The Desire of the Moth; and the Come On Part 20

"Oh, well, you can get off. I promised Thompson, here, to do him the honors, and now I've got to help John out. Oh, you two are not acquainted, are you? Ex_cuse_ me! Mr. Archibald, Mr. Bickford--Mr.

Thompson, Mr. Bickford. Mr. Bickford's father was a dear old friend of mine. Once very wealthy, too, but has had reverses. Bless me, how I do ramble on! Old age, sir, old age! Osler was half right. Now, Archie, 'phone up to your office that you're unavoidably detained and all the rest of it, like a good fellow, and take my place as cicerone.

Never mind your d.i.n.ky little boats--take him up and show him the big fellows--the ocean greyhounds."

"But," objected Archibald, "I've got to go down to the office to get some money. You've broke me, you shanghaier."

"So I have, so I have!" He peeled off a hundred-dollar-bill, ignoring Steve's protest. "That enough? I'll fix John up, some way. You're at Mr. Thompson's orders. Mind, his money isn't any good. I pay for both of you. Wish it was more, but you see how I'm hooked up. You'll have a better time with a young fellow like Archie than you would with an old fogy like me, anyhow. Here, we'll be left!" He made for the ferry slips with the anxious Bickford.

Thus did the wily Mr. Mitch.e.l.l justify his heads.h.i.+p. In these profuse strains of unpremeditated art, apparently the merest of rambling commonplace, he had plainly conveyed to his henchmen that, though foiled by the countryman's straightforward single-mindedness, they were not to adopt a policy of scuttle, but persevere in the paths of manifest destiny to benevolent a.s.similation; at the same time adroitly extricating his embarra.s.sed lieutenant from a very present predicament. Because "Archibald" felt a certain reluctance about accompanying Steve to Pier Number 4 in the capacity of owner, for the sufficiently obvious reason that he might be summarily kicked off.

Such a contretemps might give cause for conjecture even in one so green as his companion, reflected Archie.

He saluted with easy grace. "Orders, captain? Happy to oblige. My friend's friend is my friend."

Steve saw the big steams.h.i.+ps. Thence, at his artless suggestion, they went to Brooklyn Bridge. Followed rides on the Subway and Elevated, a viewing of skysc.r.a.pers and such innocent and exhilarating delights.

Noting Archibald's well-groomed and natty appearance, Steve naively asked his advice in matters sartorial, purchasing much raiment and leaving an order with a fas.h.i.+onable tailor. But, after an _amazing_ dinner at an uptown house of call, Archibald took the reins into his own guidance, and led him forth to quite other distractions--in the agricultural quarter of the city, where that popular and ever-blooming cereal, wild oats, is sown by night and by day.

Behind them the plausible Mr. Mitch.e.l.l and his old friend's son held high commune.

"Why, the lantern-jawed, bug-eyed, rubber-necked, double-jointed, knock-kneed, splay-foot, hair-lipped, putty-brained country Jake!

Did you see him sidestep that?" demanded the aggrieved Bickford, forgetting, in his pique, his stricken father. "What you want to do to him is to sandbag him, give him knockout drops, stab him under the fifth rib! He's too elusive--the devil-sent----" He was proceeding to further particulars when Mitch.e.l.l checked him.

"I want you to bear in mind that this is no strong-arm gang, and I'm neither dip nor climber." His emphasis was withering. "My credit is involved in this affair now, and I'm going through with it. If he'd had the dough with him he'd handed it out just like he did the check.

He floundered out through pure, unadulterated innocence. I'll land him yet. Next time I won't leave the s.h.i.+rt to his back. I tried him with covetousness. I've tried him with distress. Now I'll tempt him with a business opportunity--one that he'll have to have cash for. Keep your eye on your uncle. He'll see you through."

The next day being Sunday, Mitch.e.l.l took the cowboy to the Speedway, and back through Central Park, in an auto, frankly hired.

"I can hardly afford to set up one," he confided. "And anyway, I haven't much leisure. Of course, when a good fellow like you comes along I can take a day off, once in a way. But generally my nose is down to the grindstone."

On their way home he pointed out a fine building, ornamented with a "To Let" sign in the window. "There's a place I used to own, Thompson," he said. "Belongs to a friend of mine, young Post. One of the best families--but, poor fellow, he's in trouble now." He dismissed the subject with a benevolent sigh. "Would you like to go in and look at it? The caretaker will show it to you. He'll think you're a prospective buyer. You needn't tell him so, but then again you needn't tell him any different. There's no harm and it's well worth seeing."

Thompson, nothing loth, agreed. It was a fine house, as Mitch.e.l.l had guessed.

"Gracious!" said Steve, when the inspection was over. "What's such a house worth?"

"I sold it for forty thousand. It's worth more now."

Steve gazed at him wide-eyed. "My! I shouldn't have thought it worth that much." (It was, in fact, worth a great deal more.)

"It's the ground that makes it cost so," explained Mitch.e.l.l. "That's why the value has increased. The house itself is not worth as much as when I had it, but land values are coming up by leaps and bounds.

Young man, the ground valuation alone of the six square miles adjoining Central Park is more than the value of all real estate in the great commonwealth of Missouri. And it is going higher every year."

"I don't understand it," said Steve, much impressed.

"Do you understand the philosophy of an artesian well? Yes? Then you understand this. Every farm cleared, every acre planted, every mine developed, every baby born, enhances the value of _all_ city property--and New York's got the biggest standpipe. The back country soaks up the rain and it is delivered conveniently at our doors through, underground channels, between the unleaking walls that confine its flow; our price on the surplus you have to sell and _our_ price on the necessities you buy. Every city taps this flow, be the pipe large or small; and as I said before, New York has the biggest gusher.

"We've got the money. So you may do the work and we allow you to get enough to sustain life, and just as little more as possible. Sell at our price, buy at our price--we've got you coming and going. You can't get away.

"You're poor, you take what you can get to pay your debts. That keeps down prices on what you sell. You've got families, you've got to play.

Yes, yes, quite right, the rules are not _entirely_ fair; we'll revise them to-morrow, maybe, some time. Let _you_ do it? Tut, tut, no, no!

Why, you object to 'em! That won't do at all. Let the rules be revised by their friends and beneficiaries, to-morrow, next day, by and by; busy to-day, stockholders' meeting, dividend declared, good-by! You're virtually _peons_. Fourth of July, elections and war-times you're the sovereign people, Tommy this and Tommy-rot; but for all practical purposes you're _peons_.

"We're rich, we can afford a scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours tariff that keeps our prices up arbitrarily, that takes fifty dollars out of your pockets to put in ours for every dollar it puts into the national treasury."

"If the tariff was repealed," said Steve diffidently, "if we raised money for the National Government, just as we do for county government----"

"Hush-s.h.!.+" said Mitch.e.l.l, shocked. "That's High Treason--that's Unconst.i.tutional! Some one will hear you! Then there's another.

_You_ sell at a sacrifice to pay your debts. If we get in debt that's exactly what we won't do. A poor man goes broke, but a rich man goes bankrupt. Ever think of that?

"That baby I spoke of will grow up, produce corn, cotton, cattle or copper, maybe--but the net result of his life will be to enrich the rich. If, by any means--industry, opportunity, invention, speculation, dishonesty, chance or inheritance--he gets on top, then the workers will be working for him by the same law. The fact remains that every dollar's worth of betterment in the country increases the value of city property one dollar, without effort to the owner. A city is an artesian well. Take it from me, Thompson, a man of your ability ought to make connections and get your little tin pail under."

Chapter V

"_A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome._"

Thompson sat in his room alone, meditating on Mitch.e.l.l, statesman and Political Economist. On the table lay his letter of introduction and his bad "Souvenir" dollar.

"The meeting will please come to order!" he said, rapping the table smartly. "The Gentleman from Montana has the floor."

"I move you, Mr. Chairman," said the Gentleman from Montana, "that the letter of introduction be laid upon the table, and that this House do now go into Committee of putting the other fellows in the Hole."

No objection being heard, this was done. Steve stared at the tabled letter with a puzzled frown.

"Gentlemen, the Chair awaits your pleasure," he announced, at last.

"Have you any suggestions to make?"

The Gentleman from Montana again obtained recognition.

"Mr. Speaker, I see here present an ex-member, my _alter ego_, Mr.

Reuben Rubber-Neck, who once parted with six months' wages on another man's game. Mr. Rubber-Neck is a graduate of the celebrated and expensive school of Experience, of which it is written that a large and influential cla.s.s will learn of no other. As an ex-Member, he is ent.i.tled to the privilege of the floor. I, for one, would like to have his counsels at this juncture."

Thus appealed to, Mr. Rubber-Neck got stumblingly to his feet with a gawky and timid demeanor.

"Mr. Chairman, it is not a theory but a h.e.l.l of a condition that confronts us," he said, uncertainly. "I think that we should use the letter so providentially er--um--provided to make friends with the mammon of righteousness. Two heads are proverbially better than one, if one _is_ an Expert. It behooves us, for the sake of the near and dear kinsmen, the Mark brothers, that we should so bear ourselves toward our generous hosts as to make them feel that they have entertained a devil unawares. Avenge now the innumerable wrongs of me and my likes. Before deciding on our line of action, however, I should like to hear from a learned gentleman in our midst, whose brain is ever fertile in expedients. I refer to the only one of us who has been through college--in at the front door and out the back. I call on the representative of the cla.s.s of Naughty-naughty!"

He sat down amid vociferous cries of "Hear! Hear!"

The Bookman arose gracefully. "While I thank the gentleman who has preceded me for his encomiums," he said, with deprecatory modesty, "yet I can lay no claim for scholastic honors, owing to an unfortunate difference of opinion with the Faculty in the scorching question of turning state's evidence concerning the ebullition of cla.s.s feeling, in which I was implicated by a black eye or so. I fought the good fight, I kept the faith, but I did not finish my course. But to return to our sheep.

"In every crisis, I have always found precedent for action in the words of the immortal Swan of Avon. What does Will say? He says:

'_Put money in thy purse_!'

"Follows naturally the advice of the melancholy Dane, bearing directly on the case in hand:

'_Let it work.