The Clarion Part 43

Left to his own thoughts, the editor-in-chief reconstructed the scene of the outrage. None too strong did that term seem to him. The incredible callousness of the daughter of millions, speeding away without a backward glance at the huddled form in the gutter, set a flame of wrath to heating his brain. He built up a few stinging headlines, and selected one which he set aside. "GIRL PLAYS JUGGERNAUT. ELIAS M. PIERCE'S DAUGHTER SERIOUSLY INJURES NURSE AND LEAVES HER LYING IN GUTTER." Not long after he had concluded, McGuire Ellis entered, slumped into his chair, and eyed his employer from under bent brows.

"Got a grip on your temper?" he asked presently.

"What's the occasion?" countered Hal.

"I think you're going to have an interview with Elias M. Pierce."

"Where and when?"

"In his office. As soon as you can get there."

"I think not."

"Not?" repeated Ellis, conning the other with his curious air.

"Why should I go to Elias M. Pierce's office?"

"Because he's sent for you."

"Don't be absurd, Mac."

"And don't _you_ be young. In all Worthington there aren't ten men that don't jump when Elias M. Pierce crooks his finger. Who are you, to join that n.o.ble company of martyrs?" Achieving no nibble on this bait, the speaker continued: "Jerry Saunders has been keeping Wayne's telephone on the buzz, ordering the story stopped."

"Who is Jerry Saunders?"

"Pierce's man, and master of our fates. So he thinks, anyway. In other words, general factotum of the Boston Store. Wayne told him the matter was in your hands. All storm signals set, and E.M.'s secretary telephoning that the Great Man wants to see you at once. _Don't_ you think it would be safer to go?"

Mr. Harrington Surtaine swung full around on his chair, looked at his a.s.sistant with that set and level gaze of which Esme Elliot had aforetime complained, and turned back again. A profound chuckle sounded from behind him.

"This'll be a shock to Mr. Pierce," said Ellis. "I'll break it diplomatically to his secretary." And thus was the manner of the Celt's diplomacy. "h.e.l.lo,--Mr. Pierce's secretary?--Tell Mr. Pierce--get this _verbatim_, please,--that Mr. Harrington Surtaine is busy at present, but will try to find time to see him here--_here_, mind you, at the 'Clarion' office, at 4.30 this afternoon--What? Oh, yes; you understood, all right. Don't be young.--What? Do _not_ sputter into the 'phone.--Just give him the message.--No; Mr. Surtaine will not speak with you.--Nor with Mr. Pierce. He's busy.--_Good_-bye."

"Two hours leeway before the storm," said Hal. "Why deliberately stir him up, Mac?"

"No one ever saw Pierce lose his temper. I've a curiosity in that direction. Besides, he'll be easier to handle, mad. Do you know Pierce?"

"I've lunched with him, and been there to the house to dinner once or twice. Wish I hadn't."

"Let me give you a little outline of him. Elias M. is the hard-sh.e.l.l New England type. He was brought up in the fear of G.o.d and the Poor-House.

G.o.d was a good way off, I guess; but there stood the Poor-House on the hill, where you couldn't help but see it. The way of salvation from it was through the dollar. Elias M. worked hard for his first dollar, and for his millionth. He's still working hard. He still finds the fear of G.o.d useful: he puts it into everybody that goes up against his game. The fear of the Poor-House is with him yet, though he doesn't realize it.

It's the mainspring of his religion. There's nothing so mean as fear; and Elias M.'s fear is back of all his meanness, his despotism in business, his tyranny as an employer. I tell you, Boss, if you ever saw a h.e.l.lion in a cutaway coat, Elias M. Pierce is it, and you're going to smell sulphur when he gets here. Better let him do the talking, by the way."

Prompt to the minute, Elias M. Pierce arrived. With him came William Douglas, his personal counsel. Having risen to greet them, Hal stood leaning against his desk, after they were seated. The lawyer disposed himself on the far edge of his chair, as if fearing that a more comfortable pose might commit him to something. Mr. Pierce sat solid and square, a static force neatly b.u.t.toned into a creaseless suit. His face was immobile, but under the heavy lids the eyes smouldered, dully. The tone of his voice was lifelessly level: yet with an immanent menace.

"I do not make appointments outside my own office--" he began, looking straight ahead of him.

Mindful of Ellis's advice, Hal stood silent, in an att.i.tude of courteous attention.

"But this is a case of saving time. My visit has to do with the accident of which you know."

Whether or not Hal knew was undeterminable from sign or speech of his.

"It was wholly the injured woman's fault," pursued Mr. Pierce, and turned a slow, challenging eye upon Hal.

Over his shoulder the editor-in-chief caught sight of McGuire Ellis laying finger on lip, and following up this admonition by a gesture of arms and hands as of one who pays out line to a fish. Douglas fidgeted on his desperate edge.

"You sent a reporter to interview my daughter. He was impertinent. He should be discharged."

Still Mr. Pierce was firing into silence. Something rattled and flopped in a chute at his elbow. He turned, irritably. That Mr. Pierce's attention should have been diverted even for a moment by this was sufficient evidence that he was disconcerted by the immobility of the foe. But his glance quickly reverted and with added weight. Heavily he stared, then delivered his ultimatum.

"The 'Clarion' will print nothing about the accident."

The editor of the "Clarion" smiled. At sight of that smile some demon-artist in faces blocked in with lightning swiftness parallel lines of wrath at right angles to the corners of the Pierce mouth. Through the lips shone a thin glint of white.

"You find me amusing?" Men had found Elias M. Pierce implacable, formidable, inscrutable, even amenable, in some circ.u.mstances, with a conscious and G.o.dlike condescension; but no opponent had ever smiled at his commands as this stripling of journalism was doing.

Still there was no reply. In his chair McGuire Ellis leaned back with an expression of beat.i.tude. The lawyer, shrewd enough to understand that his princ.i.p.al was being baited, now took a hand.

"You may rely on Mr. Pierce to have the woman suitably cared for."

Now the editorial smile turned upon William Douglas. It was gentle, but unsatisfying.

"_And_ the reporter will be discharged at once," continued Elias M.

Pierce, exactly as if Douglas had not spoken at all.

"Mr. Ellis," said Hal, "will you 'phone Mr. Wayne to send up the man who covered the Pierce story?"

The summoned reporter entered the room. He was a youth named Denton, one year out of college, eager and high-spirited, an enthusiast of his profession, loving it for its adventurousness and its sense of responsibility and power. These are the qualities that make the real newspaper man. They die soon, and that is why there are no good, old reporters. Elias M. Pierce turned upon him like a ponderous machine of vengeance.

"What have you to say for yourself?" he demanded.

Up under Denton's fair skin ran a flush of pink. "Who are you?" he blurted.

"You are speaking to Mr. Elias M. Pierce," said Douglas hastily.

Six weeks before, young Denton would perhaps have moderated his att.i.tude in the interests of his job. But now through the sensitive organism of the newspaper office had pa.s.sed the new vigor; the feeling of independence and of the higher responsibility to the facts of the news only. The men believed that they would be upheld within their own rights and those of the paper. Harrington Surtaine's standards had been not only absorbed: they had been magnified and clarified by minds more expert than his own. Subconsciously, Denton felt that his employer was back of him, must be back of him in any question of professional honor.

"What I've got to say, I've said in writing."

"Show it to me." The insolence of the command was quite unconscious.

The reporter turned to Hal.

"Mr. Denton," said Hal, "did Miss Pierce explain why she didn't return after running the nurse down?"

"She said she was in a hurry: that she had a train to catch."

"Did you ask her if she was exceeding the speed limit?"

"She was not," interjected Elias M. Pierce.