“I am not in the mood for listening to the confessions of a frivolous
boy,” remarked John Fenton, looking up from his desk in the city room
of the _Trumpet_ at Richard Stoughton on the afternoon following Mrs.
Percy-Bartlett’s musicale.
“Don’t be cross with me, John,” implored Richard gently; “I have no
intention of worrying you with my peccadilloes. But I want you to look
in on me for an hour after dinner. I really have a very important
matter I want to talk to you about. You aren’t on duty to-night, are
you?”
“No,” answered Fenton, with apparent reluctance. Then he hesitated a
moment, and finally said,--
“Very well, Richard. I’ll do you the great honor of calling on you
about half after seven. But I give you fair warning, if you begin to
bore me, I shall fly at once.”
“It’s a bargain!” exclaimed the youth, as he turned away.
Richard occupied a rather luxurious suite of bachelor-apartments on
a side-street not very far up-town. As he sat before an open fire
after dinner that evening awaiting the arrival of John Fenton, he
felt thoroughly contented with himself and the world at large. He had
come to New York unknown and unheralded, and lo! the great city, so
indifferent to the advent of most strangers, had opened its arms to
him, had patted him on the back, had told him that he was clever, and
therefore welcome. The great metropolis has an insatiable hunger for
able men in all lines of life, but it is often blind for many years to
the merits of certain citizens who need only an opportunity to become
prominent. Once in a great while, however, it seizes a very young man
by the collar of his coat, as it were, and thrusts him forward in some
field of endeavor, and the multitude of older men who have failed to
take advantage of their life-tide at its flood, look on with mingled
amazement and envy at the lucky youth. Chance had thrown Richard
Stoughton into the front ranks of journalism; and as he watched the
flickering blaze before him, or followed the smoke from his cigar with
his eye, he felt that he was worthy of the position he held, and that
the metropolis had not made a blunder when it had picked him out as one
entitled to applause.
The door behind Richard opened softly, and John Fenton entered the room
and quietly seated himself at the other side of the fireplace.
“Have a cigar, John,” said the youth, deserting his air-castles for the
stern realities that Fenton always seemed to carry with him. Turning to
offer his guest a light, Richard was surprised to see that Fenton was
garbed in evening dress. “My miracle is taking on a chronic form,” he
said to himself. Then aloud he remarked,--
“I thank you, John, for not disappointing me. I have several weighty
problems on my mind, and you’re the only man of my acquaintance who can
help me out.”
Fenton puffed away silently for a few moments.
“Go on,” he said at length, rather coldly. “You want to talk to me
about--what?”
“About the single-tax theory, John, as applied to affairs of the heart.”
Fenton glanced sternly at his companion, but there was no sign of
mischief on Richard’s face. He was gazing at the fire as though trying
to read in the dancing flames the answer to the riddle that annoyed him.
“Explain yourself,” said Fenton suspiciously.
“Well,” went on Richard with studied calmness, “you see, I am trying to
get into touch with all the new ideas that have a marked influence on
the life of our times. I am, however, especially interested in watching
the effect of theories on the actions of my friends. It’s almost a new
science, I think. I must look up some Greek roots and give it a name.
Perhaps I’ll go down to fame as the inventor of a new and very useful
line of study.”
“What are you attempting to get at, Richard?” exclaimed Fenton,
twisting around uneasily in his chair and trying to obtain a clear
view of the young man’s face.
“That’s not the point, John. The question is, what are _you_ striving
to accomplish? You see, I have been doing a good deal of unconscious
cerebration in regard to your single-tax ideas, and I have reached a
point where I should like to ask a few more questions regarding the
demands that your belief makes on your habits of life. Now, you know,
our good old Puritan ancestors were fond of looking upon this world as
‘a vale of tears.’ You single-tax people go a step farther, and call it
‘a den of thieves.’”
“Come, Richard,” said Fenton firmly, “don’t be flippant.”
“The very last thing that I feel inclined to be, John. I’m in sober
earnest. Let me ask you a question. You consider, of course, a man who
collects rents from property he holds in this city from his ancestors a
receiver of stolen goods?”
“Well, what if I do?” asked Fenton testily.
“I was curious to know, that’s all.”
“And what if I say that I do?” persisted Fenton at length, in a more
amenable tone of voice.
“Well, if you do, would you make a bosom friend of a son of this
receiver of stolen goods, who will, in all likelihood, come into the
booty after a time, and whose blood is tainted by his descent from a
line of land-pirates?”
“Nonsense, Richard! I don’t see the use of putting those questions to
me--just at this time. If a man is by heredity a drunkard I may feel
sorry for him, but it is not my duty to express my disapproval of his
ancestors so long as he treats me decently.”
“That’s logical enough,” commented Richard enthusiastically. “I really
begin to think, John, that you still have sense enough left not to let
your economic theories and beliefs--convictions that, I have heard,
sometimes make fanatics of those who hold them--ruin any chance that
might come to you for great happiness in life.”
There was silence in the room for several minutes.
“It’s curious,” remarked Fenton musingly, “that you have taken just
this tack, Richard. You have that faculty of intuition that is, for
the most part, a feminine characteristic. I can see evidences of that
peculiarity of mind in your work on the editorial page. You seem to
reach at a bound deductions that most men would have to work out with
painful effort.”
“You mean by that, John, that, to use the words of our professional
President, it is a condition, not a theory, that confronts you, and
that I know it.”
“I admit nothing, Richard,” said Fenton stubbornly, and looking at his
watch.
“But,” persisted Richard, as his friend rose to go, “you believe that
a man who holds real estate in New York--derived, let us say, from his
Dutch ancestors--is the dishonest holder of ill-gotten gain?”
“This is unkind, Richard,” said Fenton, with more emotion in his
voice than his friend had ever heard it express. “I have neither the
inclination nor the time at present to explain my present position.”
“Why not the time, John?” asked Richard, smiling mischievously.
“Because, my boy,” and Fenton spoke like a man driven to the wall, “I’m
going up-town to call on Miss Van Vleck.”
Richard laughed outright.
“No wonder,” he cried, “that you can’t explain your present position.”
Richard found himself alone in the room, and, lighting a fresh cigar,
reseated himself before the fire.
“It was heroic treatment,” he mused, “but it’s the only course to
pursue with such a man as John Fenton.”
Then he fell to thinking of Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, and the hours flew by.