"Well," he ran on, "suppose you bring them over, deposit them with
Sampson and Company against that much in _ad interim_ certificates--or
else borrow money on 'em. Don't you see?" he slapped his knee
gleefully, "then we have those certificates on hand. We can pass 'em
right out to fellows like Visconti, who come straight across, and so go
on with the game. When we're through, all you've done is to lend
yourself--the firm--twenty-five thousand in securities, given us a big
lift and you put your securities back in the vault. Don't you see
that?"
"No."
"Isn't that clear?" he asked in an injured tone.
"Clear as pitch," I answered truthfully.
"Never mind," he clapped me smartly on the shoulder. "You go bring your
securities over. I'll make it clear. Of course you'll draw interest on
the loan you're making the firm."
And like the mule I am, I dully complied. And now we are laboring on
with the sale of the million in foreign bonds to people the majority of
whom have not a notion whether Roumania is the capital of Rome or a
Central American republic. "_L'insuccess_," declares Balzac, "_nous
accuse toujours la puissance de nos pretentious_." But as I had no
pretensions in this business, loss and failure would be doubly
humiliating. What then, I ask myself again, am I doing in that galley?
Meantime what remains of my slender possessions is hypothecated to the
pretensions I had never entertained.
I have been house-hunting in the suburbs. It is idle for me to try to
find either a house or an apartment in any region that would be suitable
for both my means and the children in New York. So for two Saturdays
and two Sundays I have been trudging the dreariness of the less
expensive suburbs in quest of a house.
"What!" exclaimed Fred, when he heard of it, "not going to leave the
Shoe?"
"Yes," I told him. "The Shoe pinches, I must find another."
"Well, you're a funny old geezer," was his laughing comment. I could do
better than that in describing him.
When I come home depressed and weary I find a shower of little
attentions awaiting me, very winning and touchingly agreeable. Little
Jimmie, with great serious eyes, ostentatiously brings me my slippers
and dressing gown and watches my face intently for the reward of
commendation. When I murmur, "Thanks, old man, very good of you," I can
virtually see his little pulses pounding with exultation in his veins.
"Are you vewy tired, Uncle Ranny?" he inquires, keeping up the high
drama of profound concern.
"So, so, old chap," I tell him, kissing his serious little face.
"Nothing to worry about." A moment later I hear him dashing about the
dining room very properly and completely oblivious of my fatigue.
Laura in the role of Hebe, gravely brings me tea on a small tray, and
asks whether there is any book I desire or anything else that she might
bring me.
But behind all these attentions I discern the directing hand of Alicia.
Can it be that the child has instinctively divined that I have actually
broken with Gertrude on her account, that the little woman's soul in her
secretly exults in a feeling of victory? Since she cannot know all the
conditions, she can feel, at most, I suppose, only a vague primitive
sense of triumph in defeating the will of another woman. Perhaps I am
attributing too much to her young intelligence, but at times I seem to
perceive in her eyes, in her bearing, a touch of the protective
instinct, of almost the maternal toward me, that I had never observed in
her before. Possibly it is merely a sense of gratitude. At all events,
those attentions of the little people are very soothing and grateful,
notably now, since Griselda's have declined perforce, in view of her
greatly increased work in the kitchen. Yet it staggers me at times when
I realize the number of souls for whose shelter and livelihood I am
responsible, for the complex machinery that I must keep revolving.
Experience like that should be acquired young. Like Mr. Roosevelt, I
would advocate early marriages.