Reference has been made in these pages to a dinner to be given in the
house of Breen to various important people, and to which Mr. Peter
Grayson, the honored friend of the distinguished President of the
Clearing House, was to be invited. The Scribe is unable to say whether
the distinguished Mr. Grayson received an invitation or not. Breen may
have thought better of it, or Jack may have discouraged it after closer
acquaintance with the man who had delighted his soul as no other man
except his father had ever done--but certain it is that he was not
present, and equally certain is it that the distinguished Mr. Portman
was, and so were many of the directors of the Mukton Lode, not to
mention various others--capitalists whose presence would lend dignity to
the occasion and whose names and influence would be of inestimable value
to the future of the corporation.
As fate would have it the day for assuaging the appetites of these
financial magnates was the same that Miss Felicia had selected for her
tea to Ruth, and the time at which they were to draw up their chairs but
two hours subsequent to that in which Jack, crushed and humiliated by
his uncle's knavery, had crept downstairs and into the street.
In this frame of mind the poor boy had stopped at the Magnolia in the
hope of finding Garry, who must, he thought, have left Corinne at home,
and then retraced his steps to the club. He must explode somewhere and
with someone, and the young architect was the very man he wanted. Garry
had ridiculed his old-fashioned ideas and had advised him to let himself
go. Was the wiping out of Gilbert's fortune part of the System? he asked
himself.
As he hunted through the rooms, almost deserted at this hour, his eyes
searching for his friend, a new thought popped into his head, and with
such force that it bowled him over into a chair, where he sat staring
straight in front of him. Tonight, he suddenly remembered, was the
night of the dinner his uncle was to give to some business friends--“A
Gold-Mine Dinner,” his aunt had called it. His cheeks flamed again when
he thought that these very men had helped in the Mukton swindle. To
interrupt them, though, at their feast--or even to mention the subject
to his uncle while the dinner was in progress--was, of course, out of
the question. He would stay where he was; dine alone, unless Garry came
in, and then when the last man had left his uncle's house he would have
it out with him.
Biffton was the only man who disturbed his solitude. Biffy was in full
evening dress--an enormous white carnation in his button-hole and a
crush hat under his arm. He was booked for a “Stag,” he said with
a yawn, or he would stay and keep him company. Jack didn't want any
company--certainly not Biffy--most assuredly not any of the young
fellows who had asked him about Gilbert's failure. What he wanted was
to be left alone until eleven o'clock, during which time he would get
something to eat.
Dinner over, he buried himself in a chair in the library and let his
mind roam. Angry as he was, Ruth's image still haunted him. How pretty
she was--how gracefully she moved her arm as she lifted the cups;
and the way the hair waved about her temples; and the tones of her
voice--and dear Peter, so kind and thoughtful of him, so careful that he
should be introduced to this and that person; and Miss Felicia! What a
great lady she was; and yet he was not a bit afraid of her. What would
they all think of him when the facts of his uncle's crime came to their
ears, and they MUST come sooner or later. What, too, would Peter think
of him for breaking out on his uncle, which he firmly intended to do as
soon as the hour hand reached eleven? Nor would he mince his words. That
an outrage of this kind could be committed on an unsuspecting man was
bad enough, but that it should have taken place in his own uncle's
office, bringing into disrepute his father's and his own good name, was
something he could not tolerate for a moment. This he intended saying to
his uncle in so many plain words; and so leaving our hero with his
soul on fire, his mind bent on inflammables, explosives,
high-pressures--anything in fact that once inserted under the solid body
of the senior Breen would blow that gentleman into space--we will betake
ourselves to his palatial home. The dinner being an important one, no
expense had been spared.
All day long boys in white aprons had sprung from canvas-covered wagons,
dived in Arthur Breen's kitchen and dived out again after depositing
various eatables, drinkables and cookables--among them six pair
of redheads, two saddles of mutton, besides such uncanny things as
mushrooms, truffles and the like, all of which had been turned over to
the chef, who was expressly engaged for the occasion, and whose white
cap--to quote Parkins--“Gives a hair to the scullery which reminded
him more of 'ome than anything 'e 'ad seen since 'e left 'is lordship's
service.”
Upstairs more wonderful things had been done. The table of the
sepulchral dining-room was transformed into a bed of tulips, the mantel
a parterre of flowers, while the sideboard, its rear packed with the
family silver, was guarded by a row of bottles of various sizes, shapes
and colors; various degrees of cob webbed shabbiness, too--containing
the priceless vintages which the senior member of the firm of Breen &
Co. intended to set before his friends.
Finally, as the dinner hour approached, all the gas jets were ablaze;
not only the side lights in the main hall, and the overhead lantern
which had shed its rays on Peter's bald head, but the huge glass
chandelier hung in the middle of the satin-upholstered drawing room, as
well as the candelabra on the mantel with their imitation wax candles
and brass wicks--everything, in fact, that could add to the brilliancy
of the occasion.
All this, despite the orderly way in which the millionaire's house was
run, had developed a certain nervous anxiety in the host himself, the
effect of which had not yet worn off, although but a few minutes would
elapse before the arrival of the guests. This was apparent in the
rise and fall of Breen's heels, as he seesawed back and forth on the
hearth-rug in the satin-lined drawing-room, with his coattails spread to
the lifeless grate, and from the way he glanced nervously at the mirror
to see that his cravat was properly tied and that his collar did not
ride up in the back.
The only calm person in the house was the ex-widow. With the eyes of a
major-general sweeping the field on the eve of an important battle, she
had taken in the disposition of the furniture, the hang of the curtains
and the placing of the cushions and lesser comforts. She had also
arranged with her own hands the masses of narcissus and jonquils on the
mantels, and had selected the exact shade of yellow tulips which centred
the dining-room table. It was to be a “Gold-Mine Dinner,” so Arthur had
told her, “and everything must be in harmony.”
Then seeing Parkins, who had entered unexpectedly and caught her in the
act (it is bad form for a hostess to arrange flowers in some houses--the
butler does that), she asked in an indifferent tone: “And how many are
we to have for dinner, Parkins?” She knew, of course, having spent an
hour over a diagram placing the guests.
“Fourteen, my lady.”
“Fourteen!--really, quite a small affair.” And with the air of one
accustomed all her life to banquets in palaces of state, she swept out
of the room.
The only time she betrayed herself was just before the arrival of the
guests, when her mind reverted to her daughter.
“The Portmans are giving a ball next week, Arthur, and I want Corinne to
go. Are you sure he is coming?”
“Don't worry, Kitty, Portman's coming; and so are the Colonel, and
Crossbin, and Hodges, and the two Chicago directors, and Mason, and a
lot more. Everybody's coming, I tell you. If Mukton Lode doesn't sit up
and take notice with a new lease of life after tonight, I'm a Dutchman.
Run, there's the bell.”
The merciful Scribe will spare the reader the details incident upon
the arrival of the several guests. These dinners are all alike: the
announcements by the butler; the passing of the cocktails on a
wine tray; the standing around until the last man has entered the
drawing-room; the perfunctory talk--the men who have met before
hobnobbing instantly with each other, the host bearing the brunt of the
strangers; the saunter into the dining-room, the reading of cards,
and the “Here you are, Mr. Portman, right alongside Mr. Hodges. And
Crossbin, you are down there somewhere”; the spreading of napkins and
squaring of everybody's elbow as each man drops into his seat.
Neither will the reader be told of the various dishes or their
garnishings. These pages have so far been filled with little else beside
eating and drinking, and with reason, too, for have not all the great
things in life been begun over some tea-table, carried on at a luncheon,
and completed between the soup and the cordials? Kings, diplomats
and statesmen have long since agreed that for baiting a trap there is
nothing like a soup, an entree and a roast, the whole moistened by a
flagon of honest wine. The bait varies when the financier or promoter
sets out to catch a capitalist, just as it does when one sets out to
catch a mouse, and yet the two mammals are much alike--timid, one foot
at a time, nosing about to find out if any of his friends have had a
nibble; scared at the least disturbing echo--then the fat, toothsome
cheese looms up (Breen's Madeira this time), and in they go.
But if fuller description of this special bait be omitted, there is no
reason why that of the baiters and the baited should be left out of the
narrative.
Old Colonel Purviance, of the Chesapeake Club, for one--a big-paunched
man who always wore, summer and winter, a reasonably white waistcoat
and a sleazy necktie; swore in a loud voice and dropped his g's when
he talked. “Bit 'em off,” his friends said, as he did the end of his
cigars. He had, in honor of the occasion so contrived that his black
coat and trousers matched this time, while his shoestring tie had been
replaced by a white cravat. But the waistcoat was of the old pattern
and the top button loose, as usual. The Colonel earned his living--and
a very comfortable one it was--by promoting various enterprises--some of
them rather shady. He had also a gift for both starting and maintaining
a boom. Most of the Mukton stock owned by the Southern contingent had
been floated by him. Another of his accomplishments was his ability
to label correctly, with his eyes shut, any bottle of Madeira from
anybody's cellar, and to his credit, be it said, he never lied about the
quality, be it good, bad or abominable.
Next to him sat Mason, from Chicago--a Westerner who had made his money
in a sudden rise in real estate, and who had moved to New York to spend
it: an out-spoken, common-sense, plain man, with yellow eyebrows, yellow
head partly bald, and his red face blue specked with powder marks due
to a premature blast in his mining days. Mason couldn't tell the best
Tiernan Madeira from corner-grocery sherry, and preferred whiskey at any
and all hours--and what was more, never assumed for one instant that he
could.
Then came Hodges, the immaculately dressed epicure--a pale,
clean-shaven, eye-glassed, sterilized kind of a man with a long neck
and skinny fingers, who boasted of having twenty-one different clarets
stored away under his sidewalk which were served to ordinary guests, and
five special vintages which he kept under lock and key, and which were
only uncorked for the elect, and who invariably munched an olive before
sampling the next wine. Then followed such lesser lights, as Nixon,
Leslie and the other guests.
A most exacting group of bons vivants, these. The host had realized
it and had brought out his best. Most of it, to be sure, had come from
Beaver Street, something “rather dry, with an excellent bouquet,” the
crafty salesman with gimlet eyes had said; but, then, most of the old
Madeira does come from Beaver Street, except Portman's, who has a fellow
with a nose and a palate hunting the auction rooms for that particular
Sunset of 1834 which had lain in old Mr. Grinnells cellar for twenty-two
years; and that other of 1839, once possessed by Colonel Purviance,
a wine which had so sharpened the Colonel's taste that he was always
uncomfortable when dining outside of his club or away from the tables of
one or two experts like himself.
These, then, were the palates to which Breen catered. Back of them lay
their good-will and good feeling; still back of them, again, their bank
accounts and--another scoop in Mukton! Most of the guests had had a hand
in the last deal and they were ready to share in the next. Although this
particular dinner was supposed to be a celebration of the late victory,
two others, equally elaborate, had preceded it; both Crossbin and Hodges
having entertained nearly this same group of men at their own tables.
That Breen, with his reputation for old Madeira and his supposed
acquaintance with the intricacies of a Maryland kitchen, would outclass
them both, had been whispered a dozen times since the receipt of his
invitation, and he knew it. Hence the alert boy, the chef in the white
cap, and hence the seesawing on the hearth-rug.
“Like it, Crossbin?” asked Breen.
Parkins had just passed down the table with a dust covered bottle which
he handled with the care of a collector fingering a peachblow vase.
The precious fluid had been poured into that gentleman's glass and its
contents were now within an inch of his nose.
The moment was too grave for instant reply; Mr. Crossbin was allowing
the aroma to mount to the innermost recesses of his nostrils. It had
only been a few years since he had performed this same trick with a
gourd suspended from a nail in his father's back kitchen, overlooking a
field of growing corn; but that fact was not public property--not here
in New York.
“Yes--smooth, and with something of the hills in it. Chateau Lamont, is
it not, of '61?” It was Chateau of something-or-other, and of some
year, but Breen was too wise to correct him. He supposed it was Chateau
Lafitte--that is, he had instructed Parkins to serve that particular
wine and vintage.
“Either '61 or '63,” replied Breen with the air of positive certainty.
(How that boy in the white apron, who had watched the boss paste on the
labels, would have laughed had he been under the table.)
Further down the cloth Hodges, the epicure, was giving his views as
to the proper way of serving truffles. A dish had just passed, with
an underpinning of crust. Hodges's early life had qualified him as an
expert in cooking, as well as in wines: Ten years in a country store
swapping sugar for sausages and tea for butter and eggs; five more
clerk in a Broadway cloth house, with varied boarding-house experiences
(boiled mutton twice a week, with pudding on Sundays); three years
junior partner, with a room over Delmonico's; then a rich wife and a
directorship in a bank (his father-in-law was the heaviest depositor);
next, one year in Europe and home, as vice-president, and at the
present writing president of one of the certify-as-early-as-ten
o'clock-in-the-morning kind of banks, at which Peter would so often laugh.
With these experiences there came the usual blooming and expanding--all
the earlier life forgotten, really ignored. Soon the food of the
country became unbearable. Even the canvasbacks must feed on a certain
kind of wild celery; the oysters be dredged from a particular cove, and
the terrapin drawn from their beds with the Hodges' coat of arms cut
in their backs before they would be allowed a place on the ex-clerk's
table.
It is no wonder, then, that everybody listened when the distinguished
epicure launched out on the proper way to both acquire and serve so rare
and toothsome a morsel as a truffle.
“Mine come by every steamer,” Hodges asserted in a positive tone--not to
anybody in particular, but with a sweep of the table to attract enough
listeners to make it worthwhile for him to proceed. “My man is aboard
before the gang-plank is secure--gets my package from the chief steward
and is at my house with the truffles within an hour. Then I at once take
proper care of them. That is why my truffles have that peculiar
flavor you spoke of, Mr. Portman, when you last dined at my house. You
remember, don't you?”
Portman nodded. He did not remember--not the truffles. He recalled some
white port--but that was because he had bought the balance of the lot
himself.
“Where do they come from?” inquired Mason, the man from Chicago. He
wanted to know and wasn't afraid to ask.
“All through France. Mine are rooted near a little village in the
Province of Perigord.”
“What roots 'em?”
“Hogs--trained hogs. You are familiar, of course, with the way they are
secured?”
Mason--plain man as he was--wasn't familiar with anything remotely
connected with the coralling of truffles, and said so. Hodges talked on,
his eye resting first on one and then another of the guests, his voice
increasing in volume whenever a fresh listener craned his neck, as if
the information was directed to him alone--a trick of Hodges' when he
wanted an audience.
“And now a word of caution,” he continued; “some thing that most of
you may not know--always root on a rainy day--sunshine spoils their
flavor--makes them tough and leathery.”
“Kind of hog got anything to do with the taste?” asked Mason in all
sincerity. He was learning New York ways--a new lesson each day, and
intended to keep on, but not by keeping his mouth shut.
“Nothing whatever,” replied Hodges. “They must never be allowed to bite
them, of course. You can wound a truffle as you can everything else.”
Mason looked off into space and the Colonel bent his ear. Purviance's
diet had been largely drawn from his beloved Chesapeake, and “dug-up
dead things”--as he called the subject under discussion--didn't interest
him. He wanted to laugh--came near it--then he suddenly remembered how
important a man Hodges might be and how necessary it was to give him air
space in which to float his pet balloons and so keep him well satisfied
with himself.
Mason, the Chicago man, had no such scruples. He had twice as much money
as Hodges, four times his digestion and ten times his commonsense.
“Send that dish back here, Breen,” Mason cried out in a clear voice--so
loud that Parkins, winged by the shot, retraced his steps. “I want to
see what Mr. Hodges is talking about. Never saw a truffle that I know
of.” Here he turned the bits of raw rubber over with his fork. “No. Take
it away. Guess I'll pass. Hog saw it first; he can have it.”
Hodges's face flushed, then he joined in the laugh. The Chicago man
was too valuable a would-be subscriber to quarrel with. And, then, how
impossible to expect a person brought up as Mason had been to understand
the ordinary refinements of civilization.
“Rough diamond, Mason--Good fellow. Backbone of our country,” Hodges
whispered to the Colonel, who was sore from the strain of repressed
hilarity. “A little coarse now and then--but that comes of his early
life, no doubt.”
Hodges waited his chance and again launched out; this time it was upon
the various kinds of wines his cellar contained--their cost--who had
approved of them--how impossible it was to duplicate some of them,
especially some Johannesburg of '74.
“Forty-two dollars a bottle--not pressed in the ordinary way--just the
weight of the grapes in the basket in which they are gathered in the
vineyard, and what naturally drips through is caught and put aside,”
etc.
Breen winced. First his truffles were criticised, and now his pet
Johannesburg that Parkins was pouring into special glasses--cooled to an
exact temperature--part of a case, he explained to Nixon, who sat on his
right, that Count Mosenheim had sent to a friend here. Something must be
done to head Hodges off or there was no telling what might happen. The
Madeira was the thing. He knew that was all right, for Purviance had
found it in Baltimore--part of a private cellar belonging some time in
the past to either the Swan or Thomas families--he could not remember
which.
The redheads were now in order, with squares of fried hominy, and for
the moment Hodges held his peace. This was Nixon's opportunity, and he
made the most of it. He had been born on the eastern shore of Maryland
and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-shell crabs and terrapin--not to
mention clams and sheepshead. Nixon therefore launched out on the habits
of the sacred bird--the crimes committed by the swivel-gun in the hands
of the marketmen, the consequent scarcity of the game and the near
approach of the time when the only rare specimens would be found in the
glass cases of the museums, ending his talk with a graphic description
of the great wooden platters of boiling-hot terrapin which were served
to passengers crossing to Norfolk in the old days. The servants would
split off the hot shell--this was turned top side down, used as a dish
and filled with butter, pepper and salt, into which toothsome bits of
the reptile, torn out by the guests' forks, were dipped before being
eaten.
The talk now caromed from birds, reptiles and fish to guns and tackles,
and then to the sportsmen who used them, and then to the millionaires
who owned the largest shares in the ducking clubs, and so on to the
stock of the same, and finally to the one subject of the evening--the
one uppermost in everybody's thoughts which so far had not been touched
upon--the Mukton Lode. There was no question about the proper mechanism
of the traps--the directors were attending to that; the quality of the
bait, too, seemed all that could be desired--that was Breen's part. How
many mice were nosing about was the question, and of the number how many
would be inside when the spring snapped?
The Colonel, after a nod of his head and a reassuring glance from his
host, took full charge of the field, soaring away with minute accounts
of the last inspection of the mine. He told how the “tailings” at Mukton
City had panned out 30 per cent, to the ton--with two hundred thousand
tons in the dump thrown away until the new smelter was started and they
could get rid of the sulphides; of what Aetna Cobb's Crest had done
and Beals Hollow and Morgan Creek--all on the same ridge, and was about
launching out on the future value of Mukton Lode when Mason broke the
silence by asking if any one present had heard of a mine somewhere in
Nevada which an Englishman had bought and which had panned out $1,200 to
the ton the first week and not a cent to the square mile ever afterward?
The Chicago man was the most important mouse of the lot, and the tone of
his voice and his way of speaking seemed fraught with a purpose.
Breen leaned forward in rapt attention, and even Hodges and Portman
(both of them were loaded to the scuppers with Mukton) stopped talking.
“Slickest game I ever heard of,” continued Mason. “Two men came into
town--two poor prospectors, remember--ran across the Englishman at the
hotel--told the story of their claim: 'Take it or leave it after you
look it over,' they said. Didn't want but sixty thousand for it; that
would give them thirty thousand apiece, after which they'd quit and live
on a ranch. No, they wouldn't go with him to inspect the mine; there
was the map. He couldn't miss it; man at the hotel would drive him out
there. There was, of course, a foot of snow on the ground, which
was frozen hard, but they had provided for that and had cut a lot of
cord-wood, intending to stay till spring. The Englishman could have the
wood to thaw out the ground.”
“The Englishman went and found everything as the two prospectors had
said; thawed out the soil in half a dozen places; scooped up the dirt
and every shovelful panned out about twelve hundred to the ton. Then
he came back and paid the money; that was the last of it. Began to dig
again in the spring--and not a trace of anything.”
“What was the matter?” asked Breen. So far his interest in mines had
been centred on the stock.
“Oh, the same old swindle,” said Mason, looking around the table, a grim
smile on his face--“only in a different way.”
“Was it salted?” called out a man from the lower end of the table.
“Yes,” replied Mason; “not the mine, but the cord-wood. The two poor
prospectors had bored auger holes in each stick, stuffed 'em full of
gold dust and plugged the openings. It was the ashes that panned out
$1,200 to the ton.”
Mason was roaring, as were one or two about him. Portman looked grave,
and so did Breen. Nothing of that kind had ever soiled their hands;
everything with them was open and above-board. They might start a
rumor that the Lode had petered out, throw an avalanche of stock on
the market, knock it down ten points, freezing out the helpless (poor
Gilbert had been one of them), buy in what was offered and then declare
an extra dividend, sending the stock skyward, but anything so low
as--“Oh, very reprehensible--scandalous in fact.”
Hodges was so moved by the incident that he asked Breen if he would not
bring back that Madeira (it had been served now in the pipe-stem glasses
which had been crossed in finger-bowls). This he sipped slowly and
thoughtfully, as if the enormity of the crime had quite appalled him.
Mason was no longer a “rough diamond,” but an example of what a “Western
training will sometimes do for a man,” he whispered under his breath to
Crossbin.
With the departure of the last guest--one or two of them were a little
unsteady; not Mason, we may be sure--Jack, who had come home and was
waiting upstairs in his room for the feast to be over, squared his
shoulders, threw up his chin and, like many another crusader bent on
straightening the affairs of the world, started out to confront his
uncle. His visor was down, his lance in rest, his banner unfurled, the
scarf of the blessed damosel tied in double bow-knot around his trusty
right arm. Both knight and maid were unconscious of the scarf, and yet
if the truth be told it was Ruth's eyes that had swung him into battle.
Now he was ready to fight; to renounce the comforts of life and live
on a crust rather than be party to the crimes that were being daily
committed under his very eyes!
His uncle was in the library, having just bowed out his last guest,
when the boy strode in. About him were squatty little tables holding the
remnants of the aftermath of the feast--siphons and decanters and the
sample boxes of cigars--full to the lid when Parkins first passed them
(why fresh cigars out of a full box should have a better flavor than
the same cigars from a half-empty one has always been a mystery to the
Scribe).
That the dinner had been a success gastronomically, socially and
financially, was apparent from the beatific boozy smile that pervaded
Breen's face as he lay back in his easy-chair. To disturb a reverie
of this kind was as bad as riding rough-shod over some good father
digesting his first meal after Lent, but the boy's purpose was too lofty
to be blunted by any such considerations. Into the arena went his glove
and out rang his challenge.
“What I have got to say to you, Uncle Arthur, breaks my heart, but you
have got to listen to me! I have waited until they were all gone to tell
you.”
Breen laid his glass on the table and straightened himself in his chair.
His brain was reeling from the wine he had taken and his hand unsteady,
but he still had control of his arms and legs.
“Well, out with it! What's it all about, Jack?”
“I heard this afternoon that my friend Gilbert was ruined in our office.
The presence of these men to-night makes me believe it to be true. If
it is true, I want to tell you that I'll never enter the office again as
long as I live!”
Breen's eyes flashed:
“You'll never enter!... What the devil is the matter with you,
Jack!--are you drunk or crazy?”
“Neither! And I want to tell you, sir, too, that I won't be pointed out
as having anything to do with such a swindling concern as the Mukton
Lode Company. You've stopped the work on Gilbert's house--Mr. Morris
told me so--you've--”
The older man sprang from his seat and lunged toward the boy.
“Stop it!” he cried. “Now--quick!”
“Yes--and you've just given a dinner to the very men who helped steal
his money, and they sat here and laughed about it! I heard them as I
came in!” The boy's tears were choking him now.
“Didn't I tell you to stop, you idiot!” His fist was within an inch of
Jack's nose: “Do you want me to knock your head off? What the hell is it
your business who I invite to dinner--and what do you know about Mukton
Lode? Now you go to bed, and damn quick, too! Parkins, put out the
lights!”
And so ended the great crusade with our knight unhorsed and floundering
in the dust. Routed by the powers of darkness, like many another gallant
youth in the old chivalric days, his ideals laughed at, his reforms
flouted, his protests ignored--and this, too, before he could fairly
draw his sword or couch his lance.