Colonel Carter of Cartersville Part 17

"h.e.l.lo, Colonel! Home, are you? Chad, where's my julep? Ah, Major, hope I see you vehy well, suh. Where's Kerfoot?"

That legal luminary craned his head forward as far as it would go without necessitating any additional movement of his body, caught Yancey's eye as he leaned out of the window, and held up the empty gla.s.s.

When everybody had stopped laughing the colonel made a critical but silent examination of the judge, called to Yancey, and said:--

"Gentlemen, we do not dine until seven. You will both have ample time to dress."

CHAPTER X

_Chad in Search of a Coal-Field_

The colonel was the first man downstairs. When he entered I saw at a glance that it was one of his gala nights, for he wore the ceremonial white waistcoat and cravat, and had thrown the accommodating coat wide open. His hair, too, was brushed back from his broad forehead with more than usual care, each silver thread keeping its proper place in the general scheme of iron-gray; while his goatee was twisted to so fine a point that it curled upward like a fishhook. He had also changed his shoes, his white stockings now being incased in low prunellas tied with a fresh ribbon, which hung over the toes like the drooping ears of a lapdog.

The attention which the colonel paid to these particular details was due, as he frequently said, to his belief that a man would always be well dressed who looked after his extremities.

"I can inva'iably, suh, detect the gentleman under the shabbiest suit of clothes, if his collar and stockings are clean. When, besides this, he brushes his hat and blacks his shoes, you may safely invite him to dinner."

Something like this was evidently pa.s.sing in his mind as he stood waiting for his guests, his back to the empty grate; for he examined his hands critically, glanced at his shoes, and then excusing himself, turned his face, and taking a pair of scissors from his pocket proceeded leisurely to trim his cuffs.

"These duties of the dressin'-room, my dear Major, should have been attended to in their proper place; but the fact is the jedge is makin'

rather an elaborate toilet in honor of our guest, and as Yancey occupies my bedroom, and the jedge is also dressin' there, my own accommodations are limited. I feel sure you will excuse me."

While he spoke the door opened, and his Honor entered in a William Penn style of make-up, ruffled s.h.i.+rt and all. He really was not unlike that distinguished peacemaker, especially when he carried one of the colonel's long pipes in his mouth. He had, I am happy to say, since leaving the front steps, acc.u.mulated an increased amount of clothing.

The upper half of the familiar b.u.t.ternut suit--the coat--still clung to him, but the middle and lower half had been supplanted by another waistcoat and trousers of faded nankeen, the first corrugated into wrinkles and the second flapping about his ankles.

The colonel absorbed him at a glance, and with a satisfied air placed a chair for him near the window and handed him a palm-leaf fan.

Last of all came Yancey in a flaming red necktie, the only new addition to his costume--a part, no doubt, of the "chicken fixin's" found by Chad in the carpet bag.

The breezy ex-major, as he entered, seized my hand with the warmth of a lifelong friend; then moving over and encircling with his arm the colonel's coat collar, he lowered his voice to a confidential whisper and inquired about the market of the day with as much solicitude as though his last million had been filched from him on insufficient security.

When, a few minutes later, the round-faced man, the agent of the great English syndicate, walked in, preceded by Fitz, nothing could have been more courtly than the way the colonel presented him to his guests--pausing at every name to recount some slight biographical detail complimentary to each, and ending by announcing with great dignity that his honored guest was none other than the very confidential agent and adviser of a group of moneyed magnates whose influence extended to the uttermost parts of the earth.

The agent, like many other sensible Englishmen, was a bluff, hearty sort of man, with a keen eye for the practical side of life and an equally keen enjoyment of every other, and it was not five minutes before he had located in his round head the precise standing and qualifications of every man in the room.

While Yancey amused him greatly as a type quite new to him, the colonel filled him with delight. "So frank, so courteous, so hospitable; quite the air of a country squire of the old school," he told Fitz afterward.

As a host that night, the colonel was in his happiest vein, and by the time the coffee was served, had succeeded not only in entertaining the table in his own inimitable way, but he had drawn out from each one of his guests, not excepting the reticent Fitz, some anecdote or incident of his life, bringing into stronger relief the finer qualities of him who told it.

Kerfoot in a ponderous way gave the details of a murder case, tried before him many years ago, in which the judge's charge so influenced the jury that the man was acquitted, and justly so, as was afterward proved. Yancey related an incident of the war, where he, only a drummer boy at the time, a.s.sisted, at great risk, in carrying a wounded comrade from the field. And Fitz was forced to admit that one of the largest financial operations of the day would have been a failure had he not stepped in at the critical moment and saved it.

Up to this point in the dinner not the slightest reference had been made to the railroad or its interests except by the impetuous Yancey, who asked Fitz what the bonds would probably be worth, and who was promptly silenced by the colonel with the suggestive remark that none were for sale, especially at this time.

When, however, by the direction of the colonel, the cloth was removed and the old mahogany table that Chad rubbed down every morning with a cork was left with only the gla.s.ses, a pair of coasters and their decanters,--the Madeira within reach of the judge's hand,--the colonel rose from his chair and spread out on the polished surface a stained and ragged map, labeled in one corner in quaint letters, "Lands of John Carter, Esquire, of Carter Hall." Only then was the colonel ready for business.

"This is the correct survey, I believe, Jedge," said the colonel.

The judge emptied his gla.s.s, felt all over his person for his spectacles, found them in the inside pocket of his nankeen waistcoat, and, perching them on the extreme end of his nose, looked over their rims and remarked that the original deeds of the colonel's estate had been based upon this map, and that, so far as he knew, it was correct.

Then he added:--

"The part.i.tion line that was made immejitly aafter the war, dividin'

the estate between Miss Ann Caarter and yo'self, Colonel, was also tuk from this survey."

Fitz conferred with the agent for a moment and then asked the colonel where lay the deposit of coal of which he had spoken.

"In a moment, my dear Fitz," said the colonel, deprecatingly, and turning to the agent:--

"The city of Fairfax, suh, that we discussed this mornin', will be located to the right of this section; the Tench runs here; the iron bridge, suh, should cross at this point," marking it with his thumb nail. "Or perhaps you gentlemen will decide to have it nearer the Hall.

It is immaterial to me."

Then looking at Fitz: "I can't locate the coal, my dear Fitz; but I think it is up here on the hill at the foot of the range."

The agent lost interest immediately in the iron bridge over the Tench, and asked a variety of questions about the deposit, all of which the colonel answered courteously and patiently, but evidently with a desire to change the subject as soon as possible.

The Englishman, however, was persistent, while the judge's last sententious remark regarding the recent subdivision of the estate awakened a new interest in Fitz.

What if this coal should not be on the colonel's land at all! He caught his breath at the thought.

It was Fitz's only chance to restore the colonel's fortunes; and although for obvious reasons he dared not tell him so, it was really the only interest the Englishman had in the scheme at all.

Indeed, the agent had frankly said so to Fitz, adding that he was anxious to locate a deposit of coal somewhere in the vicinity of the line of the colonel's proposed road; because the extension of certain railroads in which the syndicate was interested--not the C. & W. A.

L. R. R., however--depended almost entirely upon the purchase of this vital commodity.

Full of these instructions the agent, after listening to a panegyric upon the resources of Fairfax County, interrupted rather curtly a glowing statement of the colonel's concerning the enormous value of the Garden Spot securities by asking this question:--

"Are the coal lands for sale?"

Fitz s.h.i.+vered at its directness, fearing that the colonel would catch the drift affairs were taking and become alarmed. His fears were groundless; the shot had gone over his head.

"No, suh! My purpose is to use it to supply our shops and motive power."

"If you should decide to sell the lands I would make an investigation at once," replied the agent, quietly, but with meaning in his voice.

The colonel looked at him eagerly.

"Would you at the same time consider the purchase of our securities?"

"I might."

"When would you go?"

"To-morrow night, or not at all. I return to England in a week."

Yancey and the judge looked at each other inquiringly with a certain anxious expression suggestive of some impending trouble. The judge recovered himself first, and quickly filled his gla.s.s, leaving but one more measure in the decanter. This measure Yancey immediately emptied into his own person, as perhaps the only place where it would be entirely safe from the treacherous thirst of the judge.