. In due time
the miracle reached the ears of Frank's sisters and of his aunt, Mrs.
Stimson. They had a talk with Frank. They were first amazed, then
delighted, when they saw Frank and when they heard about Jerningham's
intention of making him his heir.
Thus it came about that, out of gratitude for the man who was making a
man of their brother, Mrs.
John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham accepted Mr. Jerningham's
invitation and attended one of the lectures at the Klondiker's
apartments. The little supper that followed was a great success. Mr.
Jemingham talked little, but extremely well--as when he said to Mrs.
Jack in a low voice that he loved Frank Wolfe and some day everybody
would be sure of it!
“I am merely training him. But don't think I am asking the impossible. I
wish him to know enough to hold on to what I'll leave him.”
Of course after that Mr. Jerningham was not only in society, but even
in a fair way of becoming a fad. Gerald Lanier, the short-story writer,
said that Jerningham was society's gold cure and had climbed into the
inner circles on a ladder made of tightly corked wine-bottles; in fact,
he wrote what his nonliterary friends called a skit--and Frank's friends
a knock--entitled: “How to Capitalize Intemperance.” But that did not
hinder Jerningham from receiving invitations from families with thirsty
younger sons.