THE UNIVERSAL COVERED CARPET TACK COMPANY FORMS AMID GREAT ENTHUSIASM
The intense democracy of J. Rufus Wallingford could not but charm David
Jasper, even though he disapproved of diamond stick-pins and
red-leather-padded automobiles as a matter of principle. The manner in
which the gentleman from Boston acknowledged the introduction, the fine
mixture of deference due Mr. Jasper's age and of cordiality due his
easily discernible qualities of good fellowship, would have charmed the
heart out of a cabbage.
"Get in, Dave; we want to take you a ride," demanded Mr. Lamb.
David shook his head at the big machine, and laughed.
"I don't carry enough insurance," he objected.
Mr. Wallingford had caught sight of a little bronze button in the lapel
of Mr. Jasper's faded and threadbare coat.
"A man who went through the battle of Bull Run ought to face anything,"
he laughed back.
The shot went home. Mr. Jasper _had_ acquitted himself with honor in the
battle of Bull Run, and without further ado he got into the invitingly
open door of the tonneau, to sink back among the padded cushions with
his friend Lamb. As the door slammed shut, Ella Jasper waved them adieu,
and it was fully three minutes after the machine drove away before she
began humming about her work. Somehow or other, she did not like to see
her father's friend so intimately associated with rich people.
They had gone but a couple of blocks, and Mr. Lamb was in the early
stages of the enthusiasm attendant upon describing the wonderful events
of the past two days--especially his own share in the invention, and the
hundred thousand dollars that it was to make him within the year--when
Mr. Wallingford suddenly halted the machine.
"You're not going to get home to dinner, you know, Mr. Jasper," he
declared.
"Oh, we have to! This is lodge night, and I am a patriarch. I haven't
missed a night for twenty years, and Eddy, here, has an office, too--his
first one. We've got ten candidates to-night." "I see," said Mr.
Wallingford gravely. "It is more or less in the line of a sacred duty.
Nevertheless, we will not go home to dinner. I'll get you at the lodge
door at half past eight. Will that be early enough?"
Mr. Jasper put his hands upon his knees and turned to his friend.
"I guess we can work our way in, can't we, Eddy?" he chuckled, and Eddy,
with equally simple pleasure, replied that they could.
"Very well. Back to the house, chauffeur." And, in a moment more, they
were sailing back to the decrepit little cottage, where Lamb jumped out
to carry the news to Ella. She was just coming out of the kitchen door
in her sunbonnet to run over to the grocery store as Edward came up the
steps. He grabbed her by both shoulders and dragged her out.
"Come on; we're going to take you along!" he threatened, and she did not
know why, but, at the touch of his hands, she paled slightly. Her eyes
never faltered, however, as she laughed and jerked herself away.
"Not much, you don't! I'm worried enough as it is with father in
there--and you, of course."
He told her that they would not be home to supper, and, for a second
time, she wistfully saw them driving away in the big red machine.
Mr. Wallingford talked with the chauffeur for a few moments, and then
the machine leaped forward with definiteness. Once or twice Mr.
Wallingford looked back. The two in the tonneau were examining the
cloth-topped tacks, and both were talking volubly. Mile after mile they
were still at it, and the rich man felt relieved of all responsibility.
The less he said in the matter the better; he had learned the invaluable
lesson of when not to talk. So far as he was concerned, the Universal
Covered Carpet Tack Company was launched, and he was able to turn his
attention to the science of running the car, a matter which, by the time
they had reached their stopping point, he had picked up to the great
admiration of the expert driver. For the last five miles the big man ran
the machine himself, with the help of a guiding word or two, and when
they finally stopped in front of the one pretentious hotel in the small
town they had reached, he was so completely absorbed in the new toy that
he was actually as nonchalant about the new company as he would have
wished to appear. His passengers were surprised when they found that
they had come twenty miles, and Mr. Wallingford showed them what a man
who knows how to dine can do in a minor hotel. He had everybody busy,
from the proprietor down. The snap of his fingers was as potent here as
the clarion call of the trumpet in battle, and David Jasper, though he
strove to disapprove, after sixty years of somnolence woke up and
actually enjoyed pretentious luxury.
There were but five minutes of real business conversation following the
meal, but five minutes were enough. David Jasper had called his friend
Eddy aside for one brief moment.
"Did he give you any references?" he asked, the habit of caution
asserting itself.
"Sure; more than half a dozen of them."
"Have you written to them?"
"I wrote this morning."
"I guess he wouldn't give them to you if he wasn't all right."
"We don't need the references," urged Lamb. "The man himself is
reference enough. You see that automobile? He bought it this morning and
didn't pay a cent on it. They didn't ask him to."
It was a greater recommendation than if the man had paid cash down for
the machine; for credit is mightier than cash, everywhere.
"I think we'll go in," said Dave. Think he would go in! It was only his
conservative way of expressing himself, for he was already in with his
whole heart and soul. In the five minutes of conversation between the
three that ensued, David Jasper agreed to be one of the original
incorporators, to go on the first board of directors, and to provide
three other solid men to serve in a like capacity, the preliminary
meeting being arranged for the next morning. Mr. Wallingford passed
around his black cigars and lit one in huge content as he climbed into
the front seat with the chauffeur, to begin his task of urging driver
and machine back through the night in the time that he had promised.
That was a wonderful ride to the novices. Nothing but darkness ahead,
with a single stream of white light spreading out upon the roadway,
which, like a fast descending curtain, lowered always before them; a rut
here, a rock there, angle and curve and dip and rise all springing out
of the night with startling swiftness, to disappear behind them before
they had given even a gasp of comprehension for the possible danger they
had confronted but that was now past. Unconsciously they found
themselves gripping tightly the sides of the car, and yet, even to the
old man, there was a strange sense of exhilaration, aided perhaps by
wine, that made them, after the first breathless five miles, begin to
jest in voices loud enough to carry against the wind, to laugh
boisterously, and even to sing, by-and-by, a nonsensical song started by
Lamb and caught up by Wallingford and joined by the still firm voice of
David Jasper. The chauffeur, the while bent grimly over his wheel,
peered with iron-nerved intensity out into that mysterious way where the
fatal snag might rise up at any second and smite them into lifeless
clay, for they were going at a terrific pace. The hoarse horn kept
constantly hooting, and every now and then they flashed by trembling
horses drawn up at the side of the road and attached to "rigs," the
occupants of which appeared only as one or two or three fish-white faces
in the one instant that the glow of the headlight gleamed upon them.
Once there was a quick swerve out of the road and back into it again,
where the rear wheel hovered for a fraction of a second over a steep
gully, and not until they had passed on did the realization come to them
that there had been one horse that had refused, either through
stubbornness or fright, to get out of the road fast enough. But what is
a danger past when a myriad lie before, and what are dangers ahead when
a myriad have been passed safely by? The exhilaration became almost an
intoxication, for, in spite of those few moments when mirth and gayety
were checked by that sudden throb of what might have been, the songs
burst forth again as soon as a level track stretched ahead once more.
"Five minutes before the time I promised you!" exclaimed Mr. Wallingford
in jovial triumph, jumping from his seat and opening the door of the
tonneau for his passengers just in front of the stairway that led to
their lodge-rooms.
They climbed out, stiff and breathless and still tingling with the
inexplicable thrill of it all.
"Eleven o'clock in the morning, remember, at Carwin's," he reminded them
as they left him, and afterward they wondered why such a simple exertion
as the climbing of one flight of stairs should make their hearts beat so
high and their breath come so deep and harsh. It would have been
curious, later that night, to see Edward Lamb buying a quart of
champagne for his friends, and protesting that it was not cold enough!
Mr. Wallingford stepped back to the chauffeur. "What's your first
name?" he inquired.
"Frank, sir."
"Well, Frank, when you go back to the shop you tell them that you're to
drive my machine hereafter when I call for it, and when I get settled
down here I want you to work for me. Drive to the hotel now and wait."
Before climbing into the luxury of the tonneau he handed the chauffeur a
five-dollar bill.
"All right, sir," said Frank.
At the hotel, the man of means walked up to the clerk and opened his
pocketbook.
"I have a little more cash than I care to carry around. Just put this to
my credit, will you?" and he counted out six one-hundred-dollar bills.
As he turned away the clerk permitted himself that faint trace of a
smile once more. His confidence was justified. He had known that
somebody would pay Mr. Wallingford's acrobatic bill. His interesting
guest strode out to the big red automobile. The chauffeur was out in a
second and had the tonneau open before the stately but earnestly willing
doorman of the hotel could perform the duty.
"Now, show us the town," said Wallingford as the door closed upon him,
and when he came in late that night his eyes were red and his speech
was thick; but there were plenty of eager hands to see safely to bed the
prince who had landed in their midst with less than a hundred dollars in
his possession.
He was up bright and vigorous the next morning, however. A cold bath, a
hearty breakfast in his room, a half hour with the barber and a spin in
the automobile made him elastic and bounding again, so that at eleven
o'clock he was easily the freshest man among the six who gathered in Mr.
Carwin's office. The incorporators noted with admiration, which with
wiser men might have turned to suspicion, that Mr. Wallingford was
better posted on corporation law than Mr. Carwin himself, and that he
engineered the preliminary proceedings through in a jiffy. With the
exception of Lamb, they were all men past forty, and not one of them had
known experience of this nature. They had been engaged in minor
occupations or in minor business throughout their lives, and had
gathered their few thousands together dollar by dollar. To them this new
realm that was opened up was a fairyland, and the simple trick of
watering stock that had been carefully explained to them, one by one,
pleased them as no toy ever pleased a child. They had heard of such
things as being vague and mysterious operations in the realms of
finance and had condemned them, taking their tone from the columns of
editorials they had read upon such practices; but, now that they were
themselves to reap the fruits of it, they looked through different
spectacles. It was a just proceeding which this genius of commerce
proposed; for they who stood the first brunt of launching the ship were
entitled to greater rewards than they who came in upon an assured
certainty of profits, having waited only for the golden cargo to be in
the harbor.
As a sort of sealing of their compact and to show that this was to be a
corporation upon a friendly basis, rather than a cold, grasping business
proposition, Mr. Wallingford took them all over to a simple lunch in a
private dining room at his hotel. He was careful not to make it too
elaborate, but careful, too, that the luncheon should be notable, and
they all went away talking about him: what a wonderful man he was, what
a wonderful business proposition he had permitted them to enter upon,
what wonderful resources he must have at his command, what wonderful
genius was his in manipulation, in invention, in every way.
There was a week now in which to act, and Mr. Wallingford wasted no
time. He picked out his house in the exclusive part of Gildendale, and
when it came to paying the thousand dollars down, Mr. Wallingford
quietly made out a sixty-day note for the amount.
"I beg your pardon," hesitated the agent, "the first payment is supposed
to be in cash."
"Oh, I know that it is supposed to be," laughed Mr. Wallingford, "but we
understand how these things are. I guess the house itself will secure
the note for that length of time. I am going to be under pretty heavy
expense in fitting up the place, and a man with any regard for the
earning power of money does not keep much cash lying loose. Do you want
this note or not?" and his final tone was peremptory.
"Oh, why, certainly; that's all right," said the agent, and took it.
Upon the court records appeared the sale, but even before it was so
entered a firm of decorators and furnishers had been given _carte
blanche_, following, however, certain artistic requirements of Mr.
Wallingford himself. The result that they produced within the three days
that he gave them was marvelous; somewhat too garish, perhaps, for
people of good taste, but impressive in every detail; and for all this
he paid not one penny in cash. He was accredited with being the owner of
a house in the exclusive suburb, Gildendale. On that accrediting the
furnishing was done, on that accrediting he stocked his pantry shelves,
his refrigerator, his wine cellar, his coal bins, his humidors, and had
started a tailor to work upon half a dozen suits, among them an
automobile costume. He had a modest establishment of two servants and a
chauffeur by the time his wife arrived, and on the day the final
organization of the one-thousand-dollar company was effected, he gave a
housewarming for his associates of the Universal Covered Carpet Tack
Company. Where Mr. Wallingford had charmed, Mrs. Wallingford fascinated,
and the five men went home that night richer than they had ever dreamed
of being; than they would ever be again.