Bean was studying the old gentleman's faultless garments. He wore a
particularly effective waistcoat of white piqué striped with narrow
black lines, and there was a pink carnation in the lapel of the superbly
tailored frock coat.
"Wha' trawt!" repeated the ornate director. Bean looked again at the
map.
"Here, boy, your last chance. We happen to need those shares in a little
matter of voting. I'll draw you a check for the full amount."
He produced the daintiest of check-books and a fountain pen of a chaste
design in gold. Bean's look was the look of those who see visions.
"Now then, _now_ then!" spluttered the old gentleman, the pen poised.
"Don't keep me waiting; don't keep me, I say! What amount? Wha'
_tamount_?"
Bean's eyes were withdrawn from the wall. He came briskly to life.
"I'll tell you in a moment. I'll get the shares."
"Shrimp!" said the old gentleman triumphantly, when Bean had gone.
"He told _me_," began Tully. But the advanced dresser wanted no more of
that.
"Shrimp!" he repeated.
Bean reëntered with the certificates. The old gentleman glanced angrily
over them.
"Bean!" he exclaimed humorously. "Vegetable after all; not a fish! Funny
name that! Bunker Bean! Boston, by gad! Not bad that, I _say_! Come,
come, _come_! Want par, of course--all do! There y'are, boy!"
He blotted the check, tore it from the book and waved it toward Bean as
he turned to the director of the cigarette.
"About that proposition before us to-day, Mr. Chairman--" but Bean had
gone. Observing this, the old gentleman looked about him.
"Shrimp!" he said contemptuously, with the convinced air of an expert in
marine biology.
Bean, outside, once more addressed himself to typewriting. He wondered
if he should be seized with a toothache or a fainting spell. Toothache
was good, but perhaps Bulger had used that too often. Still Tully would
"fall" for a toothache. It gave him a chance to say that if people would
only go to a dentist once every three months--Then he remembered that
Tully was inside. He wouldn't make any excuse at all.
"Going out a few minutes," he explained to old Metzeger as he swiftly
changed from his office coat and adjusted the new straw hat.
Bulger glanced up from his machine, winked at him and shaped a word with
his able mouth. An adept in lip-reading could have seen it to be
"Chubbins." Bean in response leered confession at him.
The broker's office was in the adjoining block.
"I've just made a little deal," explained Bean to the person who
inquired his business. "Here's the check. You know I've got a sort of an
idea I'd like a little more of that Federal Express stuff. Just buy me
some the same as you did before, as much as you can get on ten margins,
er--I mean on ten points."
"Nothing much doing in that stock," suggested the expert. "Why don't you
get down on some the live ones. Now there's Union Pacific--"
"I know, but I want Federal Express. That is, you see, I want it merely
for a technical purpose." He felt happy at recalling Markham's phrase.
"All right," said the expert resignedly. "We'll do what we can. May take
three or four days."
Bean started for the door.
"Say," called the expert, as if on second thought, "you're up at
Breede's office, ain't you--old J.B.'s?"
"Oh, I'm there for a few days yet," said Bean.
"Ah, ha!" said the expert. "Have a cigar!"
Bean aimlessly accepted the proffer.
"Sit down and gas a while," urged the expert genially. "Things looking
up any over your way?"
"Oh, so-so, only," said Bean. "But I can't stop, thanks! Got to hurry
back to see a man."
"Drop in again any time," said the expert. "We try to make this little
den a home for our customers."
"Thanks!" said Bean. "I'll be sure to."
"Ah ha, and ah ha!" said the expert to himself. "Now I wonder."
On his way back to the office Bean suddenly discovered that he was
chewing an unlighted cigar. He stopped to observe in a polished window
its effect on his face. He rather liked it. He pulled the front of his
hat down a bit and held the cigar at a confident angle. He thought it
made him look forceful. He wished he might pass the purple-faced old
gentleman--the whole Breede gang, for that matter--and chew the cigar at
them.
"I'll show them," he muttered, over and around the impeding cigar. "I'll
show them they can't keep _me_ off that board. I knew what to do in a
minute. Napoleon of Finance, eh? I'll show them who's who!"
He was back at his desk finishing the last of Breede's letters for the
day. Tully had not discovered his absence. He winked at Bulger to assure
him that the worst interpretation could be put upon that absence. He
wondered if anything else could happen before the day ended.
"Telephone for Boston Bean," called the wag of an office boy.
This time he closed the double door of the booth, letting Bulger think
what he pleased.
"I forgot to ask what you take, mornings," pealed the flapper.
"Take--mornings?"
"For breakfast, silly! Because I think it's best for you to take just
eggs and toast; a little fruit of course; not all that meat and things."
"Oh, yes, of course; eggs and--things. Never want much."
"Well, all right, I just perfectly knew you'd see it that way. I'm
making up lists. Tell me, do you like a panelled dining-room, you know,
fumed oak, or something?"
"Only kind I'd ever have."
"I knew you would. What are you doing all the time?"
"Oh, me? I'm getting things into shape. You see, I have an idea--"
"Don't you buy the least little thing until I know. We want to be sure
everything harmonizes and I've just perfectly got everything in my head
the way it will be."
"That's right; that's the only way."
"You didn't say anything about--you know--to poor old Pops, did you?"
"Why, no. I didn't. You see he's been pretty much thinking about other
things all day, and I--"
"Well, that's right. I was afraid you'd be just perfectly impatient. But
you leave it all to me. I'll manage. It's the dearest joke! I may not
tell them for two or three days. Every time I get alone I just perfectly
giggle myself into spasms. Isn't it the funniest?"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha! I should think it was." He was fearfully hoping her
keen sense of humour might continue to rule.
"We _do_, don't we?"
"Do what?"
"_You_ know, stupid!"
"Yes, _yes_ indeed! We just perfectly _do_!"
"More than any two people ever did before, don't we?"
"Well, I should think so; and then some."
"I knew you'd feel that way. Well, good-bye!"
He could fancy her giving the double nod as she hung up the receiver.
During the ride uptown he talked large with a voluble gentleman who had
finished his evening paper and who wished to recite its leading
editorial from memory as something of his own. They used terms like "the
tired business man," "increased cost of living," "small investor," "the
common people," and "enemies of the Public Good." The man was especially
bitter against the Wall Street ring, and remarked that any one wishing
to draw a lesson from history need look no farther back than the French
Revolution. The signs were to be observed on every hand.
Bean felt a little guilty, though he tried to carry it off. Was he not
one of that same Wall Street ring? He pictured himself as a tired
business man eating boiled eggs of a morning in a dining-room panelled
with fumed oak, the flapper across the table in some little old rag. He
thought it sounded pretty luxurious--like a betrayal of the common
people. Still he had to follow his destiny. You couldn't get around
that.
He stood a long time before Ram-tah that night, grateful for the lesson
he had drawn from him in the afternoon. Back there among those
fierce-eyed directors, badgered by the most objectionable of them,
nerving himself to say presently that he could imagine nothing of less
consequence, there had come before his eyes the inspiring face of the
wise and good king. But most unaccountably, as he gazed, it seemed to
him that the great Ram-tah had opened those long-closed eyes; opened
them full for a moment; then allowed the left eye to close swiftly.