confidence. “For what you say you shall not do we do not care about
that. For we have seen what you have done--ah, we know about that and
care about it very much. You are wiser than we are, and if you say you
must go we can only look at you very sad and bow the head. I wish I had
some language so to tell you how very sorry! But the Yankee words--I
know not those which tell how sorry I shall be. It is not much I can do
for the poor little childs--only whittle and save pennies for the fresh
air.”
Another man, another tone, might have put rebuke, indirectly, into those
words. But old Etienne, rasping his hard palms nervously, was merely
vowing himself to sacrifice because there was no one else left to do so.
Farr understood and was softened.
“And now I must go to the bed for my sleep, because the rack must be
cleared before the wheel start to go roompy-roomp in the big pit asking
for its water.” He was showing nervousness, haste, his voice trembled;
he staggered when he lifted himself out of his chair.
“You'd better say good-by to me now,” said Farr, rising with the old
man. “It's a good night under the stars. I shall probably be far out on
the road by daylight.”
“Good-bye,” muttered old Etienne, fumbling his hat and bowing.
“But aren't you going to say something else to me--say you're sorry to
have me go?” demanded the young man. “We have been close together in
some things we shall never forget.”
“I have told you. I cannot say how sorry.” The old man's voice was
little more than a husky whisper.
“I like you, Uncle Etienne. I want you to know it. You are an old
saint.” He put out his hand, but the rack-tender turned and hurried to
the door. “Not take my hand?” cried Farr. “Am I as much of a traitor as
all that?”
“Oh, I cannot speak! I have no word,” wailed the old man from the gloom
in the street. His voice rose in shrill, cracked tones. He began to weep
aloud. He had been restraining his feelings with all the strength of his
will since Farr had announced his intentions. His departure was flight.
He began to run away down the sidewalk. “Saint Joseph, guard my tongue!”
he gasped over and over. “I'll go very fast so that I not say it, for I
am only old Pickaroon, and he is fine gentlemans!” He continued to weep
broken-heartedly.
“Mr. Farr, he was afraid he would tell you how much he loved you--afraid
that you would be insulted if he presumed to tell you of it.”
“I don't think I just understand that,” commented Farr, staring into the
night, peering to get another glimpse of Etienne.
“I understand!” said the girl. “It would be too bad for you to go away
and think that at parting he was not polite to you. I would not like to
have you suppose that fault is in one from Tadousac. He has told me. If
you will not follow him and frighten him by saying that you know it, I
will tell you.”
“I will not follow him. Probably I shall never see him again.”
“It may be a bit hard for you to understand, for you do not know the
French nature, perhaps. But since little Rosemarie went away for ever he
has loved you. You made something more of him than the old rack-tender
when you took him into partnership. When you made him your friend
before all the big men at the City Hall something bloomed in him,
m'sieu'--something that before had been only a withered bud! Ah, you
think I am fanciful? Very well! I cannot think how to say it any other
way. You are a token for him from little Rosemarie who has gone away;
you are friend, you are son, you are in his eyes destined savior of
these poor people.”
“I am glad I am going away. I would hate to betray such childlike faith.
Good-by, Miss Zelie!”
He heard her call to him when he was in the street. He turned and
halted and saw her slim, white figure at the gate, and he stepped back
half-way.
She was girlish sympathy incarnate, and his troubled, hungry,
self-accusatory soul caught the radiation of that womanly solace.
“It's not what you say to me you are,” she said, her breath coming fast,
her tones low. “It's what I know you are! That you will be when at last
you shall come to yourself. I do not care what you say. I shall not
remember! To the world--to me--to poor Etienne, just now, you lied about
yourself, M'sieu' Farr--about your real self. But you did not lie to
a little girl when she asked you to show your true self to her. Of
yourself--with little Rosemarie--that shall I remember!”
“I thank you,” he said, gratefully.
“Some day some woman will love you,” she continued. “And when you are
sure that she does love you, then you will tell her your troubles and
she will know what to say to make things right for you. For that is the
mission of good women. They understand how to listen and how to help the
men they love. You shall see!” She hurried into the house.
Farr was promptly admitted when he presented himself at the door of
Archer Converse's residence, and he was conducted to that gentleman's
library, and came face to face with his patron, whom he found sitting
very erect in a high-backed chair.
“I have been waiting for you, sir,” said Converse.
“I expected that you would be waiting, sir.”
“Be seated.”
“I will stand, if you please. I have only a few words to say.”
“Then your nature must have changed very suddenly,” said the lawyer,
dryly. “Or did you pump your reservoir dry of language when you put my
name in nomination to-day?”
Farr bowed without reply.
“I hear that speech commended very highly. Among opportunists you
deserve high rank, Mr. Farr. You have tipped a state upside down very
effectively, and I am upside down along with the rest.”
“I will stand here very patiently, sir, and take my punishment. As
between ourselves, I had no right to do what I did to-day without
consulting you. As regards conditions in the state, I had a right to
seize that opportunity and give to the people a man who can be depended
on. I did so. Go ahead, now, Mr. Converse!”
To the young man's surprise, the nominee arose and came to him with
hand outstretched. A smile broke through the grimness of the lawyer's
countenance. “I have accepted a public trust with pride, I am obeying my
plain duty with satisfaction, and I shall work to be elected with all my
might. Otherwise I wouldn't be the son of my father. My boy, I have had
a talk with Citizen Drew to-day. He told me about your idea of kicking
honest men into politics. I want you to understand that I thank you
heartily because you have kicked me in. I'm going to swim!”
“'Then God's in His Heaven and the world's all right,'” declared Farr.
The lawyer's quizzical and searching gaze was rather disquieting; the
young man had found Converse eyeing him with peculiar interest during
their meetings in the recent past. Now Converse bestowed particularly
intent scrutiny on his caller.
“I feel that I have done my work, sir,” Farr hastened to say, anxious
to terminate this interview. “I am going away--out of the state. I shall
not return.”
Mr. Converse did not break out into protest. He eyed Farr more closely.
Then he reached a button and turned on the full light of the chandelier.
“You have a good reason for deserting just when you are most needed, I
presume, sir?”
“I have. It is a reason which especially concerns the success of the
legislation which we have discussed. If I stay I shall hamper you.”
“I will ask you to stand where you are for a few minutes, sir,” said the
lawyer, commanding rather than requesting. He went to a cabinet and drew
forth a package. He brought that packet to the table and began to sort
photographs.
He selected one, regarded it with careful gaze, and shifted his eyes to
the young man's face.
“Um!” he commented, with judicial tone. “Now--suppose you tell me--just
how your continued presence in this state will hamper me”--he paused; he
drawled the next words, emphasizing them--“Mr. Bristol!”
Farr had begun nervous retreat when the lawyer had begun comparison of
the living features with the photograph. It was plain that he feared
rather than understood.
“Hold on, there!” shouted the investigator. “You may as well stay and
settle this matter, Bristol. You look at this picture! You recognize it,
do you? If you are in any doubt I'll inform you that it's a picture of
your father when he and I were in law-school together.”
“I deny any relationship to that man.”
“Your tone and your manner convict you, my boy. I jumped you with that
name purposely. I am no fool when it comes to examining a witness. When
I first laid eyes on you I thought I had seen you, yourself, somewhere,
and I have been puzzling my brains. Then it occurred to me that I had
known in my youth a fellow who looked like you. You're the son of your
father, all right. Don't stultify yourself by lying to me. You are
Morgan Bristol's boy! Hah?”
“I am,” confessed the young man, with resignation.
“What is your first name?”
“Thornton.”
“Sit down, Thornton!”
The visitor obeyed.
“What have you done that you're ashamed of, my boy?”
“I cannot tell you,” said Bristol, firmly.
“Oh, but you're going to,” insisted the lawyer, with just as
much firmness. “You are now retaining me as your attorney and
counsel--whether you know it or not. And when a man talks to his lawyer
and tells the truth it's no betrayal of confidence. Out with it!”
“There's nothing to be done, Mr. Converse.”
“There's always something which can be done when a man is in trouble.
You are Morgan Bristol's son. I was in school with your father. He went
West and settled. Is he alive?”
“I think so.”
“How is it that you don't know?”
Mr. Converse settled himself into the tone and pose of the
cross-examiner.
“I have been a vagrant, hiding myself in the highways and byways of this
country, for a long time.”
“What happened to drive you out like that?”
“Right there, Mr. Converse, is where I must halt. It is a family matter.
I cannot go into it.”
“Look here, Thornton, you are in trouble. If you are in trouble, so is
your father. He has lost a boy! You can tell me now what it's all about,
or I'll drop my affairs and go and hunt up Morgan Bristol and ask him
about it. You may just as well save me all that time and trouble. You're
a lawyer, yourself--I know it.”
“Yes.”
“And you're a good one and know our code when it comes to secrets. I am
not asking you to expose a family skeleton--I'm demanding that you treat
me as your attorney and trust to my discretion. You are in trouble and
need a helper, and, by gad! you have got to take me into this thing.”
Thornton Bristol set his elbows on his knees and clutched his shaking
fingers into his hair.
“I have been meaning to keep it all to myself, sir,” he stammered.
“Quite likely. You have done mighty well at it, I should judge. But you
know that any man who acts as his own lawyer usually does a mighty poor
job. He lacks perspective.”
Bristol did not reply.
“I have been studying you a little since I have known you,” the lawyer
went on. “You are a very strange mixture, my boy. I much fear that in
some things in this life you are too quixotic in your views. We had a
case here in town--a man named Andrew Kilgour--”
“I have heard about that man, sir.”
“Thornton, from what glimpses I have had of your nature, I'm going to
tell you here and now that you are covering somebody else's fault. You
are no coward. You would face your own delinquency just as bravely as
you came here and faced me to-night. Now, what did your father do?”
“Speculated with trust funds of estates.”
“Old story, eh? Too bad, Morgan. I liked you when you were young.”
“But I want you to understand it,” cried the son. “It is hard for me to
talk about it, sir, but it isn't exactly the old story. My father was
too indulgent where I was concerned. He tried to do more for me than he
could afford. He didn't tell me the truth about his affairs--I supposed
he was a rich man. I always had everything that money could furnish.
When he found that I was interested in the law he sent me to schools at
home and abroad and ordered me to take my time and go to the bottom of
all.”
“Well, I reckon you did,” stated Converse. “If ever I saw a chap with
the true legal mind you have it, polished and pointed. You came into
this state and saw a solution for a problem which has blocked us for
twenty-five years. It's good law! And we will have a legislature that
will pass it. But when did you find out that your father had taken other
folks' money?”
“I came home and insisted on going to work in the office. Then he told
me. The settlement was due and had been called for. He was obliged to
tell me. And he tried to convince me that he had not taken the money for
my sake. He was willing to appear in my eyes a thief without excuse. But
I knew. I had selfishly accepted it all without thought--and only half
grateful. Young men are thoughtless, sir.”
“Your father seems to have been quixotic after his own fashion,
Thornton. I think I remember some of his traits when he was in school.
But as old Hard-Times Brewster used to say, 'We are all poor, queer
critters and some be queerer than the others!' So you were a little
queerer than your father, eh, and tried to square matters by a worse
piece of folly?”
“It may have been folly. Perhaps it was. But I did not stop to argue or
reason. That money had been spent on me. I accepted the blame. I said
nothing to my father. I wrote letters to the persons who had lost. I
told them that I had taken the money as my father's agent--without his
knowledge. I said I had deceived him as well as them. And then, so
that I might not perjure myself on the witness-stand or have the truth
gimleted out of me by lawyers, I put on rags and hid myself among the
thousands who trudge the highways and ride the trusses of freight-cars.
And no one has come to me and put heavy hand on my shoulder and said, 'I
want you!' But some one will come if I remain here. I am going to hide
myself again.”
“I say it has all been a piece of folly,” insisted Converse. “Dear
folly! Yes, almost noble folly! But it must end, my boy. I suppose
your father is back there toiling to repay those men from whom he took
money.”
“I suppose so, Mr. Converse. But he has not been disgraced in the eyes
of the public.”
“There's where your noble folly has made its mistake. You have doubled
his grief, Thornton. Just sit there a moment and ponder. You will
understand what I mean.”
“I have understood--I have pondered--but I have not had the courage to
go back. At least, they could not say to him that his son was in prison.
He has escaped that grief.”
“And has endured a heavier one, my boy. I'm afraid you're a poor
counselor in your own affairs.” He came across the room to Bristol and
slapped the bowed shoulder. “Now you have found a better one. I have
taken your case.”
The young man looked up into the kindly features of his adviser and was
only half convinced.
“Don't you realize how easy it will be for you to make money from
this time on? You don't? Well, let me tell you. As soon as you can be
admitted to the bar in this state I'm going to make you my law partner.
Hold on! I'm doing you no especial favor--I'm putting into my office a
man who had the legal acumen to devise a plan to break the unholy clutch
of plunderers who have had this state by the throat for a quarter of a
century. I'm simply grabbing you before somebody else gets you. I expect
to be governor of this state, and I want my law business looked after
by a man who is able to keep up the reputation of the firm. But first of
all, my boy, you and I are going back to your home. I think you'll find
me a fairly good lawyer in straightening out tangles. I'll know just how
to talk to those folks out there. And then you're coming back here with
me and face this state as yourself and help me fight the legislation
we want put through to enactment--and be damned to 'em!” He put his arm
about the young man's shoulders and drew him to his feet. “It has been
a hard day for you, my boy. There are some hard things ahead of you. You
must go to bed. The morning will bring comfort and good counsel.”
But when Bristol started toward the door Converse restrained him gently
and led him toward the stairs which led up from the big vestibule.
“You're home, my boy--right here--you're home here from this time on!
This is your other home until your father needs you more than I do.
I have been pretty lonely in this house for a good many years without
realizing just what was the matter with me.”
“After all, you have only my word for what I am and what I have done,”
expostulated Bristol.
“Oh no, I have the evidence of my eyes and ears and my own common
sense.”
Bristol pressed the hand stretched forth to him.
“I'm not going to talk to you any more to-night,” stated the host,
when they were on the upper landing. “It will all seem different in the
morning. It's going to be all right after this, Thornton. I'm sorry I
haven't a wife. A woman understands how to listen to troubles better
than a man. Is your mother alive?”
“No, Mr. Converse.”
“I might have known that. You would not have allowed a mother to
suffer--your folly would never have gone so far. You would have been
home long before this. Ah, well, my boy, some woman will know how to
comfort you some day for all you have endured. Good night!”
The young man knew that Zelie Dionne had been right in what she said; he
did not require the added opinion of the state's most eminent lawyer.
XXXII
THE DEBT
Colonel Symonds Dodd sat at his desk in the First National block and
clutched helplessly at the dragging ends of events. He failed to get
firm hold on anything and irefully informed Judge Warren that the whole
situation was a “damnation nightmare.”
“Well,” affirmed the judge, who had been pricked in his legal pride
by his master's tongue, “the Consolidated has eaten some pretty hearty
meals. It's no wonder it is having bad dreams right now.”
“You're squatting down like an old rooster in a dust-heap,” raged
the colonel, too angry to be choice in his language. “You, a
twenty-five-thousand-dollar lawyer, come in here to me and say that you
can't block the confiscatory scheme of a bounder--a nobody--a black-leg
stranger in this state!”
“I'll carry on the fight if you order me to do so,” said the corporation
lawyer. “That's my business. We can lobby in the next legislature. We
can fight the laws that Archer Converse's legislature is bound to
pass, for they're after us, Colonel Dodd. We can carry the thing to
the highest tribunal--and then we can fight the appraisals on every
water-plant in the state, but--”
“Well, but what?”
“One by one they'll pry loose every finger we have got hooked on to our
proposition. I have submitted that water-district plan to the acid test,
Colonel. It was my duty to do it. A lawyer must keep cool while his
bosses curse and disparage. I have the opinions of the law departments
of three leading colleges on the scheme. They all say that such a
plan, if properly safeguarded by constitutional law, will get by every
blockade we can erect. Now if you want to spend money I'll help you
spend all you care to appropriate,” concluded the judge, grimly.
“We'll fight,” was the dictum of the master.
“Then I take it that you have definitely decided to give up your
political control, Colonel! A certain amount of popularity is needed to
cinch any man in politics. You're going to be the most unpopular man in
this state if you start in to fight every town and city simply for the
purpose of piling up costs and clubbing them away from their own as long
as you have the muscle to do it.”
“I don't care about politics--politics has gone to the devil in this
state already. They'll get tired of chasing fox-fires through a swamp
following after such lah-de-dahs as Arch Converse, and will come back
and be good. I'll wait for 'em to come back. But in the mean time I'm
going to have the courts say whether our property can be confiscated.
I'll take a few pelts while they're trying it on!”
Judge Warren bowed stiffly and retired from the interview.
Day after day passed and Colonel Dodd was more than ever convinced that
the nightmare was continuing. Politicians agreed with him--all of them
with amazement, many of them with wrath.
Because the Honorable Archer Converse and the man who had called himself
Walker Farr had dropped completely out of sight, leaving no explanation
of any sort.
“They didn't even tell _me_,” confessed Daniel Breed, “and I'm their
chief fugler, and here's the November election right plunk on top of
us--and even the Apostle Paul would have to do at least four weeks of
spry campaigning in this state to be sure of being elected if a state
committee was getting ready to lay down on him like ours seems to be
doing. I'm jogafferbasted. I can't express myself no other way.”
Mr. Breed, in moments of especial anxiety and despondency when he
reviewed the situation, darkly hinted that the grand jury ought to look
into the thing. The Consolidated had done about everything up to date
except assassinate and abduct, he averred, and everybody knew Colonel
Dodd's present state of mind.
However, Colonel Dodd did receive Miss Kate Kilgour politely when she
came to him; he had always held her in estimation next to the bouquets
in his office.
“I have come to you,” she explained, “because I could not get the
information anywhere else. I have tried. I do not want to bother you,
sir.”
The girl was pitifully broken, her voice trembled.
“Well, well, what is it?” he demanded, impatiently, and yet with a touch
of kindly tolerance. “You needn't be afraid of me even if you did leave
me in hop-and-jump style, Miss Kilgour.”
“Where is your nephew, Richard?”
And then, in spite of his assuring statement, Miss Kilgour _was_ afraid
of him.
His square face was suffused with red, he thwacked his fist on his
desk and leaped out of his chair and stamped away from her, cursing
viciously.
“Who sent you here to ask me that question?” he shouted, advancing on
her from the window.
“It's my own business--I came on my own account,” she stammered.
“How comes it to be your business, miss?”
“I gave him my promise to marry him.”
“If you did you made a devil of a mistake; I can tell you that, young
woman!”
“I realize it, Colonel Dodd. I want to know where he is. I want to take
back that promise.”
He controlled himself and stared at her. “Take my advice and consider
your contract with Richard Dodd annulled--for good and sufficient
reasons, Miss Kilgour. I don't want to say any more. I can't say any
more. This thing touches me on a sore spot. Don't be afraid. I'm not
angry at you. But just forget that fellow and go on about your own
business.”
“I will do so, Colonel Dodd, after I have settled certain business with
him.”
“What business?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“You'll have to tell me,” he insisted, roughly. “I'm now engaged in
looking into my nephew's affairs. I want all the information I can get.”
“I can only ask you--implore you to tell me where he is.”
“I'd like to know, myself,” he retorted, bluntly. “I'd give considerable
to know. You needn't look at me as if you think I'm lying! Now you may
as well be frank with me, Miss Kilgour. I'm going to be frank with you.
I have always found you to be a young woman of prudence and caution.
I'll take a chance and tell you something which I have been keeping
to myself. I want you to know why you needn't feel bound to keep any
promise you have made to my nephew. He has played a despicable trick on
me, his own uncle, after all the help I have given him. He practically
stole five thousand dollars from me and has run away, and I don't know
where he is. Now, what have you to tell me?”
“I want to put this in his hands, sir.” She produced a packet, at which
the colonel peered with curiosity. “You will certainly find out where he
is. I want you to give it to him.”
“Oh, love-letters, eh?”
“No, sir!”
With shaking fingers she untied the cord and displayed the contents. The
packet was money, many bills stacked neatly, and the size of the bundle
made the colonel open his eyes very wide.
“We--I--we owe it to him, sir. There are five thousand dollars here.”
“So that's what he did with my money, eh? Well, I'll take it.”
“I don't think it is your money, Colonel Dodd. I have good reason to
feel sure that it is not. I have not seen your nephew since the day
of the convention, and then only at a distance. And this money--it was
borrowed a long time ago.”
“Borrowed by whom--by you?”
“No, sir. I cannot tell you the circumstances. I simply want you to give
it back to him. I shall feel that I am released from my obligation.”