The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 36

"Well," Sloc.u.m finally asked, as he was leaving me, "what are you going to do about this pinch?"

"There's nothing to be done to-night. I'm going to read the papers and see what they say about the war. I am going home. Perhaps to-morrow it will be all over. Lordy! We'll make a tolerable big smash when we go down!"

"Get some sleep!" was Sloc.u.m's advice.

The papers were red-hot with the war spirit, and they did me good.

Somehow, I was filled with a strange gladness because of the war. Pride in the people of my country, who could sacrifice themselves for another people, swelled my heart. Where could you read of a finer thing in all history than the way the people's wrath had compelled the corrupt, self-seeking politicians in Was.h.i.+ngton to do their will--to strike an honest blow, to redeem a suffering people! It comes not often in any man's life to feel himself one of a great nation when it arises in a righteous cause with all the pa.s.sion of its seventy millions. Let the panic wipe out my little pile of money. Let the war break up the dreams of my best years--I would not for that selfish cause stay its course. It made a man feel clean to think there was something greater in life than himself and his schemes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _To-day I should like to slip back once more to the b.u.m that landed in Chicago--unattached, unburdened, unbound._]

I walked on and on in the March twilight, leaving behind me the noisy city, and the struggle of the market. Why not go myself--why not enlist?

I suddenly asked of myself. The very thought of it made me throw up my head. Sloc.u.m could gather up the fragments as well as I, and there would be enough left in any case for the children and Sarah. Better that fight than this! When the President issued a call for volunteers, maybe I could raise a regiment from our men.

The street was shadowed by the solid houses of the rich, the respectable stone and brick palaces of the "captains of industry," each big enough to house a dozen Jasonville families. I looked at them with the eyes of a stranger, as I had the day when I roamed Chicago in search of a job.

Perhaps I had envied these men then; but small comfort had I ever had from all the wealth I had got out of the city. Food and drink, a place to sleep in, some clothes--comfort for my wife and children--what else?

To-day I should like to slip back once more to the b.u.m that landed in Chicago--unattached, unburdened, unbound....

I let myself into the silent house. Sarah and the children were at our place in Vermilion County, where I had a house and two thousand acres of good land, to which I escaped for a few days now and then. I had my dinner and was smoking a cigar when a servant brought me word that a man was waiting to see me below. When I went into the hall I saw a figure standing by the door, holding his hat in his hands. In the dim light I could not make out his face and asked him to step into the library, where I turned on the light. It was the preacher Hardman.

"What do you want?" I asked in some surprise.

"I suppose I ought not to trouble you here at this hour, Mr.

Harrington," he said timidly. "But I am much worried. You remember that investment you were kind enough to make for me a few years ago?"

His question recalled to my mind the fact that he had given me a little inheritance which had come to his wife, asking me to invest it for him.

I had put it into some construction bonds.

"What about it?" I asked.

He stammered out his story. Some one had told him that I was in a bad shape; he had also read a piece in the paper about the road, and he had become scared. It had not occurred to him to sell his bonds before he preached that little sermon at me; but, now that my sins were apparently about to overtake me, he wished to save his little property from destruction.

"Why don't you sell?" I asked.

"I have tried to," he admitted, "but the price offered me is very low."

I laughed at the fellow's simple egotism.

"So you thought I might take your bonds off your hands? Got them there?"

"My wife thought, as your--" he stammered. I waived his excuse aside.

He drew the bonds from his coat pocket. As I sat down to write a check I said jokingly:--

"Better hustle round to the bank to-morrow and get your cash."

"I trust you are not seriously incommoded by this panic," he remarked inquiringly.

"Gold's the thing these days!" I laughed.

(The cas.h.i.+er at the bank told me afterward that Hardman made such a fuss when he went to cash his check that they actually had to hand him out six thousand dollars in gold coin.)

The preacher man had no more than crawled out with profuse words of thanks than I had another caller. This time it was a young doctor of my acquaintance. He was trying to put on an indifferent air, as if he had been used to financial crises all his life. He had his doubts in his eyes, however, and I took him into my confidence.

"If you possibly can, stick to what you have got. It may take a long time for prices to get back to the right place, but this tumble is only temporary. Have faith--faith in your judgment, faith in your country!"

I knew something of his story, of the hard fight he had made to get his education, of his marriage and his wife's sickness, with success always put off into the future. He had brought me his sc.r.a.pings and savings, and I had made the most of them.

When at last the doctor had gone away somewhat rea.s.sured, I sat down to think. There were a good many others like these two--little people or well-to-do, who had put their faith in me and had trusted their money to my enterprises. Not much, each one; but in every case a cruel sum to lose. They had brought me their savings, their legacies, because they knew me or had heard that I had made money rapidly. Could I leave them now?

I might be willing to go off to Cuba and see my own fortune fade into smoke. But how about their money? No--it was not a simple thing just to go broke by one's self. To-morrow my office would be crowded by these followers, and there would be letters and telegrams from those who couldn't get there. So back to the old problem! I rested my head on my hands and went over in my mind the situation, the amount of my loans, the eternal question of credit--where to get a handhold to stay me while the whirlwind pa.s.sed, as I knew it must pa.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _It was a messenger boy with a delayed telegram._]

Hour after hour I wrestled with myself. Ordinarily I could close my eyes on any danger and get the sleep that Nature owes every hard-working sinner. But not to-night. I sat with my hands locked, thinking. Along about midnight there sounded in the silent house a ring at the door-bell: it was a messenger boy with a delayed telegram. I tore it open and read:--

"Remember my letter." It was dated from Was.h.i.+ngton, and was not signed.

CHAPTER XXV

THE LAST DITCH

_Romantic folly--The impulse that comes from beyond our sight--I go to seek Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r--An unpromising location for a banker--I receive advice and help--d.i.c.kie Pierson gets an order from me--What is Strauss's game?_

The yellow paper lay in my hand, and, with a flash, my memory went back to that mysterious note which Jane Dround had sent on the eve of her departure for Europe. It lay undisturbed in a drawer of my office desk.

I smiled impatiently at the woman's folly--of the letter, the telegram.

And yet it warmed my heart that she should be thinking of me this day, that she should divine my troubles. And I seemed to see her dark eyebrows arched with scorn at my weakness, her thin lips curl disdainfully, as if to say: "Was this to be your finish? Have I helped you, believed in you, all these years, to have you fall now?" So she had spoken.

But still I was unconvinced, and in this state of mind I went back to bed, knowing that I should need on the morrow what sleep I could get.

But sleep did not come: instead, my mind busied itself with Jane Dround's letter--with the woman herself. As the night grew toward morning I arose, dressed myself, and left the house. The letter in my office pulled me like a thread of fate; and I obeyed its call like a child. In the lightening dawn I hurried through the streets to the lofty building where the Products Company had its offices, and groped my way up the long flights of stairs. As I sat down at my desk and unlocked the drawers, the morning sun shot in from the lake over the smoky buildings beneath me. After some hunting I found the letter. Mrs. Dround wrote a peculiar hand--firm, clear, unchangeable, but with curious tiny flourishes about the _r_'s and _s_'s.

As I glanced at it, the woman herself rose before my eyes, and she sat across the desk from me, looking into my face. "Yes, I need you," I found myself muttering; "not any letter, but _you_, with your will and your courage, now, if ever. For this is the last ditch, sure enough!"

The letter shook in my hand and beat against the desk. It was a silly thing to leave my bed and come chasing down here at five in the morning to get hold of a romantic woman's letter! My nerves were wrong.

Something in me revolted from going any further with this weakness, and I still hesitated to tear open the envelope. The other battles of my life I had won unaided.

At the bottom of our hearts there is a feeling which we do not understand, a respect for the unknown. Terror, fear,--call it what you will,--sometime in life every one is made to feel it. All my life has been given to practical facts, yet I know that at the end of all things there are no facts. In the silence and gray light of that morning I felt the strong presence of my friend, holding out to me a hand.... I tore open the letter. Inside was another little envelope, which contained a visiting-card. On it was written: "Mr. J. Carb.o.n.e.r, 230 West Lake Street," and beneath, in fine script, this one sentence: "_Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r is a good adviser--see him!_"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_For this is the last ditch, sure enough!_"]

This was fit pay for my folly. Of all the sentimental nonsense, an adviser! What was wanted was better than a million dollars of ready cash--within three hours. It was now half-past six o'clock, and I had left until half-past nine to find an ordinary, practical way out of my present difficulties. Then the banks would be open; the great wheel of business would begin to revolve, with its sure, merciless motion.

Nevertheless, in spite of my scepticism, my eyes wandered to a map of the city that hung on the wall, and I made out the location of the address given on the card. It was a bare half-mile across the roofs from where I sat, in a quarter of the city lying along the river, given up to brick warehouses, factories, and freight yards. Small likelihood that a man with a million to spare in his pocket was to be found over there!

In this mood of depression and disgust I left my office, to get shaved.