house of wood and stone built after the old colonial pattern, as modern
architects see it. Esther pointed, saying:
“Aunt Meg's, papa; isn't it pretty?”
“Very handsome, very fine,” said the financier, who knew nothing about
architecture, except its exceeding expense. “Esther, I've a notion; if
that young man of yours has brains and is fond of you he ought to be
able to get my ordinance through his little eight by ten city council.
There is our chance to see what stuff he is made of!”
“Oh, he has a great deal of influence,” said Esther; “he can do it,
unless--unless he thinks the ordinance would be bad for the city, you
know.”
“Confound the modern way of educating girls!” thought Armorer. “Now, it
would have been enough for Esther's mother to know that anything was for
my interests; it wouldn't have to help all out-doors, too!”
But instead of enlarging on this point, he went into a sketch of the
improvements the road could make with the money saved by the change,
and was waxing eloquent when a lady of a pleasant and comely face, and a
trig though not slender figure, advanced to greet them.
It was after breakfast (and the scene was the neat pig's pen, where
Armorer was displaying his ignorance of swine) that he found his first
chance to talk with his sister alone. “Oh, first, Sis,” said he, “about
your birthday, to-day; I telegraphed to Tiffany's for that silver
service, you know, that you liked, so you needn't think there's a
mistake when it comes.”
“Oh, 'Raish, that gorgeous thing! I must kiss you, if Daniel does see
me!”
“Oh, that's all right,” said Armorer, hastily, and began to talk of
the pig. Suddenly, without looking up, he dropped into the pig-pen the
remark: “I'm very much obliged to you for writing me, Meg.”
“I don't know whether to feel more like a virtuous sister or a villanous
aunt,” sighed Mrs. Ellis; “things seemed to be getting on so rapidly
that it didn't seem right, Esther visiting me and all, not to give you a
hint; still, I am sure that nothing has been said, and it is horrid for
Esther, perfectly HORRID, discussing her proposals that haven't been
proposed!”
“I don't want them ever to be proposed,” said Armorer, gloomily.
“I know you always said you didn't want Esther to marry; but I thought
if she fell in love with the right man--we know that marriage is a very
happy estate, sometimes, Horatio!” She sighed again. In her case it
was only the memory of happiness, for Colonel Ellis had been dead these
twelve years; but his widow mourned him still.
“If you marry the right one, maybe,” answered Armorer, grudgingly;
“but see here, Meg, Esther is different from the other girls; they got
married when Jenny was alive to look after them, and I knew the men, and
they were both big matches, you know. Then, too, I was so busy making
money while the other girls grew up that I hadn't time to get real well
acquainted with them. I don't think they ever kissed me, except when I
gave them a check. But Esther and I----” he drummed with his fingers on
the boards, his thin, keen face wearing a look that would have amazed
his business acquaintances--“you remember when her mother died, Meg?
Only fifteen, and how she took hold of things! And we have been together
ever since, and she makes me think of her grandmother and her mother
both. She's never had a wish I knew that I haven't granted--why, d----
it! I've bought my clothes to please her----”
“That's why you are become so well-dressed, Horatio; I wondered how you
came to spruce up so!” interrupted Mrs. Ellis.
“It has been so blamed lonesome whenever she went to visit you, but yet
I wouldn't say a word because I knew what a good time she had; but if I
had known that there was a confounded, long-legged, sniffy young idiot
all that while trying to steal my daughter away from me!” In an access
of wrath at the idea Armorer wrenched off the picket that he clutched,
at which he laughed and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Why, Meg, the papers and magazines are always howling that women won't
marry,” cried he, with a fresh sense of grievance; “now, two of my girls
have married, that's enough; there was no reason for me to expect any
more of them would! There isn't one d---- bit of need for Esther to
marry!”
“But if she loves the young fellow and he loves her, won't you let them
be happy?”
“He won't make her happy.”
“He is a very good fellow, truly and really, 'Raish. And he comes of a
good family----”
“I don't care for his family; and as to his being moral and all that, I
know several young fellows that could skin him alive in a bargain
that are moral as you please. I have been a moral man, myself. But the
trouble with this Lossing (I told Esther I didn't know anything about
him, but I do), the trouble with him is that he is chock full of all
kinds of principles! Just as father was. Don't you remember how he lost
parish after parish because he couldn't smooth over the big men in them?
Lossing is every bit as pig-headed. I am not going to have my daughter
lead the kind of life my mother did. I want a son-in-law who ain't going
to think himself so much better than I am, and be rowing me for my way
of doing business. If Esther MUST marry I'd like her to marry a man with
a head on him that I can take into business, and who will be willing to
live with the old man. This Lossing has got his notions of making a sort
of Highland chief affair of the labor question, and we should get along
about as well as the Kilkenny cats!”
Mrs. Ellis knew more than Esther about Armorer's business methods,
having the advantage of her husband's point of view; and Colonel Ellis
had kept the army standard of honor as well as the army ignorance of
business. To counterbalance, she knew more than anyone alive what a good
son and brother Horatio had always been. But she could not restrain a
smile at the picture of the partnership.
“Precisely, you see yourself,” said Armorer. “Meg”--hesitating--“you
don't suppose it would be any use to offer Esther a cool hundred
thousand to promise to bounce this young fellow?”
“Horatio, NO!” cried Mrs. Ellis, tossing her pretty gray head
indignantly; “you'd insult her!”
“Take it the same way, eh? Well, perhaps; Essie has high-toned notions.
That's all right, it is the thing for women. Mother had them too. Look
here, Meg, I'll tell you, I want to see if this young fellow has ANY
sense! We have an ordinance that we want passed. If he will get his
council to pass it, that will show he can put his grand theories into
his pockets sometimes; and I will give him a show with Esther. If he
doesn't care enough for my girl to oblige her father, even if he doesn't
please a lot of carping roosters that want the earth for their town and
would like a street railway to be run to accommodate them and lose money
for the stockholders, well, then, you can't blame me if I don't want
him! Now, will you do one thing for me, Meg, to help me out? I don't
want Lossing to persuade Esther to commit herself; you know how, when
she was a little mite, if Esther gave her word she kept it. I want
you to promise me you won't let Esther be alone one second with young
Lossing. She is going to-morrow, but there's your whist-party to-night;
I suppose he's coming? And I want you to promise you won't let him have
our address. If he treats me square, he won't need to ask you for it.
Well?”
He buttoned up his coat and folded his arms, waiting.
Mrs. Ellis's sympathy had gone out to the young people as naturally as
water runs down hill; for she is of a romantic temperament, though she
doesn't dare to be weighed. But she remembered the silver service, the
coffee-pot, the tea-pot, the tray for spoons, the creamer, the hot-water
kettle, the sugar-bowl, all on a rich salver, splendid, dazzling; what
rank ingratitude it would be to oppose her generous brother! Rather
sadly she answered, but she did answer: “I'll do that much for you,
'Raish, but I feel we're risking Esther's happiness, and I can only keep
the letter of my promise.”
“That's all I ask, my dear,” said Armorer, taking out a little shabby
note-book from his breast-pocket, and scratching out a line. The line
effaced read:
“_See E & M tea-set_.”
“The silver service was a good muzzle,” he thought. He went away for
an interview with the corporation lawyer and the superintendent of the
road, leaving Mrs. Ellis in a distraction of conscience that made her
the wonder of her servants that morning, during all the preparations for
the whist-party. She might have felt more remorseful had she guessed
her brother's real plan. He knew enough of Lossing to be assured that
he would not yield about the ordinance, which he firmly believed to be
a dangerous one for the city. He expected, he counted on the mayor's
refusing his proffers. He hoped that Esther would feel the sympathy
which women give, without question generally, to the business plans of
those near and dear to them, taking it for granted that the plans are
right because they will advantage those so near and dear. That was the
beautiful and proper way that Jenny had always reasoned; why should
Jenny's daughter do otherwise? When Harry Lossing should oppose
her father and refuse to please him and to win her, mustn't any
high-spirited woman feel hurt? Certainly she must; and he would take
care to whisk her off to Europe before the young man had a chance to
make his peace! “Yes, sir,” says Armorer, to his only confidant, “you
never were a domestic conspirator before, Horatio, but you have got it
down fine! You would do for Gaboriau”--Gaboriau's novels being the only
fiction that ever Armorer read. Nevertheless, his conscience pricked
him almost as sharply as his sister's pricked her. Consciences are queer
things; like certain crustaceans, they grow shells in spots; and, proof
against moral artillery in one part, they may be soft as a baby's cheek
in another. Armorer's conscience had two sides, business and domestic;
people abused him for a business buccaneer, at the same time his private
life was pure, and he was a most tender husband and father. He had never
deceived Esther before in her life. Once he had ridden all night in a
freight-car to keep a promise that he had made the child. It hurt him to
be hoodwinking her now. But he was too angry and too frightened to cry
back.
The interview with the lawyer did not take any long time, but he spent
two hours with the superintendent of the road, who pronounced him “a
little nice fellow with no airs about him. Asked a power of questions
about Harry Lossing; guess there is something in that story about
Lossing going to marry his daughter!”
Marston drove him to Lossing's office and left him there.
He was on the ground, and Marston lifting the whip to touch the horse,
when he asked: “Say, before you go--is there any danger in leaving off
the conductors?”
Marston was raised on mules, and he could not overcome a vehement
distrust of electricity. “Well,” said he, “I guess you want the cold
facts. The children are almighty thick down on Third Street, and
children are always trying to see how near they can come to being
killed, you know, sir; and then, the old women like to come and stand on
the track and ask questions of the motorneer on the other track, so that
the car coming down has a chance to catch 'em. The two together keep the
conductors on the jump!”
“Is that so?” said Armorer, musingly; “well, I guess you'd better close
with that insurance man and get the papers made out before we run the
new way.”
“If we ever do run!” muttered the superintendent to himself as he drove
away.
Armorer ran his sharp eye over the buildings of the Lossing Art
Furniture Manufacturing Company, from the ugly square brick box that was
the nucleus--the egg, so to speak--from which the great concern had been
hatched, to the handsome new structures with their great arched windows
and red mortar. “Pretty property, very pretty property,” thought
Armorer; “wonder if that story Marston tells is true!” The story was to
the effect that a few weeks before his last sickness the older Lossing
had taken his son to look at the buildings, and said, “Harry, this will
all be yours before long. It is a comfort to me to think that every
workman I have is the better, not the worse, off for my owning it;
there's no blood or dirt on my money; and I leave it to you to keep it
clean and to take care of the men as well as the business.”
“Now, wasn't he a d---- fool!” said Armorer, cheerfully, taking out his
note-book to mark.
“_See abt road M--D--_”
And he went in. Harry greeted him with exceeding cordiality and a fine
blush. Armorer explained that he had come to speak to him about the
proposed street-car ordinances; he (Armorer) always liked to deal with
principals and without formality; now, couldn't they come, representing
the city and the company, to some satisfactory compromise? Thereupon
he plunged into the statistics of the earnings and expenses of the road
(with the aid of his note-book), and made the absolute necessity of
retrenchment plain. Meanwhile, as he talked he studied the attentive
listener before him; and Harry, on his part, made quite as good use of
his eyes. Armorer saw a tall, athletic, fair young man, very carefully,
almost foppishly dressed, with bright, steady blue eyes and a firm chin,
but a smile under his mustache like a child's; it was so sunny and so
quick. Harry saw a neat little figure in a perfectly fitting gray
check travelling suit, with a rose in the buttonhole of the coat lapel.
Armorer wore no jewellery except a gold ring on the little finger of his
right hand, from which he had taken the glove the better to write. Harry
knew that it was his dead wife's wedding-ring; and noticed it with
a little moving of the heart. The face that he saw was pale but not
sickly, delicate and keen. A silky brown mustache shot with gray and
a Van-dyke beard hid either the strength or the weakness of mouth and
chin. He looked at Harry with almond-shaped, pensive dark eyes, so like
the eyes that had shone on Harry's waking and sleeping dreams for months
that the young fellow felt his heart rise again. Armorer ended by asking
Harry (in his most winning manner) to help him pull the ordinance out of
the fire. “It would be,” he said, impressively, “a favor he should not
forget!”
“And you must know, Mr. Armorer,” said Harry, in a dismal tone at which
the president chuckled within, “that there is no man whose favor I would
do so much to win!”
“Well, here's your chance!” said Armorer.
Harry swung round in his chair, his clinched fists on his knee. He was
frowning with eagerness, and his eyes were like blue steel.
“See here, Mr. Armorer,” said he, “I am frank with you. I want to please
you, because I want to ask you to let me marry your daughter. But I
CAN'T please you, because I am mayor of this town, and I don't dare to
let you dismiss the conductors. I don't DARE, that's the point. We have
had four children killed on this road since electricity was put in.”
“We have had forty killed on one street railway I know; what of it? Do
you want to give up electricity because it kills children?”
“No, but look here! the conductors lessen the risk. A lady I know,
only yesterday, had a little boy going from the kindergarten home, nice
little fellow only five years old----”
“She ought to have sent a nurse with a child five years old, a baby!”
cried Armorer, warmly.
“That lady,” answered Harry, quietly, “goes without any servant at all
in order to keep her two children at the kindergarten; and the boy's
elder sister was ill at home. The boy got on the car, and when he got
off at the crossing above his house, he started to run across; the other
train-car was coming, the little fellow didn't notice, and ran to cross;
he stumbled and fell right in the path of the coming car!”
“Where was the conductor? He didn't seem much good!”
“They had left off the conductor on that line.”
“Well, did they run over the boy? Why haven't I been informed of the
accident?”
“There was no accident. A man on the front platform saw the boy fall,
made a flying leap off the moving car, fell, but scrambled up and pulled
the boy off the track. It was sickening; I thought we were both gone!”
“Oh, you were the man?”
“I was the man; and don't you see, Mr. Armorer, why I feel strongly on
the subject? If the conductor had been on, there wouldn't have been any
occasion for any accident.”
“Well, sir, you may be assured that we will take precautions against
any such accidents. It is more for our interest than anyone's to guard
against them. And I have explained to you the necessity of cutting down
our expense list.”
“That is just it, you think you have to risk our lives to cut down
expenses; but we get all the risk and none of the benefits. I can't see
my way clear to helping you, sir; I wish I could.”
“Then there is nothing more to say, Mr. Lossing,” said Armorer, coldly.
“I'm sorry a mere sentiment that has no real foundation should stand in
the way of our arranging a deal that would be for the advantage of both
the city and our road.” He rose.
Harry rose also, but lifted his hand to arrest the financier. “Pardon
me, there is something else; I wouldn't mention it, but I hear you
are going to leave to-morrow and go abroad with--Miss Armorer. I am
conscious I haven't introduced myself very favorably, by refusing you a
favor when I want to ask the greatest one possible; but I hope, sir, you
will not think the less of a man because he is not willing to sacrifice
the interests of the people who trust him, to please ANYONE. I--I hope
you will not object to my asking Miss Armorer to marry me,” concluded
Harry, very hot and shaky, and forgetting the beginning of his sentences
before he came to the end.
“Does my daughter love you, do I understand, Mr. Lossing?”
“I don't know, sir. I wish I did.”
“Well, Mr. Lossing,” said Armorer, wishing that something in the young
man's confusion would not remind him of the awful moment when he asked
old Forrester for his Jenny, “I am afraid I can do nothing for you. If
you have too nice a conscience to oblige me, I am afraid it will be too
nice to let you get on in the world. Good-morning.”
“Stop a minute,” said Harry; “if it is only my ability to get on in the
world that is the trouble, I think------”
“It is your love for my daughter,” said Armorer; “if you don't love her
enough to give up a sentimental notion for her, to win her, I don't see
but you must lose her, I bid you good-morning, sir.”
“Not quite yet, sir”--Harry jumped before the door; “you give me the
alternative of being what I call dishonorable or losing the woman I
love!” He pronounced the last word with a little effort and his lips
closed sharply as his teeth shut under them. “Well, I decline the
alternative. I shall try to do my duty and get the wife I want, BOTH.”
“Well, you give me fair warning, don't you?” said Armorer.
Harry held out his hand, saying, “I am sorry that I detained you. I
didn't mean to be rude.” There was something boyish and simple about the
action and the tone, and Armorer laughed. As Harry attended him through
the outer office to the door, he complimented the shops.
“Miss Armorer and Mrs. Ellis have promised to give me the pleasure of
showing them to them this afternoon,” said Harry; “can't I show them and
part of our city to you, also? It has changed a good deal since you left
it.”
The remark threw Armorer off his balance; for a rejected suitor this
young man certainly kept an even mind. But he had all the helplessness
of the average American with regard to his daughter's amusements. The
humor in the situation took him; and it cannot be denied that he began
to have a vivid curiosity about Harry. In less time than it takes to
read it, his mind had swung round the circle of these various points of
view, and he had blandly accepted Harry's invitation. But he mopped a
warm and furrowed brow, outside, and drew a prodigious sigh as he opened
the note-book in his hand and crossed out, “_See L._” “That young fellow
ain't all conscience,” said he, “not by a long shot.”
He found Mrs. Ellis very apologetic about the Lossing engagement. It was
made through the telephone; Esther had been anxious to have her father
meet Lossing; Lossing was to drive them there, and later show Mr.
Armorer the town.
“Mr. Lossing is a very clever young man, very,” said Armorer, gravely,
as he went out to smoke his cigar after luncheon. He wished he had
stayed, however, when he returned to find that a visitor had called, and
that this visitor was the mother of the little boy that Harry Lossing
had saved from the car. The two women gave him the accident in full, and
were lavish of harrowing detail, including the mother's feelings. “So
you see, 'Raish,” urged Mrs. Ellis, timidly, “there is some reason for
opposition to the ordinance.”
Esther's cheeks were red and her eyes shone, but she had not spoken. Her
father put his arm around her waist and kissed her hair. “And what did
you say, Essie,” he asked, gently, “to all the criticisms?”
“I told her I thought you would find some way to protect the children
even if the conductors were taken off; you didn't enjoy the slaughter of
children any more than anyone else.”
“I guess we can fix it. Here is your young man.”
Harry drove a pair of spirited horses. He drove well, and looked both
handsome and happy.
“Did you know that lady--the mother of the boy that wasn't run over--was
coming to see my sister?” said Armorer, on the way.
“I did,” said Harry, “I sent her; I thought she could explain the reason
why I shall have to oppose the bill, better than I.”
Armorer made no reply.
At the shops he kept his eye on the young man. Harry seemed to know
most of his workmen, and had a nod or a word for all the older men. He
stopped several moments to talk with one old German who complained of
everything, but looked after Harry with a smile, nodding his head. “That
man, Lieders, is our best workman; you can't get any better work in the
country,” said he. “I want you to see an armoire that he has carved, it
is up in our exhibition room.”
Armorer said, “You seem to get on very well with your working people,
Mr. Lossing.”
“I think we generally get on well with them, and they do well
themselves, in these Western towns. For one thing, we haven't much
organization to fight, and for another thing, the individual workman has
a better chance to rise. That man Lieders, whom you saw, is worth a good
many thousand dollars; my father invested his savings for him.”
“You are one of the philanthropists, aren't you, Mr. Lossing, who are
trying to elevate the laboring classes?”
“Not a bit of it, sir. I shall never try to elevate the laboring
classes; it is too big a contract. But I try as hard as I know how to
have every man who has worked for Harry Lossing the better for it. I
don't concern myself with any other laboring men.”
Just then a murmur of exclamations came from Mrs. Ellis and Esther, whom
the superintendent was piloting through the shops. “Oh, no, it is too
heavy; oh, don't do it, Mr. Cardigan!” “Oh, we can see it perfectly well
from here! PLEASE don't, you will break yourself somewhere!” Mrs. Ellis
shrieked this; but the shrieks turned to a murmur of admiration as a
huge carved sideboard came bobbing and wobbling, like an intoxicated
piece of furniture in a haunted house, toward the two gentlewomen.
Immediately, a short but powerfully built man, whose red face beamed
above his dusty shoulders like a full moon with a mustache, emerged, and
waved his hand at the sideboard.
“I could tackle the two of them, begging your pardon, ladies.”
“That's Cardigan,” explained Harry, “Miss Armorer may have told you
about him. Oh, SHUEY!”
Cardigan approached and was presented. He brought both his heels
together and bowed solemnly, bending his head at the same time.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Shuey. Then he assumed an attitude of
military attention.
“Take us up in the elevator, will you, Shuey?” said Harry. “Step in, Mr.
Armorer, please, we will go and see the reproductions of the antique; we
have a room upstairs.”
Mr. Armorer stepped in, Shuey following; and then, before Harry could
enter it, the elevator shot upward and--stuck!
“What's the matter?” cried Armorer.
Shuey was tugging at the wire rope. He called, in tones that seemed to
come from a panting chest: “Take a pull at it yourself, sir! Can you
move it?”
Armorer grasped the rope viciously; Shuey was on the seat pulling from
above. “We're stuck, sir, fast!”
“Can't you get down either?”
“Divil a bit, saving your presence, sir. Do ye think like the
water-works could be busted?”