ENGAGED.
It is a name to conjure with in the markets of the World’s Fair city.
Besides, this gentleman with the iron-gray mustache is Dorothy’s father.
Both Craig and Wycherley spring to their feet. The latter smiles in a
peculiar way, as though he sees in this a heaven-sent chance to rise.
Perhaps his education in stocks, his enormous wagering against the
uncertainties of the market, may meet a reward. Everything comes to
those who wait, is the philosophy of this strange adventurer.
“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Cereal. My friend Wycherley, sir. I have had
the pleasure of your daughter’s acquaintance since last winter.”
The elderly gentleman smiles. Aleck notes the firm mouth under the
mustache, and believes poor Adela will wait a long time ere she hears
words of forgiveness for that error so far back in the past, the
fearful blunder that ruined her life. Perhaps he does Samson Cereal
a wrong, but judging from his strong features he believes him to be a
stern man with whom justice goes before mercy.
“I have heard something about your meeting up at Montreal, and my
daughter has told me certain facts that occurred last night--facts that
stamp you a hero----”
“Sir!”
“Facts that make me proud to know you, young man. Let no false modesty
cause you to belittle the deed. I claim that when a man takes his
life in his hands and imperils it for parties unknown to him, who may
be in danger, he rises above the ordinary plane and becomes a hero.
Let us not argue the subject then. I am glad to meet you for your own
sake--glad to know you. Let us sit down again. I have something to say
that is of deepest importance to me.”
He drops into a chair, with one of them on either side. Both the young
men show signs of excitement, and the veteran speculator is the cool
one. Aleck is saying to himself:
“Dorothy has told him how she came to know me--what can he want to see
me for,” and his bachelor heart persists in keeping up a trip-hammer
accompaniment that is rather singular in a man who has been born and
reared in the country of ice and snow.
As for Wycherley, his thoughts run about in this wise:
“Here’s Samson Cereal, the great grain operator, king of the wheat pit.
Let me study him well, since fate has decided that I am to be in the
same line. What would he say if he knew I had plunged on the markets
and came out two million ahead on yesterday’s deal--what, indeed? I
must use my ears--who knows but what in the course of his everyday talk
he may drop some hints that I may seize upon, and use as a ladder upon
which to mount to future success.”
“Mr. Craig, am I right in presuming that this is the gentleman who was
with you last night on the Midway?” begins the operator.
“We were together much of the evening. In one sense he has as much
claim upon your thanks as myself, for only through him was I enabled to
do Miss Dorothy a service,” replies Aleck, with the generous impulse of
making his comrade “solid” with the great manipulator of wheat.
Samson Cereal gravely turns and holds out his hand.
“Allow me, sir; I appreciate the favor,” he says in the singularly deep
voice that has many a time electrified the swaying masses of brokers
and operators on change.
“You are perfectly free to speak upon any subject, sir,” adds Aleck.
“That being the case, I will no longer pique your curiosity, gentlemen.
Am I right in believing that you have through accident learned certain
things connected with a very wretched episode in my life?”
Aleck’s cheeks flush under his gaze, for somehow he feels as though
Samson reproaches him.
“I beg you to believe, sir, I have not pried into your private affairs
through morbid curiosity. A peculiar chain of circumstances, link
fastened to link, one thing leading to another, has given me some
knowledge of certain unhappy events far back in your life. I have not
sought them, and once in my possession they shall go no further, depend
upon it.”
His earnest manner, his frank expression, serve to convince the wheat
king that what he says he means.
“Mr. Craig, I earnestly hope you will never have to encounter the
family troubles that have darkened my past.”
Aleck secretly indorses this. It is bad enough for a bachelor of some
thirty summers to think of being wedded once, let alone several times.
“Twice have I breasted the stormy seas of matrimony, and some fatality
seemed to follow me. Both ventures ended in my being bereft. My first
wife was a Kentucky girl. I have sealed that book so long ago that it
may not be torn open now if I can help it. The boy who came to me as
the fruits of that unhappy union resembled his mother so closely in
features that I could not bear to look upon him. He was at school, a
military academy, until seventeen. Then something like remorse came
upon me. I had married again, and my little Dorothy was more than
twelve. I believe she influenced me--God bless the sunbeam! At any rate
I sent for the lad, and started him in life.
“All went well for a short time. Then another blow fell upon me.
I was being systematically robbed. In my office was a safe. I had
numerous clerks, and John was one. Never dreaming of the truth I set
a detective on the watch, and one day he brought me his report. It
incriminated my own son. At first I was amazed, horror-stricken. Then
my anger arose. I sent for John. He came in smiling, for he was light
of heart. I told him deliberately what I had found out. He turned very
pale and trembled. Fool that I was, I believed these were evidences of
guilt. Then he looked at me proudly and denied it all. I have a furious
temper, Heaven forgive me! I upbraided him, called him names, and
even coupled his mother’s disgrace with his downfall; declaring that
her treacherous nature had descended to him. Then I told him to go. I
remember how proudly he drew himself up and said:
“'You are my father--you send me from you without a hearing. I will
go--I will change my name and never see you again until this blot is
removed from my character.’
“I have never seen him from that time, but he is in the city to-day--he
will be at my house to-night. Dorothy did it all. Through some woman
who was nursing a poor sick man, she received word to come to the
Hahnemann hospital, where he had been taken. She went, and found a
dying man with a confession written and witnessed--a wretched man
who claimed to be the detective I employed. He had found no trouble
in locating the guilty party, but being eager to make more money had
compromised with the thief and agreed to implicate John.
“It seems Dorothy and John have corresponded all this while, and she
wrote him to come on at once, telling him of his vindication. An
agreement was made to meet in the shadow of the Ferris wheel, and hence
she has haunted that place of late.
“I am a stern man, but I hope a just one. Feeling that I have wronged
my boy, I am eager to apologize, to make amends. Unfitted for business,
even on this day when of all others I should be at my office, for
I have momentous deals on foot, I decided to step in here and meet
you, for I can assure you, Mr. Craig, I take a deep interest in your
welfare. Perhaps you are not aware of it, but I know several of
your people up in Montreal and Toronto, and can remember nothing but
kindness received at their hands.”
“I am glad to hear it, sir. On my part I feel it my duty to inform you
that one whom you have looked upon as dead is in Chicago,” says Aleck,
while Wycherley chuckles as he wonders which one is meant, and then
fearing lest his ill-timed merriment may cause the great operator to
look upon him with suspicion, he turns it off into a cough.
Samson Cereal fastens his eyes upon Craig, as though he would read his
soul.
“You refer to whom?”
“The lady you ran away with twenty years ago, near the Bosphorus--the
mother of Dorothy.”
“Good God, man, is she alive and in Chicago? And now I remember--_he_
is here--we met on the Midway and scowled like two pirates. He has
not forgotten--but she alive! Then they two must be leagued to do me
injury, perhaps through Dorothy.”
“You are both wrong and right, sir. He came here to execute the
vengeance that has slumbered twenty years, but knew nothing of her
presence until last night, when he snatched off the gauzy covering
from the face of the Veiled Fortune Teller of Cairo Street, and
beheld--Marda, once your wife, stolen from his servants. I don’t know
her motive in coming here, nor where she has been all these years, but
have some reason to believe it is the natural mother love for her child
that has brought her--perhaps she comes to stand between Aroun Scutari
and his prey.”
Samson Cereal reflects. He is no longer excited, but singularly cool.
When personal danger threatens, this man can be like a block of ice. It
is this trait that has helped him reach the front rank in his chosen
profession.
“You speak of his vengeance--have you an idea what he means to do?”
“Ah! I see Miss Dorothy failed to tell you all.”
“Then suppose you supply the missing link.”
“This Turk plays a game of tit for tat. You stole his bride. Patiently
has he waited as only a Turk could wait. Now he comes to win a bride by
running away with your daughter.”
“Curse his impudence! I’ll have his life for it! I’ll lock him up or
wring his neck.”
“Good enough, sir, but I’d let him get to the end of his tether first.
Give him rope enough, and he’ll hang himself.”
“I expect you’re right, Mr. Craig. Pardon my impetuosity. It’s seldom
I’m aroused like that. I wanted to make your acquaintance, for
something tells me we are fated to see more of each other. You are
coming around to-night, of course. Bring your friend with you. I must
be off to see if that confounded telegram has arrived.”
Aleck and Wycherley look at each other.
“He’s looking for a telegram too,” mutters the latter; “wonder if one
will come for me from Vanderbilt or George Gould, asking me to take
charge.”
“Well, gentlemen, I wish you good-day. Market’s on the rise--a little
excitement--Consolidated----”
Wycherley clutches his arm.
“Don’t tell me sir, it’s gone _higher_?” he exclaims, his face
elongated, his eyes distended.
“Why, yes--two cents above yesterday’s highest quotation.”
The actor puts one hand on his heart, and his whole attitude is one of
bliss.
“Aleck, my _dear_ boy--do you hear that? I had the audacity to back
Consolidated again with half my pile. It means another million to me.”
“What!” roars the big operator, aghast.
Mr. Wycherley recovers himself, while Aleck turns aside so that
his smile may not offend the peculiar fellow he calls friend--the
warm-hearted oddity who has in times past tried nearly every vocation
on the list, only to find himself a round peg in a square hole, and who
is still vainly groping for his true business in life.
Wycherley does not lose his usual assurance in this moment of trial:
“I backed Consolidated yesterday, together with some mining stock, and
the rise boomed me to the skies, two million or so ahead. Indications
warned me to hang on to Consolidated longer, and I went in heavy; with
the result that to-day I am again a million ahead.”
He proudly takes out that wonderful notebook and shows the figures that
tell the story.
Samson Cereal looks at the book and then again at the owner.
“Who were these tremendous deals made with, if it is proper for me to
ask?”
“One Claude Wycherley.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Myself.”
Now a light begins to dawn upon the mind of the old speculator; a grim
smile breaks over his face showing that he is amused.
“Oh, I see! How long have you been indulging in this romantic pastime,
Mr. Wycherley?”
“About three weeks.”
“Faithfully every day?”
“Just as the market held out. I never bought haphazard. My early
experience told me that was ruinous policy--that it was like a game of
chess--each move was but the single play of a series--each move must
have a meaning.”
Again that shrewd head of the veteran wags--such talk pleases him.
“What success have you had from the start?”
“In the beginning, very bad. You can see here I went deep in the mire.
Then I began to reason, and had gleams of success. The second week was
a see-saw, with Claude Wycherley a million or two in the soup. This
last week everything I touched turned to gold, and I’m three times a
millionaire--on paper.”
“Young men, good-day. You may come around to my office to-morrow, if at
liberty. I have a place for you to fill. We’ll harness this genius of
yours to common-sense dollars.”
Then he leaves the hotel.
“Aleck, my _dear_ fellow, catch me--I’m going to faint. Did you hear
what he said? In a week it will read Cereal & Wycherley. Think of it,
ye gods! Fortune at one bound. I’m in the saddle at last. Good-by,
follies of the past with your haunting ghosts--welcome a golden future;
perhaps, who knows, egad, _a wife_!”
_BOOK THREE._
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GRAIN KING’S PALACE.