Peter Part 15

Breen winced. First his truffles were criticised, and now his pet Johannesburg that Parkins was pouring into special gla.s.ses--cooled to an exact temperature--part of a case, he explained to Nixon, who sat on his right, that Count Mosenheim had sent to a friend here. Something must be done to head Hodges off or there was no telling what might happen. The Madeira was the thing. He knew that was all right, for Purviance had found it in Baltimore--part of a private cellar belonging some time in the past to either the Swan or Thomas families--he could not remember which.

The redheads were now in order, with squares of fried hominy, and for the moment Hodges held his peace. This was Nixon's opportunity, and he made the most of it. He had been born on the eastern sh.o.r.e of Maryland and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-sh.e.l.l crabs and terrapin--not to mention clams and sheepshead. Nixon therefore launched out on the habits of the sacred bird--the crimes committed by the swivel-gun in the hands of the marketmen, the consequent scarcity of the game and the near approach of the time when the only rare specimens would be found in the gla.s.s cases of the museums, ending his talk with a graphic description of the great wooden platters of boiling-hot terrapin which were served to pa.s.sengers crossing to Norfolk in the old days. The servants would split off the hot sh.e.l.l--this was turned top side down, used as a dish and filled with b.u.t.ter, pepper and salt, into which toothsome bits of the reptile, torn out by the guests' forks, were dipped before being eaten.

The talk now caromed from birds, reptiles and fish to guns and tackles, and then to the sportsmen who used them, and then to the millionaires who owned the largest shares in the ducking clubs, and so on to the stock of the same, and finally to the one subject of the evening--the one uppermost in everybody's thoughts which so far had not been touched upon--the Mukton Lode. There was no question about the proper mechanism of the traps--the directors were attending to that; the quality of the bait, too, seemed all that could be desired--that was Breen's part. How many mice were nosing about was the question, and of the number how many would be inside when the spring snapped?

The Colonel, after a nod of his head and a rea.s.suring glance from his host, took full charge of the field, soaring away with minute accounts of the last inspection of the mine. He told how the "tailings" at Mukton City had panned out 30 per cent, to the ton--with two hundred thousand tons in the dump thrown away until the new smelter was started and they could get rid of the sulphides; of what Aetna Cobb's Crest had done and Beals Hollow and Morgan Creek--all on the same ridge, and was about launching out on the future value of Mukton Lode when Mason broke the silence by asking if any one present had heard of a mine somewhere in Nevada which an Englishman had bought and which had panned out $1,200 to the ton the first week and not a cent to the square mile ever afterward?

The Chicago man was the most important mouse of the lot, and the tone of his voice and his way of speaking seemed fraught with a purpose.

Breen leaned forward in rapt attention, and even Hodges and Portman (both of them were loaded to the scuppers with Mukton) stopped talking.

"Slickest game I ever heard of," continued Mason. "Two men came into town--two poor prospectors, remember--ran across the Englishman at the hotel--told the story of their claim: 'Take it or leave it after you look it over,' they said. Didn't want but sixty thousand for it; that would give them thirty thousand apiece, after which they'd quit and live on a ranch. No, they wouldn't go with him to inspect the mine; there was the map. He couldn't miss it; man at the hotel would drive him out there. There was, of course, a foot of snow on the ground, which was frozen hard, but they had provided for that and had cut a lot of cord-wood, intending to stay till spring. The Englishman could have the wood to thaw out the ground."

"The Englishman went and found everything as the two prospectors had said; thawed out the soil in half a dozen places; scooped up the dirt and every shovelful panned out about twelve hundred to the ton. Then he came back and paid the money; that was the last of it. Began to dig again in the spring--and not a trace of anything."

"What was the matter?" asked Breen. So far his interest in mines had been centred on the stock.

"Oh, the same old swindle," said Mason, looking around the table, a grim smile on his face--"only in a different way."

"Was it salted?" called out a man from the lower end of the table.

"Yes," replied Mason; "not the mine, but the cord-wood. The two poor prospectors had bored auger holes in each stick, stuffed 'em full of gold dust and plugged the openings. It was the ashes that panned out $1,200 to the ton."

Mason was roaring, as were one or two about him. Portman looked grave, and so did Breen. Nothing of that kind had ever soiled their hands; everything with them was open and above-board. They might start a rumor that the Lode had petered out, throw an avalanche of stock on the market, knock it down ten points, freezing out the helpless (poor Gilbert had been one of them), buy in what was offered and then declare an extra dividend, sending the stock skyward, but anything so low as--"Oh, very reprehensible--scandalous in fact."

Hodges was so moved by the incident that he asked Breen if he would not bring back that Madeira (it had been served now in the pipe-stem gla.s.ses which had been crossed in finger-bowls). This he sipped slowly and thoughtfully, as if the enormity of the crime had quite appalled him.

Mason was no longer a "rough diamond," but an example of what a "Western training will sometimes do for a man," he whispered under his breath to Crossbin.

With the departure of the last guest--one or two of them were a little unsteady; not Mason, we may be sure--Jack, who had come home and was waiting upstairs in his room for the feast to be over, squared his shoulders, threw up his chin and, like many another crusader bent on straightening the affairs of the world, started out to confront his uncle. His visor was down, his lance in rest, his banner unfurled, the scarf of the blessed damosel tied in double bow-knot around his trusty right arm. Both knight and maid were unconscious of the scarf, and yet if the truth be told it was Ruth's eyes that had swung him into battle.

Now he was ready to fight; to renounce the comforts of life and live on a crust rather than be party to the crimes that were being daily committed under his very eyes!

His uncle was in the library, having just bowed out his last guest, when the boy strode in. About him were squatty little tables holding the remnants of the aftermath of the feast--siphons and decanters and the sample boxes of cigars--full to the lid when Parkins first pa.s.sed them (why fresh cigars out of a full box should have a better flavor than the same cigars from a half-empty one has always been a mystery to the Scribe).

That the dinner had been a success gastronomically, socially and financially, was apparent from the beatific boozy smile that pervaded Breen's face as he lay back in his easy-chair. To disturb a reverie of this kind was as bad as riding rough-shod over some good father digesting his first meal after Lent, but the boy's purpose was too lofty to be blunted by any such considerations. Into the arena went his glove and out rang his challenge.

"What I have got to say to you, Uncle Arthur, breaks my heart, but you have got to listen to me! I have waited until they were all gone to tell you."

Breen laid his gla.s.s on the table and straightened himself in his chair.

His brain was reeling from the wine he had taken and his hand unsteady, but he still had control of his arms and legs.

"Well, out with it! What's it all about, Jack?"

"I heard this afternoon that my friend Gilbert was ruined in our office.

The presence of these men to-night makes me believe it to be true. If it is true, I want to tell you that I'll never enter the office again as long as I live!"

Breen's eyes flashed:

"You'll never enter!... What the devil is the matter with you, Jack!--are you drunk or crazy?"

"Neither! And I want to tell you, sir, too, that I won't be pointed out as having anything to do with such a swindling concern as the Mukton Lode Company. You've stopped the work on Gilbert's house--Mr., Morris told me so--you've--"

The older man sprang from his seat and lunged toward the boy.

"Stop it!" he cried. "Now--quick!"

"Yes--and you've just given a dinner to the very men who helped steal his money, and they sat here and laughed about it! I heard them as I came in!" The boy's tears were choking him now.

"Didn't I tell you to stop, you idiot!" His fist was within an inch of Jack's nose: "Do you want me to knock your head off? What the h.e.l.l is it your business who I invite to dinner--and what do you know about Mukton Lode? Now you go to bed, and d.a.m.n quick, too! Parkins, put out the lights!"

And so ended the great crusade with our knight unhorsed and floundering in the dust. Routed by the powers of darkness, like many another gallant youth in the old chivalric days, his ideals laughed at, his reforms flouted, his protests ignored--and this, too, before he could fairly draw his sword or couch his lance.

CHAPTER XI

That Jack hardly closed his eyes that night, and that the first thing he did after opening them the next morning was to fly to Peter for comfort and advice, goes without saying. Even a sensible, well-balanced young man--and our Jack, to the Scribe's great regret, is none of these--would have done this with his skin still smarting from an older man's verbal scorching--especially a man like his uncle, provided, of course, he had a friend like Peter within reach. How much more reasonable, therefore, to conclude that a man so quixotic as our young hero would seek similar relief.

As to the correctness of the details of this verbal scorching, so minutely described in the preceding chapter, should the reader ask how it is possible for the Scribe to set down in exact order the goings-on around a dinner-table to which he was not invited, as well as the particulars of a family row where only two persons partic.i.p.ated--neither of whom was himself--and this, too, in the dead of night, with the outside doors locked and the shades and curtains drawn--he must plead guilty without leaving the prisoner's dock.

And yet he asks in all humility--is the play not enough?--or must he lift the back-drop and bring into view the net-work of pulleys and lines, the tanks of moonlight gas and fake properties of papier-mache that produce the illusion? As a compromise would it not be the better way after this for him to play the Harlequin, popping in and out at the unexpected moment, helping the plot here and there by a gesture, a whack, or a pirouette; hobn.o.bbing with Peter or Miss Felicia, and their friends; listening to Jack's and Ruth's talk, or following them at a distance, whenever his presence might embarra.s.s either them or the comedy?

This being agreed upon, we will leave our hero this bright morning--the one succeeding the row with his uncle--at the door of Peter's bank, confident that Jack can take care of himself.

And the confidence is not misplaced. Only once did the boy's glance waver, and that was when his eyes sought the window facing Peter's desk.

Some egg other than Peter's was nesting on the open ledger spread out on the Receiving Teller's desk--not an ostrich egg of a head at all, but an evenly parted, well-combed, well-slicked brown wig, covering the careful pate of one of the other clerks who, in the goodness of his heart, was filling Peter's place for the day.

Everybody being busy--too busy to answer questions outside of payments and deposits--Patrick, the porter, must necessarily conduct the negotiations.

"No, sur; he's not down to-day--" was the ever-watchful Patrick's answer to Jack's anxious inquiry. "His sister's come from the country and he takes a day off now and thin when she's here. You'll find him up at his place in Fifteenth Street, I'm thinkin'."

Jack bit his lip. Here was another complication. Not to find Peter at the Bank meant a visit to his rooms--on his holiday, too--and when he doubtless wished to be alone with Miss Felicia. And yet how could he wait a moment longer? He himself had sent word to the office of Breen & Co. that he would not be there that day--a thing he had never done before--nor did he intend to go on the morrow--not until he knew where he stood. While his uncle had grossly misunderstood him, and, for that matter, grossly insulted him, he had neither admitted nor denied the outrage on Gilbert.

When he did--this question had only now begun to loom up--where would he go and what would he do? There was but little money due him at the office--and none would come--until the next month's pay--hardly enough, in any event, to take him back to his Maryland home, even if that refuge were still open to him. What then would become of him? Peter was, in fact, his main and only reliance. Peter he must see, and at once.

Not that he wavered or grew faint at heart when he thought of his defeat the night before. He was only thinking of his exit and the way to make it. "Always take your leave like a gentleman," was one of his father's maxims. This he would try his best to accomplish.

Mrs. McGuffey, in white cap and snow-white ap.r.o.n, now that Miss Felicia had arrived, was the medium of communication this time:

"Indeed, they are both in--this way, sir, and let me have your hat and coat."

It was a delightful party that greeted the boy. Peter was standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, his coat-tails hooked over his wrists. Miss Felicia sat by a small table pretending to sew. Holker Morris was swallowed up in one of Peter's big easy-chairs, only the top of his distinguished head visible, while a little chub of a man, gray-haired, spectacled and plainly dressed, was seated behind him, the two talking in an undertone.

"Why, Breen!--why, my dear boy!--And you have a holiday, too? How did you know I was home?" cried Peter, extending both hands in the joy of his greeting.

"I stopped at the Bank, sir."

"Did you?--and who told you?"