At seven o'clock on the last morning of that month, Sheridan, passing
through the upper hall on his way to descend the stairs for breakfast,
found a couple of scribbled sheets of note-paper lying on the floor. A
window had been open in Bibbs's room the evening before; he had left his
note-book on the sill--and the sheets were loose. The door was open, and
when Bibbs came in and closed it, he did not notice that the two sheets
had blown out into the hall. Sheridan recognized the handwriting and
put the sheets in his coat pocket, intending to give them to George
or Jackson for return to the owner, but he forgot and carried them
down-town with him. At noon he found himself alone in his office, and,
having a little leisure, remembered the bits of manuscript, took them
out, and glanced at them. A glance was enough to reveal that they were
not epistolary. Sheridan would not have read a “private letter” that
came into his possession in that way, though in a “matter of business”
he might have felt it his duty to take advantage of an opportunity
afforded in any manner whatsoever. Having satisfied himself that Bibbs's
scribblings were only a sample of the kind of writing his son preferred
to the machine-shop, he decided, innocently enough, that he would be
justified in reading them.
It appears that a lady will nod pleasantly upon some windy
generalization of a companion, and will wear the most agreeable
expression of accepting it as the law, and then--days afterward,
when the thing is a mummy to its promulgator--she will inquire out
of a clear sky: “WHY did you say that the people down-town have
nothing in life that a chicken hasn't? What did you mean?” And she
may say it in a manner that makes a sensible reply very difficult
--you will be so full of wonder that she remembered so seriously.
Yet, what does the rooster lack? He has food and shelter; he is
warm in winter; his wives raise not one fine family for him, but
dozens. He has a clear sky over him; he breathes sweet air; he
walks in his April orchard under a roof of flowers. He must die,
violently perhaps, but quickly. Is Midas's cancer a better way?
The rooster's wives and children must die. Are those of Midas
immortal? His life is shorter than the life of Midas, but Midas's
life is only a sixth as long as that of the Galapagos tortoise.
The worthy money-worker takes his vacation so that he may refresh
himself anew for the hard work of getting nothing that the rooster
doesn't get. The office-building has an elevator, the rooster
flies up to the bough. Midas has a machine to take him to his work;
the rooster finds his worm underfoot. The “business man” feels
a pressure sometimes, without knowing why, and sits late at wine
after the day's labor; next morning he curses his head because it
interferes with the work--he swears never to relieve that pressure
again. The rooster has no pressure and no wine; this difference is
in his favor.
The rooster is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the
weather. Midas is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the
weather. The rooster thinks only of the moment; Midas provides for
to-morrow. What does he provide for to-morrow? Nothing that the
rooster will not have without providing.
The rooster and the prosperous worker: they are born, they grub,
they love; they grub and love grubbing; they grub and they die.
Neither knows beauty; neither knows knowledge. And after all, when
Midas dies and the rooster dies, there is one thing Midas has had
and rooster has not. Midas has had the excitement of accumulating
what he has grubbed, and that has been his life and his love and
his god. He cannot take that god with him when he dies. I wonder
if the worthy gods are those we can take with us.
Midas must teach all to be as Midas; the young must be raised in
his religion--
The manuscript ended there, and Sheridan was not anxious for more.
He crumpled the sheets into a ball, depositing it (with vigor) in a
waste-basket beside him; then, rising, he consulted a Cyclopedia of
Names, which a book-agent had somehow sold to him years before; a
volume now first put to use for the location of “Midas.” Having read the
legend, Sheridan walked up and down the spacious office, exhaling
the breath of contempt. “Dam' fool!” he mumbled. But this was no new
thought, nor was the contrariness of Bibbs's notes a surpise to him; and
presently he dismissed the matter from his mind.
He felt very lonely, and this was, daily, his hardest hour. For a long
time he and Jim had lunched together habitually. Roscoe preferred a
club luncheon, but Jim and his father almost always went to a small
restaurant near the Sheridan Building, where they spent twenty minutes
in the consumption of food, and twenty in talk, with cigars. Jim came
for his father every day, at five minutes after twelve, and Sheridan
was again in his office at five minutes before one. But now that Jim no
longer came, Sheridan remained alone in his office; he had not gone out
to lunch since Jim's death, nor did he have anything sent to him--he
fasted until evening.
It was the time he missed Jim personally the most--the voice and eyes
and handshake, all brisk and alert, all business-like. But these things
were not the keenest in Sheridan's grief; his sense of loss went far
deeper. Roscoe was dependable, a steady old wheel-horse, and that was
a great comfort; but it was in Jim that Sheridan had most happily
perceived his own likeness. Jim was the one who would have been surest
to keep the great property growing greater, year by year. Sheridan had
fallen asleep, night after night, picturing what the growth would be
under Jim. He had believed that Jim was absolutely certain to be one of
the biggest men in the country. Well, it was all up to Roscoe now!
That reminded him of a question he had in mind to ask Roscoe. It was a
question Sheridan considered of no present importance, but his wife had
suggested it--though vaguely--and he had meant to speak to Roscoe about
it. However, Roscoe had not come into his father's office for several
days, and when Sheridan had seen his son at home there had been no
opportunity.
He waited until the greater part of his day's work was over, toward four
o'clock, and then went down to Roscoe's office, which was on a lower
floor. He found several men waiting for business interviews in an outer
room of the series Roscoe occupied; and he supposed that he would
find his son busy with others, and that his question would have to
be postponed, but when he entered the door marked “R. C. Sheridan.
Private,” Roscoe was there alone.
He was sitting with his back to the door, his feet on a window-sill, and
he did not turn as his father opened the door.
“Some pretty good men out there waitin' to see you, my boy,” said
Sheridan. “What's the matter?”
“Nothing,” Roscoe answered indistinctly, not moving.
“Well, I guess that's all right, too. I let 'em wait sometimes myself!
I just wanted to ask you a question, but I expect it'll keep, if you're
workin' something out in your mind!”
Roscoe made no reply; and his father, who had turned to the door, paused
with his hand on the knob, staring curiously at the motionless figure in
the chair. Usually the son seemed pleased and eager when he came to the
office. “You're all right, ain't you?” said Sheridan. “Not sick, are
you?”
“No.”
Sheridan was puzzled; then, abruptly, he decided to ask his question. “I
wanted to talk to you about that young Lamhorn,” he said. “I guess your
mother thinks he's comin' to see Edith pretty often, and you known him
longer'n any of us, so--”
“I won't,” said Roscoe, thickly--“I won't say a dam' thing about him!”
Sheridan uttered an exclamation and walked quickly to a position
near the window where he could see his son's face. Roscoe's eyes were
bloodshot and vacuous; his hair was disordered, his mouth was distorted,
and he was deathly pale. The father stood aghast.
“By George!” he muttered. “ROSCOE!”
“My name,” said Roscoe. “Can' help that.”
“ROSCOE!” Blank astonishment was Sheridan's first sensation. Probably
nothing in the world could have more amazed his than to find Roscoe--the
steady old wheel-horse--in this condition. “How'd you GET this way?” he
demanded. “You caught cold and took too much for it?”
For reply Roscoe laughed hoarsely. “Yeuh! Cold! I been drinkun all time,
lately. Firs' you notice it?”
“By George!” cried Sheridan. “I THOUGHT I'd smelt it on you a good deal
lately, but I wouldn't 'a' believed you'd take more'n was good for you.
Boh! To see you like a common hog!”
Roscoe chuckled and threw out his right arm in a meaningless gesture.
“Hog!” he repeated, chuckling.
“Yes, a hog!” said Sheridan, angrily. “In business hours! I don't object
to anybody's takin' a drink if you wants to, out o' business hours; nor,
if a man keeps his work right up to the scratch, I wouldn't be the one
to baste him if he got good an' drunk once in two, three years, maybe.
It ain't MY way. I let it alone, but I never believed in forcin' my way
on a grown-up son in moral matters. I guess I was wrong! You think them
men out there are waitin' to talk business with a drunkard? You think
you can come to your office and do business drunk? By George! I wonder
how often this has been happening and me not on to it! I'll have a look
over your books to-morrow, and I'll--”
Roscoe stumbled to his feet, laughing wildly, and stood swaying,
contriving to hold himself in position by clutching the back of the
heavy chair in which he had been sitting.
“Hoo--hoorah!” he cried. “'S my principles, too. Be drunkard all you
want to--outside business hours. Don' for Gossake le'n'thing innerfere
business hours! Business! Thassit! You're right, father. Drink! Die!
L'everything go to hell, but DON' let innerfere business!”
Sheridan had seized the telephone upon Roscoe's desk, and was calling
his own office, overhead. “Abercrombie? Come down to my son Roscoe's
suite and get rid of some gentlemen that are waitin' there to see him in
room two-fourteen. There's Maples and Schirmer and a couple o' fellows
on the Kinsey business. Tell 'em something's come up I have to go over
with Roscoe, and tell 'em to come back day after to-morrow at two.
You needn't come in to let me know they're gone; we don't want to be
disturbed. Tell Pauly to call my house and send Claus down here with a
closed car. We may have to go out. Tell him to hustle, and call me at
Roscoe's room as soon as the car gets here. 'T's all!”
Roscoe had laughed bitterly throughout this monologue. “Drunk in
business hours! Thass awf'l! Mus'n' do such thing! Mus'n' get drunk,
mus'n' gamble, mus'n' kill 'nybody--not in business hours! All right any
other time. Kill 'nybody you want to--'s long 'tain't in business
hours! Fine! Mus'n' have any trouble 't'll innerfere business. Keep your
trouble 't home. Don' bring it to th' office. Might innerfere business!
Have funerals on Sunday--might innerfere business! Don' let your wife
innerfere business! Keep all, all, ALL your trouble an' your meanness,
an' your trad--your tradegy--keep 'em ALL for home use! If you got die,
go on die 't home--don' die round th' office! Might innerfere business!”
Sheridan picked up a newspaper from Roscoe's desk, and sat down with his
back to his son, affecting to read. Roscoe seemed to be unaware of his
father's significant posture.
“You know wh' I think?” he went on. “I think Bibbs only one the fam'ly
any 'telligence at all. Won' work, an' di'n' get married. Jim worked,
an' he got killed. I worked, an' I got married. Look at me! Jus' look at
me, I ask you. Fine 'dustriss young business man. Look whass happen' to
me! Fine!” He lifted his hand from the sustaining chair in a deplorable
gesture, and, immediately losing his balance, fell across the chair
and caromed to the floor with a crash, remaining prostrate for several
minutes, during which Sheridan did not relax his apparent attention to
the newspaper. He did not even look round at the sound of Roscoe's fall.
Roscoe slowly climbed to an upright position, pulling himself up
by holding to the chair. He was slightly sobered outwardly, having
progressed in the prostrate interval to a state of befuddlement less
volatile. He rubbed his dazed eyes with the back of his left hand.
“What--what you ask me while ago?” he said.
“Nothin'.”
“Yes, you did. What--what was it?”
“Nothin'. You better sit down.”
“You ask' me what I thought about Lamhorn. You did ask me that. Well, I
won't tell you. I won't say dam' word 'bout him!”
The telephone-bell tinkled. Sheridan placed the receiver to his ear and
said, “Right down.” Then he got Roscoe's coat and hat from a closet and
brought them to his son. “Get into this coat,” he said. “You're goin'
home.”
“All ri',” Roscoe murmured, obediently.
They went out into the main hall by a side door, not passing through the
outer office; and Sheridan waited for an empty elevator, stopped it, and
told the operator to take on no more passengers until they reached
the ground floor. Roscoe walked out of the building and got into the
automobile without lurching, and twenty minutes later walked into his
own house in the same manner, neither he nor his father having spoken a
word in the interval.
Sheridan did not go in with him; he went home, and to his own room
without meeting any of his family. But as he passed Bibbs's door he
heard from within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant
fragments of song:
WHO looks a mustang in the eye?...
With a leap from the ground
To the saddle in a bound.
And away--and away!
Hi-yay!
It was the first time in Sheridan's life that he had ever detected
any musical symptom whatever in Bibbs--he had never even heard him
whistle--and it seemed the last touch of irony that the useless fool
should be merry to-day.
To Sheridan it was Tom o' Bedlam singing while the house burned; and he
did not tarry to enjoy the melody, but went into his own room and locked
the door.