The Fighting Chance Part 41

I'm not a fool, anyway. This is in deadly earnest, I tell you, Mortimer, and I'm getting angry about it. You've got to show your confidence in me; you've got to take what you want from me, as you would from any friend. I resent your failure to do it now, as though you drew a line between me and your intimates. If you're really my friend, show it!"

There was a pause. A curious and unaccustomed sensation had silenced Mortimer, something almost akin to shame. It astonished him a little.

He did not quite understand why, in the very moment of success over this stolid, shrewd young man and his thrifty Dutch instincts, he should feel uncomfortable. Were not his services worth something? Had he not earned at least the right to borrow from this rich man who could afford to pay for what was done for him? Why should he feel ashamed? He had not been treacherous; he really liked the fellow. Why shouldn't he take his money?

"See here, old man," said Plank, extending a huge highly coloured hand, "is all square between us now?"

"I think so," muttered Mortimer.

But Plank would not relinquish his hand.

"Then tell me how to draw that cheque! Great Heaven, Mortimer, what is friends.h.i.+p, anyhow, if it doesn't include little matters like this--little misunderstandings like this? I'm the man to be sensitive, not you. You have been very good to me, Mortimer. I could almost wish you in a position where the only thing I possess might square something of my debt to you."

A few minutes later, while he was filling in the cheque, a dusty youth in riding clothes and spurs came in and found a seat by one of the windows, into which he dropped, and then looked about him for a servant.

"h.e.l.lo, Fleetwood!" said Mortimer, glancing over his shoulder to see whose spurs were ringing on the polished floor.

Fleetwood saluted amiably with his riding-crop; including Plank, whom he did not know, in a more formal salute.

"Will you join us?" asked Mortimer, taking the cheque which Plank offered and carelessly pocketing it without even a nod of thanks. "You know Beverly Plank, of course? What! I thought everybody knew Beverly Plank."

Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Plank shook hands and resumed their seats.

"Ripping weather!" observed Fleetwood, replacing his hat and reb.u.t.toning the glove which he had removed to shake hands with Plank. "Lot of jolly people out this morning. I say, Mortimer, do you want that roan hunter of mine you looked over? I mean King Dermid, because Marion Page wants him, if you don't. She was out this morning, and she spoke of it again."

Mortimer, lifting a replenished gla.s.s, shook his head, and drank thirstily in silence.

"Saw you at Westbury, I think," said Fleetwood politely to Plank, as the two lifted their gla.s.ses to one another.

"I hunted there for a day or two," replied Plank, modestly. "If it's that big Irish thoroughbred you were riding that you want to sell I'd like a look in, if Miss Page doesn't fancy him."

Fleetwood laughed, and glanced amusedly at Plank over his gla.s.s. "It isn't that horse, Mr. Plank. That's Drumceit, Stephen Siward's famous horse." He interrupted himself to exchange greetings with several men who came into the room rather noisily, their spurs resounding across the oaken floor. One of them, Tom O'Hara, joined them, slamming his crop on the desk beside Plank and spreading himself over an arm-chair, from the seat of which he forcibly removed Mortimer's feet without excuse.

"Drink? Of course I want a drink!" he replied irritably to Fleetwood--"one, three, ten, several! Billy, whose weasel-bellied pinto was that you were kicking your heels into in the park? Some of the squadron men asked me--the major. Oh, beg pardon! Didn't know you were trying to stick Mortimer with him. He might do for the troop ambulance, inside!

What? Oh, yes; met Mr. Blank--I mean Mr. Plank--at Shotover, I think. How d'ye do? Had the pleasure of potting your tame pheasants.

Rotten sport, you know. What do you do it for, Mr. Blank?"

"What did you come for, if it's rotten sport?" asked Plank so simply that it took O'Hara a moment to realise he had been snubbed.

"I didn't mean to be offensive," he drawled.

"I suppose you can't help it," said Plank very gently; "some people can't, you know." And there was another silence, broken by Mortimer, whose entire hulk was tingling with a mixture of surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt over his protege's developing ability to take care of himself. "Did you say that Stephen Siward is in Westbury, Billy?"

"No; he's in town," replied Fleetwood. "I took his horses up to hunt with. He isn't hunting, you know."

"I didn't know. n.o.body ever sees him anywhere," said Mortimer. "I guess his mother's death cut him up."

Fleetwood lifted his empty gla.s.s and gently shook the ice in it. "That, and--the other business--is enough to cut any man up, isn't it?"

"You mean the action of the Lenox Club?" asked Plank seriously.

"Yes. He's resigned from this club, too, I hear. Somebody told me that he has made a clean sweep of all his clubs. That's foolish. A man may be an a.s.s to join too many clubs but he's always a fool to resign from any of 'em. You ask the weatherwise what resigning from a club forecasts.

It's the first ominous sign in a young man's career."

"What's the second sign?" asked O'Hara, with a yawn.

"Squadron talk; and you're full of it," retorted Fleetwood--"'I said to the major,' and 'The captain told the chief trumpeter'--all that sort of thing--and those Porto Rico spurs of yours, and the ewe-necked glyptosaurus you block the bridle-path with every morning. You're an awful nuisance, Tom, if anybody should ask me."

Under cover of a rapid-fire exchange of pleasantries between Fleetwood and O'Hara, Plank turned to Mortimer, hesitating:

"I rather liked Siward when I met him at Shotover," he ventured. "I'm very sorry he's down and out."

"He drinks," shrugged Mortimer, diluting his mineral water with Irish whisky. "He can't let it alone; he's like all the Siwards. I could have told you that the first time I ever saw him. We all told him to cut it out, because he was sure to do some damfool thing if he didn't. He's done it, and his clubs have cut him out. It's his own funeral.

Well, here's to you!"

"Cut who out?" asked Fleetwood, ignoring O'Hara's parting shot concerning the decadence of the Fleetwood stables and their owner.

"Stephen Siward. I always said that he was sure, sooner or later, to land in the family ditch. He has a right to, of course; the gutter is public property."

"It's a d.a.m.ned sad thing," said Fleetwood slowly.

After a pause Plank said: "I think so, too.

I don't know him very well."

"You may know him better now," said O'Hara insolently.

Plank reddened, and, after a moment: "I should be glad to, if he cares to know me."

"Mortimer doesn't care for him, but he's an awfully good fellow, all the same," said Fleetwood, turning to Plank; "he's been an a.s.s, but who hasn't? I like him tremendously, and I feel very bad over the mess he made of it after that crazy dinner I gave in my rooms. What? You hadn't heard of it? Why man, it's the talk of the clubs."

"I suppose that is why I haven't heard," said Plank simply; "my club-life is still in the future."

"Oh!" said Fleetwood with an involuntary stare, surprised, a trifle uncomfortable, yet somehow liking Plank, and not understanding why.

"I'm not in anything, you see; I'm only up for the Patroons and the Lenox," added Plank gravely.

"I see. Certainly. Er--hope you'll make 'em; hope to see you there soon.

Er--I see by the papers you've been jollying the clergy, Mr. Plank.

Awfully handsome of you, all that chapel business. I say: I've a cousin--er--young architect; Beaux Arts, and all that--just over. I'd awfully like to have him given a chance at that compet.i.tion; invited to try, you see. I don't suppose it could be managed, now--"

"Would you like to have me ask the bishops?" inquired Plank, naively shrewd. And the conversation became very cordial between the two, which Mortimer observed, keeping one ironical eye on Plank, while he continued a desultory discussion with O'Hara concerning a very private dinner which somebody told somebody that somebody had given to Quarrier and the Inter-County Electric people; which, if true, plainly indicated who was financing the Inter-County scheme, and why Amalgamated stock had tumbled again yesterday, and what might be looked for from the Algonquin Trust Company's president.

"Amalgamated Electric doesn't seem to like it a little bit," said O'Hara. "Ferrall, Belwether, and Siward are in it up to their necks; and if Quarrier is really the G.o.d in the machine, and if he really is doing stunts with Amalgamated Electric, and is also mixing feet with the Inter-County crowd, why, he is virtually paralleling his own road; and why, in the name of common sense, is he doing that? He'll kill it; that's what he'll do."

"He can afford to kill it," observed Mortimer, punching the electric b.u.t.ton and making a significant gesture toward his empty gla.s.s as the servant entered; "a man like Quarrier can afford to kill anything."

"Yes; but why kill Amalgamated Electric? Why not merge? Why, it's a crazy thing to do, it's a devil of a thing to do, to parallel your own line!" insisted O'Hara. "That is dirty work. People don't do such things these days. n.o.body tears up dollar bills for the pleasure of tearing."

"n.o.body knows what Quarrier will do," muttered Mortimer, who had tried hard enough to find out when the first ominous rumours arose concerning Amalgamated, and the first fractional declines left the street speechless and stupefied.