Aladdin and Company Part 30

"No," said Harper, "the Frugality and Indemnity is too good a thing to drop; and I can't carry both. But if you can show me how, within a short time, you can pay it back, I'll find you the cash you lack."

We could not wait for the two millions from Pendleton; and the interim must be bridged over by any desperate means. We took, for the moment only, the funds advanced through Harper; and Cornish took his price.

The day after Harper went away we were busy all day long, drawing notes and mortgages. Every uninc.u.mbered piece of our property, the orts, dregs, and offcast of our operations, were made the subjects of transfers to the rag-tag and bobtail of Lattimore society. A lot worth little or nothing was conveyed to Tom, d.i.c.k, or Harry for a great nominal price, and a mortgage for from two-thirds to three-fourths of the sum given back by this straw-man purchaser. Our mill was grinding mortgages.

I do not expect that any one will say that this course was justified or justifiable; but, if anything can excuse it, the terrible difficulty of our position ought to be considered in mitigation, if not excuse.

Pressed upon from without, and wounded by blows dealt in the dark from within; with dreadful failure threatening, and with brilliant success, and the averting of wide-spread calamity as the reward of only a little delay, we used the only expedient at hand, and fought the battle through. We were caught in the mighty swirl of a modern business maelstrom, and, with unreasoning reflexes, clutched at man or log indifferently, as we felt the waters rising over us; and broadcast all over the East were sown the slips of paper ground out by our mill, through the spout of the Grain Belt Trust Company; and wherever they fell they were seized upon by the banks, which had through years of experience learned to look upon our notes and bonds as good.

"Past the bulge," quoted Jim, "and into the slump! We'll see what the whelp says when he finds that, in spite of all his attempts to scuttle, there isn't going to be any slump!"

By which observation it will appear that, as our operations began to bring in returns in almost their old abundance, our courage rose. At the very last, some bank failures in New York, and a bad day on 'Change in Chicago, cut off the stream, and we had to ask Harper to carry over a part of the Frugality and Indemnity loan until we could settle with Pendleton; but this was a small matter running into only five figures.

Perhaps it was because we saw only a part of the situation that our courage rose. We saw things at Lattimore with vivid clearness. But we failed to see that like centers of stress were sprinkled all over the map, from ocean to ocean; that in the mountains of the South were the Lattimores of iron, steel, coal, and the winter-resort boom; and in the central valleys were other Lattimores like ours; that among the peaks and canyons further west were the Lattimores of mines; that along the Pacific were the Lattimores of harbors and deep-water terminals; that every one of these Lattimores had in the East and in Europe its clientage of Barr-Smiths, Wickershams, and Dorrs, feeding the flames of the fever with other people's money; and that in every village and factory, town and city, where wealth had piled up, seeking investment, were the "captives below decks," who, in the complex machinery of this end-of-the-century life, were made or marred by the same influences which made or marred us.

The low area had swept across the seas, and now rested on us. The clouds were charged with the thunder and lightning of disaster. Almost any accidental disturbance might precipitate a crash. Had we known all this, as we now know it, the consciousness of the tragical race we were running to reach the harbor of a consummated sale to Pendleton might have paralyzed our efforts. Sometimes one may cross in the dark, on narrow footing, a chasm the abyss of which, if seen, would dizzily draw one down to destruction.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Beginning of the End.

Court parties and court factions are always known to the populace, even down to the groom and scullions. So the defection of Cornish soon became a matter of gossip at bars, in stables, and especially about the desks of real-estate offices. Had it been a matter of armed internecine strife, the Elkins faction would have mustered an overwhelming majority; for Jim's bluff democratic ways, and his apparent ident.i.ty of fibre with the ma.s.s of the people, would have made him a popular idol, had he been a thousand times a railroad president.

While these rumors of a feud were floating about, Captain Tolliver went to Jim's office several times, dressed with great care, and sat in silence, and in stiff and formal dignity, for a matter of five minutes or so, and then retired, with the suggestion that if there was any way in which he could serve Mr. Elkins he should be happy.

"Do you know," said Jim to me, "that I'm afraid Hamlet's 'bugs and goblins' are troubling Tolliver; in other words, that he's getting bughouse?"

"No," said I; "while I haven't the slightest idea what ails him, you'll find that it's something quite natural for him when you get a full view of his case."

Finally, Jim, in thanking him for his proffered a.s.sistance, inquired diplomatically after the thing which weighed upon the Captain's mind.

"I may be mistaken, suh," said he, drawing himself up, and thrusting one hand into the tightly-b.u.t.toned breast of his black Prince Albert, "entiahly mistaken in the premises; but I have the impression that diffe'ences of a pussonal nature ah in existence between youahself and a gentleman whose name in this connection I prefuh to leave unmentioned.

Such being the case, I a.s.sume that occasion may and naturally will arise foh the use of a friend, suh, who unde'stands the code--the code, suh--and is not without experience in affaiahs of honah. I recognize the fact that in cehtain exigencies nothing, by Gad, but pistols, ovah a measu'ed distance, meets the case. In such an event, suh, I shall be mo'

than happy to suhve you; mo' than happy, by the Lord!"

"Captain," said Jim feelingly, "you're a good fellow and a true friend, and I promise you I shall have no other second."

"In that promise," replied the Captain gravely, "you confeh an honah, suh!"

After this it was thought wise to permit the papers to print the story of Cornish's retirement; otherwise the Captain might have fomented an insurrection.

"The reasons for this step on the part of Mr. Cornish are purely personal," said the _Herald_. "While retaining his feeling of interest in Lattimore, his desire to engage in certain broader fields of promotion and development in the tropics had made it seem to him necessary to lay down the work here which up to this time he has so well done. He will still remain a citizen of our city. On the other hand, while we shall not lose Mr. Cornish, we shall gain the active and powerful influence of Mr. Charles Harper, the president of the Frugality and Indemnity Life Insurance Company. It is thus that Lattimore rises constantly to higher prosperity, and wields greater and greater power.

The remarkable activity lately noted in the local real-estate market, especially in the sales of unconsidered trifles of land at high prices, is to be attributed to the strengthening of conditions by these steps in the ascent of the ladder of progress."

Cornish, however, was not without his partisans. Cecil Barr-Smith almost quarreled with Antonia because she struck Cornish off her books, Cecil insisting that he was an entirely decent chap. In this position Cecil was in accord with the clubmen of the younger sort, who had much in common with Cornish, and little with the overworked and busy railway president. Even Giddings, to me, seemed to remain unduly intimate with Cornish; but this did not affect the utterances of his paper, which still maintained what he called the policy of boost.

The behavior of Josie, however, was enigmatical. Cornish's attentions to her redoubled, while Jim seemed dropped out of the race--and therefore my wife's relations with Miss Trescott were subjected to a severe strain. Naturally, being a matron, and of the age of thirty-odd years, she put on some airs with her younger friend, still in the chrysalis of maidenhood. Sometimes, in a sweet sort of a way, she almost domineered over her. On this Elkins-Cornish matter, however, Josie held her at arms' length, and refused to make her position plain; and Alice nursed that simulated resentment which one dear friend sometimes feels toward another, because of a real or imagined breach of the obligations of reciprocity.

One night, as we sat about the grate in the Trescott library, some veiled insinuations on Alice's part caused a turning of the worm.

"If there is anything you want to say, Alice," said Josie, "there seems to be no good reason why you shouldn't speak out. I have asked your advice--yours and Albert's--frequently, having really no one else to trust; and therefore I am willing to hear your reproof, if you have it for me. What is it?"

"Oh, Josie," said I, seeking cover. "You are too sensitive. There isn't anything, is there, Alice?"

Here I scowled violently, and shook my head at my wife; but all to no effect.

"Yes, there is," said Alice. "We have a dear friend, the best in the world, and he has an enemy. The whole town is divided in allegiance between them, about nine on one side to one on the other--"

"Which proves nothing," said Josie.

"And now," Alice went on, "you, who have had every opportunity of seeing, and ought to know, that one of them is, in every look, and thought, and act, a _man_, while the other is--"

"A friend of mine and of my mother's," said Josie; "please omit the character-sketch. And remember that I refuse even to consider these business differences. Each claims to be right; and I shall judge them by other things."

"Business differences, indeed!" scoffed Alice, albeit a little impressed by the girl's dignity. "As if you did not know what these differences came from! But it isn't because you remain neutral that we com--"

"_You_ complain, Alice," said I; "I am distinctly out of this."

"That I complain, then," amended Alice reproachfully. "It is because you dismiss the _man_ and keep the--other! You may say I have no right to be heard in this, but I'm going to complain Josie Trescott, just the same!"

This seemed to approach actual conflict, and I was frightened. Had it been two men, I should have thought nothing of it, but with women such differences cut deeper than with us. Josie stepped to her writing-desk and took from it a letter.

"We may as well clear this matter up," said she, "for it has stood between us for a long time. I think that Mr. Elkins will not feel that any confidences are violated by my showing you this--you who have been my dearest friends--"

She stopped for no reason, unless it was agitation.

"Are," said I, "I hope, not 'have been.'"

"Well," said she, "read the letter, and then tell me who has been 'dismissed.'"

I shrank from reading it; but Alice was determined to know all. It was dated the day before I left New York.

"Dear Josie," it read, "I have told you so many times that I love you that it is an old story to you; yet I must say it once more. Until that night when we brought your father home, I was never able to understand why you would never say definitely yes or no to me; but I felt that you could not be expected to understand my feeling that the best years of our lives were wasting--you are so much younger than I--and so I hoped on. Sometimes I feared that somebody else stood in the way, and do fear it now, but that alone would have been a much simpler thing, and of that I could not complain. But on that fearful night you said something which hurt me more than anything else could, because it was an accusation of which I could not clear myself in the court of my own conscience--except so far as to say that I never dreamed of doing your father anything but good. Surely, surely you must feel this!

"Since that time, however, you have been so kind to me that I have become sure that you see that terrible tragedy as I do, and acquit me of all blame, except that of blindly setting in motion the machinery which did the awful deed. This is enough for you to forgive, G.o.d knows; but I have thought lately that you had forgiven it. You have been very kind and good to me, and your presence and influence have made me look at things in a different way from that of years ago, and I am now doing things which ought to be credited to you, so far as they are good. As for the bad, I must bear the blame myself!"

Thus far Alice had read aloud.

"Don't, don't," said Josie, hiding her face. "Don't read it aloud, please!"

"But now I am writing, not to explain anything which has taken place, but to set me right as to the future. You gave me reason to think, when we met, that I might have my answer. Things which I cannot explain have occurred, which may turn out very evilly for me, and for any one connected with me. Therefore, until this state of things pa.s.ses, I shall not see you. I write this, not that I think you will care much, but that you may not believe that I have changed in my feelings toward you. If my time ever comes, and I believe it will, and that before very long, you will find me harder to dispose of without an answer than I have been in the past. I shall claim you in spite of every foe that may rise up to keep you from me. You may change, but I shall not.

"'Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.'

And mine will not alter. J. R. E."