The Entire Project Gutenberg Works of Charles Dudley Warner

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In discussing these things in our little parliament we were not
altogether unprejudiced, it must be confessed. For, to say nothing of
interests of Mr. Morgan and my own, which seemed in some danger of
disappearing for the "public good," Mrs. Fletcher's little fortune was
nearly all invested in that sound "rock-bed" railway in the Southwest
that Mr. Jerry Hollowell had recently taken under his paternal care. She
was assured, indeed, that dividends were only reserved pending some sort
of reorganization, which would ultimately be of great benefit to all the
parties concerned; but this was much like telling a hungry man that if he
would possess his appetite in patience, he would very likely have a
splendid dinner next year. Women are not constituted to understand this
sort of reasoning. It is needless to say that in our general talks on the
situation these personalities were not referred to, for although Margaret
was silent, it was plain to see that she was uneasy.

Morgan liked to raise questions of casuistry, such as that whether money
dishonestly come by could be accepted for good purposes.

"I had this question referred to me the other day," he said. "A gambler
--not a petty cheater in cards, but a man who has a splendid
establishment in which he has amassed a fortune, a man known for his
liberality and good-fellowship and his interest in politics--offered the
president of a leading college a hundred thousand dollars to endow a
professorship. Ought the president to take the money, knowing how it was
made?"

"Wouldn't the money do good--as much good as any other hundred thousand
dollars?" asked Margaret.

"Perhaps. But the professorship was to bear his name, and what would be
the moral effect of that?"

"Did you recommend the president to take the money, if he could get it
without using the gambler's name?"

"I am not saying yet what I advised. I am trying to get your views on a
general principle."

"But wouldn't it be a sneaking thing to take a man's money, and refuse
him the credit of his generosity?"

"But was it generosity? Was not his object, probably, to get a reputation
which his whole life belied, and to get it by obliterating the
distinction between right and wrong?"

"But isn't it a compromising distinction," my wife asked, "to take his
money without his name? The president knows that it is money fraudulently
got, that really belongs to somebody else; and the gambler would feel
that if the president takes it, he cannot think very disapprovingly of
the manner in which it was acquired. I think it would be more honest and
straightforward to take his name with the money."

"The public effect of connecting the gambler's name with the college
would be debasing," said Morgan; "but, on the contrary, is every charity
or educational institution bound to scrutinize the source of every
benefaction? Isn't it better that money, however acquired, should be used
for a good purpose than a bad one?"

"That is a question," I said, "that is a vital one in our present
situation, and the sophistry of it puzzles the public. What would you say
to this case? A man notoriously dishonest, but within the law, and very
rich, offered a princely endowment to a college very much in need of it.
The sum would have enabled it to do a great work in education. But it was
intimated that the man would expect, after a while, to be made one of the
trustees. His object, of course, was social position."

"I suppose, of course," Margaret replied, "that the college couldn't
afford that. It would look like bribery."

"Wouldn't he be satisfied with an LL.D.?" Morgan asked.

"I don't see," my wife said, "any difference between the two cases stated
and that of the stock gambler, whose unscrupulous operations have ruined
thousands of people, who founds a theological seminary with the gains of
his slippery transactions. By accepting his seminary the public condones
his conduct. Another man, with the same shaky reputation, endows a
college. Do you think that religion and education are benefited in the
long-run by this? It seems to me that the public is gradually losing its
power of discrimination between the value of honesty and dishonesty. Real
respect is gone when the public sees that a man is able to buy it."

This was a hot speech for my wife to make. For a moment Margaret flamed
up under it with her old-time indignation. I could see it in her eyes,
and then she turned red and confused, and at length said:

"But wouldn't you have rich men do good with their money?"

"Yes, dear, but I would not have them think they can blot out by their
liberality the condemnation of the means by which many of them make
money. That is what they are doing, and the public is getting used to
it."

"Well," said Margaret, with some warmth, "I don't know that they are any
worse than the stingy saints who have made their money by saving, and act
as if they expected to carry it with them."

"Saints or sinners, it does not make much difference to me," now put in
Mrs. Fletcher, who was evidently considering the question from a
practical point of view, "what a man professes, if he founds a hospital
for indigent women out of the dividends that I never received."

Morgan laughed. "Don't you think, Mrs. Fletcher, that it is a good sign
of the times, that so many people who make money rapidly are disposed to
use it philanthropically?"

"It may be for them, but it does not console me much just now."

"But you don't make allowance enough for the rich. Perhaps they are under
a necessity of doing something. I was reading this morning in the diary
of old John Ward of Stratford-on-Avon this sentence: 'It was a saying of
Navisson, a lawyer, that no man could be valiant unless he hazarded his
body, nor rich unless he hazarded his soul.'"

"Was Navisson a modern lawyer?" I asked.

"No; the diary is dated 1648-1679."

"I thought so."

There was a little laugh at this, and the talk drifted off into a
consideration of the kind of conscience that enables a professional man
to espouse a cause he knows to be wrong as zealously as one he knows to
be right; a talk that I should not have remembered at all, except for
Margaret's earnestness in insisting that she did not see how a lawyer
could take up the dishonest side.

Before Margaret went to Lenox, Henderson spent a few days with us. He
brought with him the amounding cheerfulness, and the air of a prosperous,
smiling world, that attended him in all circumstances. And how happy
Margaret was! They went over every foot of the ground on which their
brief courtship had taken place, and Heaven knows what joy there was to
her in reviving all the tenderness and all the fear of it! Busy as
Henderson was, pursued by hourly telegrams and letters, we could not but
be gratified that his attention to her was that of a lover. How could it
be otherwise, when all the promise of the girl was realized in the bloom
and the exquisite susceptibility of the woman? Among other things, she
dragged him down to her mission in the city, to which he went in a
laughing and bantering mood. When he had gone away, Margaret ran over to
my wife, bringing in her hand a slip of paper.

"See that!" she cried, her eyes dancing with pleasure. It was a check for
a thousand dollars. "That will refurnish the mission from top to bottom,"
she said, "and run it for a year."

"How generous he is!" cried my wife. Margaret did not reply, but she
looked at the check, and there were tears in her eyes.




XV

The Arbuser cottage at Lenox was really a magnificent villa. Richardson
had built it. At a distance it had the appearance of a mediaeval
structure, with its low doorways, picturesque gables, and steep roofs,
and in its situation on a gentle swell of green turf backed by native
forest-trees it imparted to the landscape an ancestral tone which is much
valued in these days. But near to, it was seen to be mediaevalism adapted
to the sunny hospitality of our summer climate, with generous verandas
and projecting balconies shaded by gay awnings, and within spacious, open
to the breezes, and from its broad windows offering views of lawns and
flower-beds and ornamental trees, of a great sweep of pastures and
forests and miniature lakes, with graceful and reposeful hills on the
horizon.

It was, in short, the modern idea of country simplicity. The passion for
country life, which has been in decadence for nearly half a century, has
again become the fashion. Nature, which, left to itself, is a little
ragged, not to say monotonous and tiresome, is discovered to be a
valuable ally for aid in passing the time when art is able to make
portions of it exclusive. What the Arbusers wanted was a simple home in
the country, and in obtaining it they were indulging a sentiment of
returning to the primitive life of their father, who had come to the city
from a hill farm, and had been too busy all his life to recur to the
tastes of his boyhood. At least that was the theory of his daughters; but
the old gentleman had a horror of his early life, and could scarcely be
dragged away from the city even in the summer. He would no doubt have
been astonished at the lofty and substantial stone stables, the long
range of greenhouses, and at a farm which produced nothing except lawns
and flower-beds, ornamental fields of clover, avenues of trees,
lawn-tennis grounds, and a few Alderneys tethered to feed among the
trees, where their beauty would heighten the rural and domestic aspect of
the scene. The Arbusers liked to come to this place as early as possible
to escape the society exactions of the city. That was another theory of
theirs. All their set in the city met there for the same purpose.

Margaret was welcomed with open arms.

"We have been counting the days," said the elder of the sisters. "Your
luggage has come, your rooms are all ready, and your coachman, who has
been here some days, says that the horses need exercise. Everybody is
here, and we need you for a hundred things."

"You are very kind. It is so charming here. I knew it would be, but I
couldn't bear to shorten my visit in Brandon."

"Your aunt must miss you very much. Is she well?"

"Perfectly."

"Wouldn't she have come with you? I've a mind to telegraph."

"I think not. She is wedded to quiet, and goes away from her little
neighborhood with reluctance."

"So Brandon was a little dull?" said Miss Arbuser, with a shrewd guess at
the truth.

"Oh no," quickly replied Margaret, shrinking a little from what was in
her own mind; "it was restful and delightful; but you know that we New
England people take life rather seriously, and inquire into the reason of
things, and want an object in life."

"A very good thing to have," answered this sweet woman of the world,
whose object was to go along pleasantly and enjoy it.

"But to have it all the time!" Margaret suggested, lightly, as she ran
up-stairs. But even in this suggestion she was conscious of a twinge of
disloyalty to her former self. Deep down in her heart, coming to the
atmosphere of Lenox was a relief from questionings that a little
disturbed her at her old home, and she was indignant at herself that it
should be so, and then indignant at the suggestions that put her out of
humor with herself. Was it a sin, she said, to be happy and prosperous?

On her dressing-table was a letter from her husband. He was detained in
the city by a matter of importance. He scratched only a line, to catch
the mail, during a business interview. It was really only a business
interview, and had no sort of relation to Lenox or the summer gayety
there.

Henderson was in his private office. The clerks in the outer offices, in
the neglige of summer costumes, winked to each other as they saw old
Jerry Hollowell enter and make his way to the inner room unannounced.
Something was in the wind.

"Well, old man," said Uncle Jerry, in the cheeriest manner, coming in,
depositing his hat on the table, and taking a seat opposite Henderson,
"we seem to have stirred up the animals."

"Only a little flurry," replied Henderson, laying down his pen and
folding a note he had just finished; "they'll come to reason."

"They've got to." Mr. Hollowell drew out a big bandanna and mopped his
heated face. "I've just got a letter from Jorkins. There's the
certificates that make up the two-thirds-more than we need, anyway. No
flaw about that, is there?"

"No. I'll put these with the balance in the safe. It's all right, if
Jorkins has been discreet. It may make a newspaper scandal if they get
hold of his operations."

"Oh, Jorkins is close. But he is a little overworked. I don't know but it
would do him good to have a little nervous prostration and go abroad for
a while."

"I guess it would do Jorkins good to take a turn in Europe for a year or
so."

"Well, you write to him. Give him a sort of commission to see the English
bondholders, and explain the situation. They will appreciate that half a
loaf is better than no bread. What bothers me is the way the American
bondholders take it. They kick."

"Let 'em kick. The public don't care for a few soreheads and
impracticables in an operation that is going to open up the whole
Southwest. I've an appointment with one of them this morning. He ought to
be here now."

At the moment Henderson's private secretary entered and laid on the table
the card of Mr. John Hopper, who was invited to come in at once. Mr.
Hopper was a man of fifty, with iron-gray hair, a heavy mustache, and a
smooth-shaven chin that showed resolution. In dress and manner his
appearance was that of the shrewd city capitalist--quiet and determined,
who is neither to be deceived nor bullied. With a courteous greeting to
both the men, whom he knew well, he took a seat and stated his business.

"I have called to see you, Mr. Henderson, about the bonds of the A. and
B., and I am glad to find Mr. Hollowell here also."

"What amount do you represent, Mr. Hopper?" asked Henderson.

"With my own and my friends', altogether, rising a million. What do you
propose?"

"You got our circular?"

"Yes, and we don't accept the terms."

"I'm sorry. It is the best that we could do."

"That is, the best you would do!"

"Pardon me, Mr. Hopper, the best we could do under the circumstances. We
gave you your option, to scale down on a fair estimate of the earnings of
the short line (the A. and B.), or to surrender your local bonds and take
new ones covering the whole consolidation, or, as is of course in your
discretion, to hold on and take the chances."

"Which your operations have practically destroyed."

"Not at all, Mr. Hopper. We offer you a much better security on the whole
system instead of a local road."

"And you mean to tell me, Mr. Henderson, that it is for our advantage to
exchange a seven per cent. bond on a road that has always paid its
interest promptly, for a four and a half on a system that is manipulated
nobody knows how? I tell you, gentlemen, that it looks to outsiders as if
there was crookedness somewhere."

"That is a rather rough charge, Mr. Hopper," said Henderson, with a
smile.

"But we are to understand that if we do not accept your terms, it's a
freeze-out?"

"You are to understand that we want to make the best arrangement possible
for all parties in interest."

"How some of those interests were acquired may be a question for the
courts," replied Mr. Hopper, resolutely. "When we put our money in good
seven per cent. bonds, we propose to inquire into the right of anybody to
demand that we shall exchange them for four and a half per cents. on
other security."

"Perfectly right, Mr. Hopper," said Henderson, with imperturbable
good-humor; "the transfer books are open to your inspection."

"Well, we prefer to hold on to our bonds."

"And wait for your interest," interposed Hollowell.

Mr. Hopper turned to the speaker. "And while we are waiting we propose to
inquire what has become of the surplus of the A. and B. The bondholders
had the first claim on the entire property."

"And we propose to protect it. See here, Mr. Hopper," continued Uncle
Jerry, with a most benevolent expression, "I needn't tell you that
investments fluctuate--the Lord knows mine do! The A. and B. was a good
road. I know that. But it was going to be paralleled. We'd got to
parallel it to make our Southwest connections. If we had, you'd have
waited till the Gulf of Mexico freezes over before you got any coupons
paid. Instead of that, we took it into our system, and it's being put on
a permanent basis. It's a little inconvenient for holders, and they have
got to stand a little shrinkage, but in the long-run it will be better
for everybody. The little road couldn't stand alone, and the day of big
interest is about over."

"That explanation may satisfy you, Mr. Hollowell, but it don't give us
our money, and I notify you that we shall carry the matter into the
courts. Good-morning."

When Mr. Hopper had gone, the two developers looked at each other a
moment seriously.

"Hopper 'll fight," Hollowell said at last.

"And we have got the surplus to fight him with," replied Henderson.

"That's so," and Uncle Jerry chuckled to himself. "The rats that are on
the inside of the crib are a good deal better off than the rats on the
outside."

"The reporter of The Planet wants five minutes," announced the secretary,
opening the door. Henderson told him to let him in.

The reporter was a spruce young gentleman, in a loud summer suit, with a
rose in his button-hole, and the air of assurance which befits the
commissioner of the public curiosity.

"I am sent by The Planet," said the young man, "to show you this and ask
you if you have anything to say to it."

"What is it?" asked Henderson.

"It's about the A. and B."

"Very well. There is the president, Mr. Hollowell. Show it to him."

The reporter produced a long printed slip and handed it to Uncle Jerry,
who took it and began to read. As his eye ran down the column he was
apparently more and more interested, and he let it be shown on his face
that he was surprised, and even a little astonished. When he had
finished, he said:

"Well, my young friend, how did you get hold of this?"

"Oh, we have a way," said the reporter, twirling his straw hat by the
elastic, and looking more knowing than old Jerry himself.

"So I see," replied Jerry, with an admiring smile; "there is nothing that
you newspaper folks don't find out. It beats the devil!"

"Is it true, sir?" said the young gentleman, elated with this recognition
of his own shrewdness.

"It is so true that there is no fun in it. I don't see how the devil you
got hold of it."

"Have you any explanations?"

"No, I guess not," said Uncle Jerry, musingly. "If it is to come out, I'd
rather The Planet would have it than any, other paper. It's got some
sense. No; print it. It'll be a big beat for your paper. While you are
about it--I s'pose you'll print it anyway?" (the reporter nodded)--"you
might as well have the whole story."

"Certainly. We'd like to have it right. What is wrong about it?"

"Oh, nothing but some details. You have got it substantially. There's a
word or two and a date you are out on, naturally enough, and there are
two or three little things that would be exactly true if they were
differently stated."

"Would you mind telling me what they are?"

"No," said Jerry, with a little reluctance; "might as well have it all
out--eh, Henderson?"

And the old man took his pencil and changed some dates and a name or two,
and gave to some of the sentences a turn that seemed to the reporter only
another way of saying the same thing.

"There, that is all I know. Give my respects to Mr. Goss."

When the commissioner had withdrawn, Uncle Jerry gave vent to a long
whistle. Then he rose suddenly and called to the secretary, "Tell that
reporter to come back." The reporter reappeared.

"I was just thinking, and you can tell Mr. Goss, that now you have got
onto this thing, you might as well keep the lead on it. The public is
interested in what we are doing in the Southwest, and if you, or some
other bright fellow who has got eyes in his head, will go down there, he
will see something that will astonish him. I'm going tomorrow in my
private car, and if you could go along, I assure you a good time. I want
you to see for yourself, and I guess you would. Don't take my word. I
can't give you any passes, and I know you don't want any, but you can
just get into my private car and no expense to anybody, and see all there
is to be seen. Ask Goss, and let me know tonight."

The young fellow went off feeling several inches higher than when he came
in. Such is the power of a good address, and such is the omnipotence of
the great organ. Mr. Jerry Hollowell sat down and began to fan himself.
It was very hot in the office.

"Seems to me it's lunch-time. Great Scott! what a lot of time I used to
waste fighting the newspapers! That thing would have played the devil as
it stood. It will be comparatively harmless now. It will make a little
talk, but there is nothing to get hold of. Queer, about the difference of
a word or two. Come, old man, I'm thirsty."

"Uncle Jerry," said Henderson, taking his arm as they went out, "you
ought to be President of the United States."

"The salary is too small," said Uncle Jerry.

Of all this there was nothing to write to Margaret, who was passing her
time agreeably in the Berkshire hills, a little impatient for her
husband's arrival, postponed from day to day, and full of sympathy for
him, condemned to the hot city and the harassment of a business the
magnitude of which gave him the obligations and the character of a public
man. Henderson sent her instead a column from The Planet devoted to a
description of his private library. Mr. Goss, the editor, who was college
bred, had been round to talk with Henderson about the Southwest trip, and
the conversation drifting into other matters, Henderson had taken from
his desk and shown him a rare old book which he had picked up the day
before in a second-hand shop. This led to further talk about Henderson's
hobby, and the editor had asked permission to send a reporter down to
make a note of Henderson's collection. It would make a good midsummer
item, "The Stock-Broker in Literature," "The Private Tastes of a
Millionaire," etc. The column got condensed into a portable paragraph,
and went the rounds of the press, and changed the opinions of a good many
people about the great operator--he wasn't altogether devoted to vulgar
moneymaking. Uncle Jerry himself read the column with appreciation of its
value. "It diverts the public mind," he said. He himself had recently
diverted the public mind by the gift of a bell to the Norembega
Theological (colored) Institute, and the paragraph announcing the fact
conveyed the impression that while Uncle Jerry was a canny old customer,
his heart was on the right side. "There are worse men than Uncle Jerry
who are not worth a cent," was one of the humorous paragraphs tacked on
to the item.

Margaret was not alone in finding the social atmosphere of Lenox as
congenial as its natural beauties. Mrs. Laflamme declared that it was the
perfection of existence for a couple of months, one in early summer and
another in the golden autumn with its pathetic note of the falling
curtain dropping upon the dream of youth. Mrs. Laflamme was not a
sentimental person, but she was capable of drifting for a moment into a
poetic mood--a great charm in a woman of her vivacity and air of the
world. Margaret remembered her very distinctly, although she had only
exchanged a word with her at the memorable dinner in New York when
Henderson had revealed her feelings to herself. Mrs. Laflamme had the
immense advantage--it seemed so to her after five years of widowhood of
being a widow on the sunny side of thirty-five. If she had lost some
illusions she had gained a great deal of knowledge, and she had no
feverish anxiety about what life would bring her. Although she would not
put it in this way to herself, she could look about her deliberately,
enjoying the prospect, and please herself. Her position had two
advantages--experience and opportunity. A young woman unmarried, she
said, always has the uneasy sense of the possibility--well, it is
impossible to escape slang, and she said it with the merriest laugh--the
possibility of being left. A day or two after Margaret's arrival she had
driven around to call in her dog-cart, looking as fresh as a daisy in her
sunhat. She held the reins, but her seat was shared by Mr. Fox
McNaughton, the most useful man in the village, indispensable indeed; a
bachelor, with no intentions, no occupation, no ambition (except to lead
the german), who could mix a salad, brew a punch, organize a picnic, and
chaperon anything in petticoats with entire propriety, without regard to
age. And he had a position of social authority. This eminence Mr. Fox
McNaughton had attained by always doing the correct thing. The obligation
of society to such men is never enough acknowledged. While they are
trusted and used, and worked to death, one is apt to hear them spoken of
in a deprecatory tone.