THE HEIGHTS
i
Then with one swift intention the sun broke through,--and there were
the heights!... directly in front of him. The rest of the way was
enchanted. All its difficulties were illusions. They vanished as he
approached.
His Wall Street enemies were scattered in the night. It was as he had
said. They had been unable to destroy him and they did not dare carry
the fight any further for fear of involving themselves in ruin. His
amazing counter stroke, delivered at the very moment when their utmost
effort had failed, threw them into a panic. It took the stock market
out of their hands and turned it squarely against them. The conspiracy
was not abandoned. It collapsed. After that it was every man for
himself, with the fear of Galt in his heart.
The penitential procession started early the next day. Those who
had deserted him returned with gestures of humility, begging to be
chastised and forgiven. The vanquished sat patiently in his outer
office, bearing tokens of amity and proposals of alliance. For he was
Galt, the one, unique and indestructible.
He treated the spectacle as it deserved, cynically, with a saving salt
of humor.
“They make their beds fast,” he said.
Among the first to come was one of Bullguard’s partners,--a
peasant-minded, ingratiating person whose use to Bullguard was his
ability to face the devil smirk for smirk. His errand was to say that
Bullguard & Co. would entertain any reasonable offer for the purchase
of their minority interest in Orient & Pacific shares, and if they
could be of service to Mr. Galt at any time, why, etc., he had only to
oblige them by letting them know how. Galt was cool as to the services,
etc., but he made an offer for the minority Orient & Pacific shares
which was accepted a few hours later. That was Bullguard’s way of
declaring war at an end. It was the grand salute.
Horace Potter was the only man who never came back. He could not sneak
back and there was no other way. They had mortally wounded each other’s
pride.
ii
Meanwhile Congress, like the old woman of the story book, heavy-footed,
slow to be amazed, always late but never _never_, heard of Galt, became
much alarmed and solemnly resolved to investigate him. He was summoned
to appear before a Committee of the House with all his papers and
books. The Committee felt incompetent to conduct the examination.
Finance is a language politicians must not know. It is not the language
of the people. So it engaged counsel,--a notorious lawyer named Samuel
Goldfuss.
He was a man who knew all the dim and secret pathways of the law, and
charged Wall Street clients enormous fees for leading them past the
spirit to the letter. He charged them more when he caught them alone
in the dark, or lost in the hands of a bungling guide, for then he
could threaten to expose them to the light if they declined to accept
his saving services at his own price. Having got very rich by this
profession he put his money beyond reach of the predacious and became
public spirited, or pretended to have done so, and proceeded to sell
out Satan to the righteous. It became his avocation to plead the cause
of people against mammon, and where or whensoever a malefactor of great
wealth was haled to court or brought to appear before a committee of
Congress, Goldfuss thrust himself in to act as prosecuting attorney,
with or without fees; and his name was dread to any such, for he
knew their devious ways and all the wickedness that had ever been
practiced in or about the Stock Exchange. His motives were never quite
understood. Some said he attended to Satan’s business still, never
sold him out completely, but put the hounds on the wrong scent by some
subtle turn at the end. Others said his motive was to terrorize the
great malefactors so that when they were in trouble he could extort big
fees simply for undertaking not to appear on the people’s side.
And this sinister embodiment of public opinion was the man whom Galt
was to face, who had never before faced public opinion in any manner at
all. It was likely to be a stiff ordeal. Counsel warned him accordingly.
“I’ve got a straight story to tell,” he said. “I don’t need any help.”
However, they insisted on standing by. We arrived in Washington one hot
August morning, left all our eminent counsel in their favorite hotel,
and went empty handed to the Capitol, where neither of us had been
before. We wandered about for half an hour, trying to find the place
where the Committee sat. It was a special Committee with no room of its
own. We were directed at last to the Rivers and Harbors Committee room.
It was full of smoke, electric fans and men in attitudes of waiting.
Six, looking very significant, sat around a long table covered with
green cloth. Others to the number of thirty or forty sat on chairs
against the walls. At a smaller table were the reporters with reams of
paper in front of them.
“Is this the Committee that wants to see Henry M. Galt?” he asked,
standing on the threshold.
“It is,” said the man at the head of the table. He was the chairman.
He sat with one leg over the arm of his chair, his back to the door,
and did not turn or so much as move a hair. He spoke in that loud,
disembodied voice which makes the people’s business seem so impressive
to the multitude and glared at us through the back of his head.
“I am that person,” said Galt.
“You have delayed us a quarter of an hour,” said the chairman, still
with his back to us.
“You were hard to find,” said Galt, very simply, looking about for a
place to sit. A chair was placed for him at the opposite end of the
table. There was no place for me, so I stood a little aside. Goldfuss,
whom I had never seen and had not yet identified, sat beside the
chairman. They had their heads together, whispering. The chairman spoke.
“The question is raised as to whether witness may be permitted to
appear with counsel. It is decided in the negative. Counsel will be
excused.”
Silence. Nothing happened.
“Counsel will be excused,” said the chairman again.
Still nothing happened.
“If you are talking at me,” said Galt, “I have no counsel. I didn’t
bring any,--that is, I left them at the hotel.”
“Who is the gentleman with you?” the chairman asked.
“Oh,” said Galt, looking at me. “That’s all right. He’s my secretary.
He doesn’t know any more law than I do.”
There was a formal pause. The official stenographer leaned toward Galt,
speaking quietly, and took his name, age, address and occupation. The
chairman said, “Proceed.”
Goldfuss poised himself for theatrical effect. He was a small,
body-conscious man with a coarse, loose skin, very close shaven,
powdered, sagging at the jowls; a tiny wire mustache, unblinking blue
eyes close together and a voice like the sound of a file in the teeth
of a rusty saw.
“So this is the great Galt,” he said, sardonically, slowly bobbing his
head.
“And you,” said Galt, “are the Samuel Goldfuss who once tried to
blackmail me for a million dollars.”
Oh, famous beginning! The crowd was tense with delight.
Goldfuss, looking aggrieved and disgusted, turned to the chairman,
saying: “Will the Committee admonish the witness?”
The chairman took his leg down, carefully relighted a people’s cigar,
and said: “Strike that off the record.... I will inform the witness
that this is a Committee of Congress, with power to punish contumacious
and disrespectful conduct.... The witness is warned to answer questions
without any irrelevant remarks of his own.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Galt. “What was the question?”
The official stenographer read from his notes,--“So this is the great
Galt.”
“That ain’t a question,” said Galt.
The round was his. The audience tittered. The chairman put his leg back
and glared wearily into space.
“I withdraw it,” said Goldfuss. “Start the record new from here.... Mr.
Galt, you were directed to produce before this Committee all your books
and papers. Have you brought them?”
“No.”
“No? Why not, please?”
“They would fill this whole room,” said Galt.
Mr. Goldfuss started again.
“Your occupation, Mr. Galt,--you said it was what?”
“Farmer,” said Galt.
“Yes? What do you farm?”
“The country,” said Galt.
“Do you consider that a nice expression?”
“Nicest I know, depending on how you take it,” said Galt.
“Well, now tell this Committee, please, how you farm the country, using
your own expression.”
“I fertilize it,” said Galt. “I sow and reap, improve the soil and keep
adding new machinery and buildings.”
“What do you fertilize it with, Mr. Galt?”
“Money.”
“What do you sow, Mr. Galt?”
“More money.”
“And what do you reap?”
“Profit.”
“A great deal of that?”
“Plenty,” said Galt.
“And what do you do with the profit, Mr. Galt?”
“Sow it again.”
“A lovely parable, Mr. Galt. Is it not true, however, that you are also
a speculator?”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Galt.
“To put it plainly, is it not true that you are a gambler?”
“That’s part of my trade,” said Galt. “Every farmer is a gambler. He
gambles in weather, worms, bugs, acts of Congress and the price of his
produce.”
“You gamble in securities, Mr. Galt?”
“Yes.”
“In the securities of the railroad properties you control?”
“Heavily,” said Galt.
“If, for example, you are going to increase the dividend on Great
Midwestern stock you first go into the market and buy it for a
rise,--buy it before either the public or the other stockholders know
that you are going to increase the dividend?”
“That’s the case,” said Galt.
“As a matter of fact, you did some time ago increase the dividend on
Great Midwestern from four to eight per cent., and the stock had a big
rise for that reason. Tell this Committee, please, when and how and at
what prices you bought the stock in anticipation of that event?”
“In anticipation of that eight per cent. dividend,” said Galt
reminiscently, “I began to buy Great Midwestern stock ... let me see
... nine years ago at ten dollars a share. It went down, and I bought
it at five dollars a share, at two dollars, at a dollar-and-a-half. The
road went into the hands of a receiver, and I stuck to it. I bought it
all the way up again, at fifteen dollars a share, at fifty dollars, at
a hundred-and-fifty, and I’m buying still.”
Goldfuss was bored. He seemed to be saying to the audience: “Well,
so much for fun. Now we get down to the hard stuff.” He took time to
think, stirred about in his papers and produced a certain document.
“Mr. Galt, I show you a certified list of the investments of
the Security Life Insurance Company. You are a director of that
institution, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“You used some of your farming profits to buy a large interest in the
Security Life Insurance Company?”
“Yes.”
“You are chairman of its finance committee?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, Mr. Galt, you control the investments of the Security Life.
You recommend what securities the policy holders’ money shall be
invested in and your suggestions are acted upon. Is that true?”
“Something like that,” said Galt.
“Now, Mr. Galt, look at this certified statement, please. The
investments amount to more than four hundred millions. I call your
attention to the fact that nearly one quarter of that enormous total
consists of what are known as Galt securities, that is, the stocks
and bonds of railroad companies controlled by Henry M. Galt. Is that
correct?”
“Substantially,” said Galt.
“Did you, as chairman of the finance committee of the Security Life,
recommend the purchase of those securities?”
“Yes.”
“And at the same time, as head of the Great Midwestern railway system,
you were interested in selling those securities, were you not?”
“We need a great deal of capital,” said Galt. “We are selling new
securities all the time. We sell all we can and wish we could sell
more. There is always more work to do than we can find the money for.”
“So, Mr. Galt, it comes to this: As head of a great railroad system you
create securities which you are anxious to sell. In that rôle you are a
seller. Then as chairman of the finance committee of the Security Life
Insurance Company, acting as trustee for the policy holders, you are a
buyer of securities. In that position of trust, with power to say how
the policy holders’ money shall be invested, you recommend the purchase
of securities in which you are interested as a seller. Is that true?”
“I don’t like the way you put it, but let it stand,” said Galt.
“How can you justify that, Mr. Galt? Is it right, do you think, that a
trustee should buy with one hand what he sells with the other?”
Galt leaned over, beating the table slowly with his fist.
“I justify it this way,” he said. “I know all about the securities of
the Great Midwestern. I don’t know of anything better for the Security
Life to put its money into. If you can tell me of anything better I
will advise the finance committee at its next meeting to sell all of
its Great Midwestern stuff and buy that, whatever it is. I’ll do more.
If you can tell me of anything better I will sell all of my own Great
Midwestern stocks and bonds and buy that instead. I have my own money
in Great Midwestern. There’s another Galt you left out. As head of
a great railway system I am a seller of securities to investors all
over the world. That is how we find the capital to build our things.
But as an individual I am a buyer of those same securities. I sell to
everybody with one hand and buy for myself all that I can with the
other hand. Do you see the point? I buy them because I know what they
are worth. I recommend them to the Security Life because I know what
they are worth. That is how I justify it, sir.”
Enough of that. Goldfuss had meant to go from the Security Life to each
of the other financial institutions controlled by Galt, meaning to show
how he had been unloading Galt securities upon them. But what was the
use? What could he do with an answer like that? He passed instead to
the Orient & Pacific matter. Galt admitted that he had used the power
of majority stockholder to make the property subservient to the Great
Midwestern because that was the efficient thing to do.
“And that, you think, is a fair way to treat minority stockholders?”
Goldfuss asked.
“We were willing at any time to buy them out at the market price,” said
Galt. “However, that’s now an academic matter. The Great Midwestern has
acquired all that minority interest in Orient & Pacific.”
This was news. There was a stir at the reporters’ table. Several rose
and went out to telegraph Galt’s statement to Wall Street, where nobody
yet knew how Bullguard & Co. had made peace with him.
So they went from one thing to another. They came to that notorious
land transaction on account of which he had been sued.
“We needed that land for an important piece of railroad development,”
said Galt. “Some land traders got wind of our plans, formed a
syndicate, bought up all the ground around, and then tried to make
us buy it through the nose. We simply sat tight until they went
broke. Then we took it off their hands. There was more than the Great
Midwestern needed because they were hogs. The Great Midwestern took
what it wanted and I took the rest. The directors knew all about it.”
“And it was very profitable to you personally, this outcome?”
“Incidentally it was,” said Galt. “Somebody would get it. It fell into
my hands. What would you have done?”
“Strike that off the record,--‘What would you have done?’” said
Goldfuss. “Counsel is not being examined.”
After lunch he took a new line.
“Mr. Galt,” he asked, “what are you worth?”
“I don’t know,” said Galt.
“You don’t know how rich you are?”
“No.”
Goldfuss lay back in his chair with an exaggerated air of astonishment.
“But you will admit you are very rich?” he said, having recovered
slowly.
“Yes,” said Galt. “I suppose I am.”
“Well, as briefly as possible, will you tell this Committee how you
made it?”
“Now you’ve asked me something,” said Galt, leaning forward again.
“I’ll tell you. I made it buying things nobody else wanted. I bought
Great Midwestern when it was bankrupt and people thought no railroad
was worth its weight as junk. When I took charge of the property I
bought equipment when it was cheap because nobody else wanted it and
the equipment makers were hungry, and rails and ties and materials
and labor to improve the road with, until everybody thought I was
crazy. When the business came we had a railroad to handle it. I’ve
done that same thing with every property I have taken up. No railroad
I’ve ever touched has depreciated in value. I’m doing it still. You
may know there has been an upset in Wall Street recently, a panic in
fact. Everybody is uneasy and business is worried because a financial
disturbance has always been followed by commercial depression. There
are signs of that already. But we’ll stop it. In the next twelve
months the Great Midwestern properties will spend five hundred million
dollars for double tracking, grade reductions, new equipment and larger
terminals.”
This was news. Again there was a stir at the reporters’ table as
several rose to go out and flash Galt’s statement to Wall Street.
“Mr. Galt,” said Goldfuss, “do you realize what it means for one man
to say he will spend five hundred millions in a year? That is half the
national debt.”
“I know exactly what it means,” said Galt. “It means for once a
Wall Street panic won’t be followed by unemployment and industrial
depression. Our orders for materials and labor now going out will
start everything up again at full speed. Others will act on our
example. You’ll see.”
“You will draw upon the financial institutions you control, the
Security Life and others, for a good deal of that money,--the five
hundred millions?”
“You get the idea,” said Galt. “That’s what financial institutions are
for. There’s no better use for their money.”
“You have great power, Mr. Galt.”
“Some,” he said.
“If it goes on increasing at this rate you will soon be the economic
dictator of the country.”
No answer.
“I say you will be the economic dictator of the whole country.”
“I heard you say it,” said Galt. “It ain’t a question.”
“But do you think it desirable that one man should have so much
power,--that one man should run the country?”
“Somebody ought to run it,” said Galt.
“Is it your ambition to run it?”
“It is my idea,” said Galt, “that the financial institutions of the
country,--I mean the insurance companies and the banks,--instead of
lending themselves out of funds in times of high prosperity ought
then to build up great reserves of capital to be loaned out in hard
times. That would keep people from going crazy with prosperity at one
time and committing suicide at another time. But they won’t do it by
themselves. Somebody has to see to it,--somebody who knows not only how
not to spend money when everybody is wild to buy, but how to spend it
courageously when there is a surplus of things that nobody else wants.
Every financial institution that I have anything to do with will be
governed by that idea, and the Great Midwestern properties, while I
run them, will decrease their capital expenditures as prices rise and
increase them as prices fall. When we show them the whole trick and how
it pays everybody will do it. We won’t have any more depressions and
Coxey’s armies. We won’t have any more unemployment. In a country like
this unemployment is economic lunacy.”
The hearing continued for three days. The newspapers printed almost
nothing else on their first three pages. Galt’s testimony produced
everywhere a monumental effect. Public opinion went over by a
somersault.
He denied nothing. He admitted everything. He was invincible because he
believed in himself.
“Mr. Galt,” said Goldfuss, rising, “that will be all. You are the most
remarkable witness I have ever examined.”
They shook hands all around.
iii
As we were going down the Capitol steps Galt stumbled and clutched
my arm. The sustaining excitement was at an end and the reaction was
sudden. Solicitude made him peevish. He insisted irritably, and we
went on walking, though it was above his strength. When we were half
way back to the hotel, a mile yet to go, he stopped and said: “You’re
right, Coxey. Ain’t it hot! Let’s call a cab.”
He wouldn’t rest. A strange uneasiness was upon him. We took the next
train for New York.
“I want to go to Moonstool,” he said. The idea seized him after we were
aboard the train.
“Fine. Let’s take a holiday tomorrow and go all over it,” I said.
“Now. I want to go there now,” he said.
“Directly there ... and not go home?”
“That’s home, ain’t it?” he said, becoming irritable. “Let’s go
straight there.”
He had a fixation upon it.
From Baltimore I got off an urgent telegram to Mrs. Galt, telling her
Galt was very tired and insisted on going directly to the country
place. Could she meet us at Newark with a motor car? That would be the
easiest way.
Automobiles were just then coming into general use. Galt with his
ardent interest in all means of mechanical locomotion was enthusiastic
about them. The family had four, besides Natalie’s, which was her own.
She drove it herself.
Mrs. Galt met us at Newark. Galt greeted her with no sign of surprise.
He could not have been expecting her. I had told him nothing about the
arrangements. He slept all the way up from Washington and did not know
where we were when we got off the train. She helped him into the car.
When they were seated he took her hand and went to sleep again.
There was a second motor behind us, with a cook, three servants, some
luggage and provisions. Mrs. Galt was a very efficient woman. She had
thought of everything the situation required.
It was nearly midnight when we arrived at Moonstool and stopped in
front of the iron gates. They were closed and locked. And there was
Natalie who had been sent ahead to announce our coming. She drove
out alone, got lost on the way, and had not yet succeeded in raising
anybody when we came up. The place was dark, except for red lanterns
here and there on piles of construction material. The outside watchmen
were shirking duty, and those inside, if not doing likewise, were
beyond hearing.
Nearby was the railroad station of Galt, a black little pile with not
a light anywhere. It had not yet been opened for use. We could hear
the water spilling over the private Galt dam in the river. There was
enough electricity in the Galt power house to illuminate a town. On the
mountain top, half a mile distant, the Galt castle stood in massive
silhouette against the starry sky. And here was Galt, in the dark, an
unwelcome night-time stranger, forbidden at the gate. He was still
asleep. We were careful not to wake him.
A watchman with a bull’s eye lantern and a billy stick exuded from the
darkness.
“Wha’d’ye want?”
We wanted to go in.
“Y’can’t go in,” he said. “Can’t y’ see it’s private? Nobody lives
there.”
It is very difficult to account for the improbable on the plane of a
night watchman’s intelligence. First he stolidly disbelieved us. Then
he took refuge in limited responsibility.
“M’orders is t’let nobody in,” he said. “D’ye know anybody aroun’ here?”
It seemed quite possible that no human being around here would know
us. By an inspiration Natalie remembered the superintendent of
construction. He lived not far away. She knew where. Once when she was
spending a day on the job he had taken her home with him to lunch. It
was not more than ten minutes’ drive, she said.
It was further than she thought. We were more than three quarters of
an hour returning with the superintendent. It took twenty minutes more
to wake the crew at the power house and get the electricity turned on.
Then we drove slowly up the main concrete road now lighted on each side
by clusters of three ground glass globes in fluted columns fifty feet
apart. Although it was finished the road was still cluttered with heaps
of sand and debris.
Galt all this time was fast asleep, his head resting on Mrs. Galt’s
shoulder. We could scarcely wake him when we tried. He seemed drunk
with weariness. As we helped him out he opened his eyes once and
startled us by saying to the superintendent: “Fire that watchman
... down below,” as if he had been conscious of everything that
happened. His eyes closed again, he tottered, and we caught him. The
superintendent supported him on one side, I on the other, and so he
entered, dragging his feet.
Natalie knew more about the house than anyone else. She led the way to
the apartment that was Galt’s, and then left us to place the servants
and show them their way around. I helped Mrs. Galt undress him and get
him to bed. I was amazed to see how thin and shrunken his body was. He
was inert, like a child asleep. Mrs. Galt, very pale, was strong and
deft.
“We must have a doctor at once,” she said. “I thought of bringing one
and then didn’t because he minds so awfully to have a doctor in.”
Still we were not really alarmed.
The telephone system had been installed. Natalie knew that. She knew
also where the big switchboard was. I telephoned the family physician
to meet us at the Hoboken ferry and then Natalie and I set out to fetch
him, a drive of nearly seventy miles there and back.
“We ought to do it in two hours,” she said, as we coasted freely,--very
freely,--down the lighted cement road and plunged through the gates
into darkness.
“The doctor must be in his right mind when we deliver him.”
I meant it lightly. Her reckless driving was a household topic and she
was incorrigible. But she answered me thoughtfully.
“We’ll make the time going.”
She pulled her gloves tighter, took the time, inspected the
instruments, switched off the dash light, cut out the muffler,
settled herself in the seat and opened the throttle wide. It was a
four-cylinder, high-power engine. The sound we made was that of an
endless rip through a linen sheet. Road side trees turned white, uneasy
faces to our headlights. The highway seemed to lay itself down in front
of us as we needed it; and there was a feeling that it vanished or fell
away into black space behind us. Giddy things such as fences, buildings
and stone walls were tossed right and left in streaming glimpses. Good
motor roads were yet unbuilt. There were short, sharp grades like humps
on the roller coaster at the fair. Taking them at fifty miles an hour,
at night, when you cannot see the top as you start up, nor all the way
down as you begin the plunge, is a wild, liberating sensation. Sense of
level is lost. One’s center of gravity rises and falls momentously, the
heart sloshes around, and you don’t care what happens, not even if you
should run off the world. It doesn’t matter.
Natalie was in a trance-like rapture. She never spoke. Her eyes were
fixed ahead; her body was static. Only her head and arms moved,
sometimes her feet to slip the clutch or apply the brake. All that
pertains to the pattern of consciousness,--seeing, hearing, attention,
will and willing,--were strained outward beyond the windshield, as if
externalized, acting outside of her. What remained on the seat, besides
the thrill at the core of her, was her automatic self controlling this
lunging, roaring mechanism without the slightest effort of thought.
The restrained impulses of her nature apparently found their escape
in this form of excitement. It was one thing she could do better than
anyone else. She did it superbly and adored doing it. I could not help
thinking how Vera would drive, if she drove at all.
There was no traffic at that hour of night until we fell in with the
milk and truck wagons crossing the Hackensack Meadows toward the Hudson
River ferries. Natalie cut in and out of that rumbling procession with
skill and ease. Her calculations were tight and daring, but never
foolhardy.
“Very accomplished driving,” I said, as she pulled up at the ferry with
the engine idling softly.
“Fifty minutes,” she said, a little down, on looking at her watch. “I
thought we should have done it in forty-five. Don’t you love it at
night?”
iv
Dawn was breaking when we returned. It gave us a start of apprehension
to see the lights still burning in Galt’s apartment. We found Mrs. Galt
sitting at the side of his bed. Her face was distorted with horror and
anxiety. Galt lay just as I had seen him last.
“He hasn’t moved,” said Mrs. Galt. “I can’t arouse him. I’m not sure he
is breathing.”
Neither was the doctor. The pulse was imperceptible. A glass held at
his nostrils showed no trace of moisture. All the bodily functions were
in a state of suspense. The only presumption of life lay in the general
arbitrary fact that he was not dead. The doctor had never seen anything
like this before. He was afraid to act without a consultation. Motors
were sent off for four other doctors, two in New Jersey and two in New
York. They would bring nurses with them.
Mrs. Galt could not be moved from the bedside.
Natalie telephoned Vera to come. I telephoned Mordecai. Then we walked
up and down the eastern terrace and watched the sun come up. She
stopped and leaned over the parapet, looking down. Her eyes were dry;
her body shook with convulsive movements. My heart went forth. I put my
arm around her. She stood up, gazed at me with a stricken expression,
then dropped her head on my shoulder and wept, whispering, “Coxey,
Coxey, oh, what shall we do?... what shall we do?”
Gangs of workmen were appearing below. The day of labor was about to
begin. I left her to get the superintendent on the telephone and tell
him to suspend work.
v
The consultation began at nine o’clock. Mordecai arrived while it was
taking place. Somehow on the way he had picked up Vera. They came
together. We waited in the library room of Galt’s apartment. At the end
of an hour the five doctors came to us, looking very grave. The Galts’
family doctor announced the consensus. It was a stroke, with some
very unusual aspects. Life persisted; the thread of it was extremely
fine, almost invisible. It might snap at any moment, and they wouldn’t
know it until some time afterward. Thin as it was, however, it might
pull him back. There was a bare possibility that he would recover
consciousness. Meanwhile there was very little that could be done.
Mordecai rose from his chair with a colossal, awful gesture. His eyes
were staring. His face was like a mask. His head turned slowly right
and left through half a circle with a weird, mechanical movement, as a
thing turning on a pivot in a fixed plane.
“Zey haf kilt him!” he whispered. “All ov you I gall upon to vitness,
zey haf kilt him. Zey could nod ruin him. Zat zey tried to do. But ...
zey haf kilt him!... Ve are vonce more in ze dark ages.”
The physicians were astonished and ill at ease. They did not know what
he was talking about. They did not know who he was. I was the only one
who could know what he meant and for a minute I was bewildered. Then
it broke upon me.
The combat reconstructed itself in my mind. I recalled those days of
strain and anguish when all the forces of Wall Street were acting to
destroy him and he fought alone. He withstood them. In the might of
his own strength, in that moment which it had been torture almost
unendurable to bide the coming of, he smote his enemies “with the fist
of wickedness” and scattered them away. Yes, all that. He had won the
fight. Yet there he lay. His death would leave them in possession of
the field, with a victory unawares. They meant only to break his power,
to unloose his hands, to overthrow him as an upstart dynast. But the
blood weapon which we think is put away, which they never meant and
would not have dared to use,--it had done its work in spite of them.
They could not break him. They had only killed him.
That was what Mordecai meant.
vi
Well, we had to wait. Life must wait upon death because it can. There
was much to think about. Mordecai spent two hours with me making
precise arrangements against any contingency. It was very important
that Wall Street should know nothing about Galt’s condition. The news
might cause a panic. I was to call him up at regular intervals by a
direct telephone wire on which no one could listen in. If any rumor
got out it should be met with blank silence.
“Zey vill vind id zoon oud no matter,” he said.
What he needed was a little time to prepare the financial structure
for the imminent shock. He would inform his associates and such others
as were entitled to know and together they would agree upon protective
measures. Galt’s death was bound to produce a terrific convulsion.
There is no line of succession in Wall Street, no hereditary prince to
receive the crown. When the monarch falls the wail is, “The king is
dead! There is no king!”
About 10 o’clock in the morning of the second day Galt opened his eyes.
He could neither move nor speak, but he was vividly conscious. Mrs.
Galt came to the room where I had established a work station to tell me
this.
“He wants something,” she said. “He says so with his eyes. I think it
is you he wants.”
His eyes expressed pleasure at seeing me. Not a muscle moved. He could
see and hear and think, and that was all. He did want something. I
guessed a number of things and he looked them all away. It wasn’t
Mordecai. It wasn’t anything in relation to business. In this dilemma I
remembered a game we played in childhood. It was for one of the players
to hold in his mind any object on earth and for the other to identify
it by asking questions up to twenty that had to be answered yes or no.
Galt’s eyes could say yes and no and he could hear. Therefore anything
he was thinking of could be found out. I explained the game to him, he
instantly understood, and we began. Was the thing a mineral substance?
He did not answer. Was it vegetable? He did not answer. Was it animal
then? Still no answer, but a bothered look in his eyes. I stopped to
wonder why he hadn’t answered yes or no to one of the three. Was it
perhaps something mineral, vegetable and animal combined? His eyes
lighted, saying yes. Was it in this room? No. Was it far away? No. Was
it just outside? Yes.
I went to the window and looked out. In every direction below the level
of the finished terrace was the sight of construction work in a state
of suspense, heaps of materials, tools where they had fallen, power
machinery idle. A thought occurred to me. I went back and looked in his
eyes.
“We’ve had all the work stopped because of the noise. Do you wish it to
go on? Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” he answered, with a flash of his eyes.
Two hours later the air was vibrant with the clank-clank of many steam
drills, the screech of taut hoisting cables, the throb of donkey
engines, the roar of rock blasting, and he was happy.
Incidentally the resumption of work served Mordecai’s purpose in an
unexpected way. Rumor of Galt’s illness did get out. The newspapers
began to telephone. Unable to get information in that way they thought
it must be serious and sent reporters out in haste. They returned
to their offices saying they couldn’t get a word out of us, but Galt
couldn’t be very ill so long as all that uproar was permitted to go on.
A week passed in this way. One evening on my return from an urgent trip
to New York Natalie came racing down the great hall to meet me, with a
flying slide at the end, as in the old days she was wont to meet Galt,
and whether she meant it quite, or miscalculated the distance, I do not
know; but anyhow I had either to let her go by off her balance or catch
her, and she landed in my arms.
“Oh, Coxey, he’s asking for you,” she said, getting her feet and
dragging me along at a run. “He’s better all at once. He can talk.”
The faculty of speech was gradually restored. When he could talk freely
he told us that he had been conscious all the while, day and night. He
heard every word that was spoken at the consultation. Therefore he had
more expert opinion on his condition than we had. He had kept count of
time. He knew what day it was when he first opened his eyes, and since
then in his sleep he had been continuously conscious. He felt no pain.