The Main Chance Part 10

"You're dead right on that point," said Margrave; "that's a big card with the jays,--they think they come to town and get right in the push and are tickled to pay ten dollars a ticket for a taste of high life. I tell you what we'll do, we'll get Porter to let his daughter appear as queen of the carnival, and if that ain't a big enough jolly, we can make Wheaton king. That's what I'd call giving the Clarkson National a run for its money. If Porter don't double his subscription on the strength of that--"

He looked at Norton and they both laughed.

A few days later Margrave called on Wheaton at the bank. He was a little proud of having discovered Wheaton. Since his quondam messenger had become a bank cas.h.i.+er he had begun to take notice of him.

"I guess we're going to need you to take a star part in the carnival this year," he said, leading him into the empty directors' room and looking carefully about to make sure that they were alone. "Yon see, we've been casting about to find a good representative from among the younger business men to take the part of king in the carnival. The board of control are unanimous that you're the man."

"But I've just gone into the Knights,--there are plenty of older members."

"That's the point! we want new men and you're just the fellow we're after."

He had been holding his hat in his hand and wiping his brow with his handkerchief, and he now backed toward the door, saying, without leaving Wheaton time for further quibble:

"Keep it mum. You understand about that; we always want to jar the public. We'll put you on to the curves all right."

"I'm sure I'm very much surprised," said Wheaton, "but--"

"Oh, it's all fixed," said Margrave, moving off. "You're the only one and we never let anybody decline. It would knock all the compliment out of it, if we let two or three fellows refuse before we caught one that would accept."

Wheaton went back to his desk, surprised and flattered. Margrave's good will was worth having. Wheaton had never outgrown the impression he formed of Margrave when, as a boy, he had indexed letter books and received callers in the general manager's outer office. He knew that Mr.

Porter was more respectable and stood higher in the community, but there was something that took hold of even Wheaton's dull imagination in the bolder achievements of Timothy Margrave, who rolled over the country in a private car, dictating, when need arose, to the legislatures of a chain of states, and looming large in the press's discussions of those combinations and contests of transportation companies which marked the last years of the nineteenth century. Wheaton had acquired a banker's habitual distrust of men who offer favors; but as this came on the personal invitation of one who had no dealings with his bank he could see no harm in accepting.

Margrave winked at him a few days later when they met at the club.

"The boys are all glad you're going to lead the show, Jim," said the general manager; and Wheaton experienced a feeling of having fallen into the larger currents of Clarkson life. Margrave was the man who, more than any other, made things happen in Clarkson.

CHAPTER IX

PARLEYINGS

Evelyn acted on her father's suggestion that she ask some friends to visit her, and she summoned two of her cla.s.smates to come out for the carnival. She told Raridan of their coming one evening when they were alone, and he began propounding inquiries about them with the zealous interest, half mocking and half earnest, which he always manifested in girls that crossed his horizon.

"And Miss Warren--is she the one from Dedham Crossing, Connecticut? Yes, I suppose they will want to go right out to see the Indians. I'll see if the War Department won't lend us a few from a reservation to show off with. It's too bad for our guests to be disappointed. And Miss Marshall--she's from Virginia? It will really be rather amusing to bring the types together on our rude frontier."

"But you're not to play tricks with these friends of mine, Warrick Raridan. You are to be very nice to them, but you are not to make too much of an impression--unless--!"

"I'm afraid Miss Warren's a trifle too serious for human nature's daily food," he said, complainingly.

"Yes? I remember that she was strong in entomology. She surely knows a moth from a b.u.mblebee when she sees it."

"Tut! tut! One shouldn't be spiteful. Miss Warren is a nice girl. She knows where the p.u.s.s.y willows purr first in the harsh Connecticut spring. She is strong on golden rod and ah-tum leaves; she reads 'Sesame and Lilies' once a week, and Channing's 'Symphony' hangs in her room in blue and gold. She's very sweet with her Sunday School cla.s.s. She shall be saluted with the Chautauqua salute--thus!" He flourished his handkerchief at a picture on the wall.

"How brutal! Deliver me from the cynical man! By the way, Warry, I saw Minnie Metchen in New York this spring, and she asked me all the questions about you she dared. That really wasn't good of you. She hadn't been an army girl long--her father was a new paymaster, or something like that; she wasn't fair game. You were her first, and she thought you meant it all,--the poems and the flowers and all that kind of thing. She thought you were very good, too. You remember, I hope, that you dragged her across town to that colored mission where you were lay-reading at the time. Now, you mustn't do that any more."

Raridan buried his face in his hands and groaned.

"My sins are more than I can bear. But I'm really disappointed in you.

It isn't good form in this town to remember from one winter to another what my enthusiasms have been. But, Evelyn--"

His manner changed suddenly and he rose and walked the floor. He was so full of mockery, and his fun took so many unexpected turns, that Evelyn, who had known him from his wilful, spoiled childhood, was never sure of his moods. He seemed very serious as he stood before her with his arms folded and looked at her. His voice broke a little as he said:

"Evelyn, I don't want you to remember this kind of thing of me. n.o.body takes me seriously; I'm getting tired of it. I'm all kinds of a failure.

I ought to be doing things, like all the other men here. Maybe it's too late--"

"No, it's never too late to do what we want to do, Warry," she said very kindly. "But I don't know that you're such a failure." She was still on guard for some flash of the joke that he was always playing.

"But it's a question with me whether I haven't lost my chance," he persisted. He sat down, dejectedly. Then he laughed.

"Do you know why I'm like the Juniata River?" he demanded.

"I'm not good at guessing," she answered, wondering whether he was laying a trap for her.

"Why, Captain Wheelock told somebody that it was because I am very beautiful and very shallow." He did not laugh with her.

"Those things aren't funny to me any more," he declared, scowling.

"But to be called beautiful--"

"No man is beautiful," he returned savagely. "No man wants to be called that. It's my eye-gla.s.ses, I suppose." He took them off and played with them. "Maybe they do make me look dudish. I'd wear spectacles if they didn't cut my ears. Or I might go without and come to a sudden end by walking over some lonely precipice." He expected her to remonstrate, but she said:

"Well, I'll promise not to tell the new visitors about you;" as if, of course, this was what he had been leading up to.

"I don't care anything about them."

"I'm sorry. I had rather counted on you, as the only person here who has met them,--and an old friend of the family."

He stood up again.

"But I don't want to be your friend--"

"Oh!" She seized and fortified all the strategic positions. "This is certainly surprising in you, Warrick Raridan, after all the years I've known you. I didn't expect to be renounced so early." He stood looking at her quizzically, and too fixedly for her comfort.

"Tragedy doesn't become the Juniata type of beauty. You'd better sit down." He had been pacing the floor, but now threw himself into a chair.

"That chair," she continued, "is a relic of the Inquisition. If you'll move those cus.h.i.+ons about a little on the divan you'll be a lot more comfortable."

He mumbled that he didn't want to be comfortable, but obeyed.

"Now, if you'll be good," she went on tranquilly, folding her arms and looking at him benignantly, "I'll tell you a secret."

He had thrust his hands into his pockets and sat watching her sulkily.

"Well?"

"I'm to be queen of the ball, sir, I'm to be queen of the ball."