Читать книгу The Fighter - Albert Payson Terhune - Страница 3

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The red-haired man was fighting.

He had always been fighting. The square jaw, the bull neck proclaimed him of the battling breed; even before one had scope to note the alert, light eyes, the tight mouth, the short, broad hands with their stubby strength of finger.

In prize ring, in mediaeval battlefield, in ’longshore tavern, Caleb Conover would have slugged his way to supremacy. In business he won as readily—and by like methods. His was not only the force but also the supreme craft of the fighter. Therefore he was president, instead of bouncer, in the offices of the C. G. & X. Railroad.

It was not railroad business that engrossed Conover as he sat at his desk one day in early spring: tearing open a ceaseless series of telegrams, scribbling replies, ringing now and then for a messenger to whom he gave a curt order.

Telegrams and messages ceased. In the lull, Conover jumped to his feet and began to walk back and forth. His big hands were clenched, his head thrust forward, his whole muscle-bound body tense.

Then began a violent ringing from the long-distance telephone in the far corner of the room. Conover picked up the receiver, grunted a question, then listened. For nearly five minutes he stood thus, the receiver at his ear, his broad, freckled face impassive save for a growing fire in the pale, alert eyes. A grunt of dismissal and the receiver was hung on its hook.

Conover crossed the room, threw himself into a big creaking chair, cocked his feet on the window sill, drew out and lighted a fat cigar. The tenseness was gone. His whole heavy body was relaxed. He smoked mechanically and let his gaze rove with dull inertness over the blank wall across the street. He was resting as hard as he had fought.

A clerk timidly opened the door leading from the outer offices.

“Mr. Caine, sir,” ventured the employee, “He says he—”

“Send him in,” vouchsafed Conover without turning his head.

His eyes were still fixed in unseeing comfort on the wall, when his guest entered. Nor did he shift his glance without visible reluctance. The newcomer seemingly was used to his host’s lack of cordiality. For, favoring Conover with a slight nod, he deposited his hat, gloves and stick on the table and lighted a cigarette, before speaking.

Conover surveyed the well-groomed figure of his visitor with an air of disparaging appraisal that reached its climax as he noted the cigarette.

“Here!” he suggested, “Throw away that paper link between fire and a fool, and smoke real tobacco. Try one of these cigars if you want to. They’ll fit your mouth a lot better. Why does a grown man smoke a—?”

“This grown man,” replied Caine, unruffled, “has a way of doing what he chooses. I came to see if you were ready to go to your execution.”

“Execution, eh?” grinned Conover. “Well, it’s just on the books that there may be a little executin’ done, up there. But I won’t be the gent with his head on the block. Besides, you’re an hour early.”

“I know I am. It’s an ideal day for work. So I haven’t done any. I left the office ahead of time and came to see if I could lure you into a walk before we go to the Club. You don’t seem much worried over the outcome.”

“Why should I be? I’ll win. I always win.”

“Conover,” said Caine, observing his friend with the condescendingly interested air of a visitor at the Zoo, “If I had your sublime conceit I’d be President of the United States or the richest man in America, or some other such odious personage whose shoes we all secretly fear we may some day fill.”

“President? Richest man?” repeated Conover, mildly attracted by the dual idea. “Give me time and I’ll likely be both. I’ve made a little start on the second already, to-day.”

“Won another fight?” queried Caine.

“Yes, a big one. The biggest yet, by far.”

“Nothing to do with Steeloid, I suppose!” suggested the visitor, a note of real concern peering through his customary air of amused calm.

“All about Steeloid,” returned Conover. “The Independent Steeloid Company is incorp’rated at last. Cap’talized at—”

“The Independent! That means a slump in our U. S. Steeloid! You call that winning a fight? I thought—”

“You’d be better off, Caine, if you’d leave the thinkin’ part of these things to me. Thinkin’ is my game. Not yours. You talk about ‘our’ U. S. Steeloid. You seem to forget I swing seventy-two per cent. of the stock and you own just what I let you in on.”

“Never mind all that,” interposed Caine. “If the Independents are banded together, they’ll make things warm for us.”

“Not enough to cause any hurry call for electric fans, I guess,” chuckled Conover. “If you’ll stop ‘thinkin’’ a minute or two an’ listen to me, I’ll try to explain. An’ maybe I can hammer into your head a few of the million things you don’t know about finance. Here’s the idea. I built up the Steeloid Trust, didn’t I? And Blacarda and his crowd who had been running a bunch of measly third-rate Steeloid companies, set up a squeal because I could undersell ’em.”

“Go on,” urged Caine. “I know all that. You needn’t take a running start with your lesson in high finance. We’ll take it for granted that I read at least the newspaper I own and that I know Blacarda has been trying to organize the independent companies against you. What next?”

“Well, they’re organized. Only Blacarda didn’t do it. A high-souled philanthropic geezer that worked through agents, jumped in an’ combined all the independent companies against us an’ got ’em to give him full voting power on all their stock. Put themselves into his hands entirely, you see, for the fight against my Steeloid Trust. Then this noble hearted trust buster incorporated the Independents. The deal went through to-day. I got final word on it just now. The Independents are organized. The votes on every share of their stock is in the control of one man.”

“But he’ll—”

“An’ that ‘one man,’” resumed the Fighter, “happens to be Caleb Conover.”

“But,” gasped the dumbfounded Caine, “I don’t understand.”

“Caine,” protested Conover, gently, “if all the things you don’t understand about finance was to be placed end to end—like they say in the Sunday ‘features’ of your paper,—they’d reach from here to Blacarda’s chances of swingin’ the Independent Steeloid Company. An’ that’s a long sight farther than twice around the world. What I’m gettin’ at is this: I went to work on the quiet an’ formed that Independent Combine. Then I gave it to myself as a present. It is now part of my U. S. Steeloid Company. Or will be as soon as I can strangle the Legislature kick that Blacarda’s sure to put up.”

“I see now,” said Caine, slipping back into his armor of habitual calm, “and I take off my hat to you. Conover, you missed your calling when you failed to go into the safe breaking profession.”

“There’s more money in business,” replied Conover simply. “But now maybe you won’t lay awake nights worryin’ over your Steeloid stock. If it was worth 170 2-5 this morning it’ll be quoted at 250 before the month is out.”

“I don’t wonder you aren’t afraid of this afternoon’s ordeal,” observed Caine, “But Blacarda is on the Board of Governors.”

“So are you, for that matter,” said Conover, “and I guess the vote of the man who’s made rich by Steeloid will pair off with the vote of the man who’s broke by it.”

“I hope,” corrected Caine, “you don’t think it’s because of my Steeloid holdings that I’m backing you in this. I do it because it amuses me to see the gyrations of the under dog. A sporting instinct, I suppose.”

“If you’re pickin’ me for the under dog,”—began Conover, but broke off to stare in disgust at the other’s upraised hand.

Caine was lifting his cigarette to his lips. Conover watched the lazily graceful gesture with more than his wonted contempt.

“Say, Caine,” he interrupted, “why in thunder do you make your nails look like a pink skatin’ rink?”

“If you mean, why do I have them manicured,” answered Caine, coolly, “it is absolutely none of your business.”

“Now I s’pose that’s what you’d call a snub,” ruminated Conover, “But it don’t answer the question. Pink nails all shined up like that may look first rate on a girl. But for a man thirty years old—with a mustache—Say, why do you do it?”

“Why do you wear a necktie?” countered Caine, “I admit it is a surpassingly ugly one. But why wear one at all? It doesn’t keep you warm. It has no use.”

“Clo’es don’t make a man,” stammered Conover, rather discomfited at the riposte, “But there’s no use creatin’ a disturbance by goin’ round without ’em. As for my necktie, it shows I ain’t a day laborer for one thing.”

“Well-groomed hands are just as certain a sign manual of another sort,” finished Caine.

“I don’t quite get your meanin’. If—”

“As a failure you would have been a success, Conover,” interrupted Caine, “But as a success you are in some ways a lamentable failure. To paraphrase your own inspired words, if all the things you don’t know about social usage were placed end to end—”

“They’d cover a mighty long list of measly useless information. What do I care for such rot?”

“That’s what you’re called on to explain this afternoon before the Governors of the Arareek Country Club,” finished Caine rising. “Are you ready?”

“No, I’m going to stop at Desirée’s for a few minutes, first. I want to tell her about my winnin’ out against the Blacarda crowd. She knows Blacarda.”

“Does she know finance?”

“As well as she knows Blacarda, I guess. An’ neither of ’em enough to be ’specially int’rested. But she likes to hear about things I’ve done. I’ll just drop ’round there on my way. Join you later at the Club.”

“I’ll walk as far as her door with you, if you like,” suggested Caine, gathering up his hat and stick. “Then I’ll go on and see what I can do with the Governors before the meeting. But I don’t look forward to coercing many of them into sanity. They bear a pitifully strong family resemblance to the late lamented Bourbons. They ‘learn nothing, forget nothing’ and—”

“And they go your Bourbon gang one better,” supplemented Conover, “by never havin’ known anything to start with. Maybe I can give ’em an idea or two, though, before we’re done. I used to boss Dago section hands, you know.”

“You’ll find this job rather more difficult, I fancy. A garlick-haloed section hand is a lamb compared to some of our hardshell club governors. Why do you want to stay in the Club, anyhow? It seems to me—”

“In the first place because I won’t quit. Prov’dence loves a bulldog, but He hates a quitter. In the second place I want to feel I’ve as much right in that crowd as I have in Kerrigan’s saloon. I’ve made my way. This Steeloid shuffle ought to put me somewhere in the million class. An’ there’s more to come. Lots of it. I’m a railroad pres’dent, too. The C. G. & X. is a punk little one-horse railroad; but some day I’ll make it cover this whole State. The road was on it last legs when I got hold of it, and I’m making it what I choose to. Now, as a man with all that cash,—and a railroad president, to boot,—why ain’t I entitled to line up with the other big bugs of Granite? Tell me that. They don’t want me, maybe? Well, I’ll make ’em want me, before I’m done. Till then, they’ll take me whether they want me or not. Ain’t that sound logic?”

“As sound as a dynamite cartridge,” laughed Caine, “You’re a paradox! No, ‘paradox’ isn’t a fighting word, so don’t scowl. You have the Midas-gift of making everything you touch turn to solid cash, and making two dollars grow where one mortgage blank formerly bloomed. You have the secret of power. And, with it all, you stoop to crawl under the canvas into the Social Circus. Feet of clay!”

Caleb glanced furtively at his broad, shining boots, then, disdaining the allusion as past his discernment, answered:

“It’s my own game and I play it as I plan to. In one year from now you’ll see folks askin’ me to the same houses where you’ve been invited ever since your great grandfather held down the job of ‘First Land-owner’ here, in the Revolution. See if I don’t.”

“Did you ever chance to read Longfellow’s poem about the Rabbi—Ben Levi—who ‘took the Kingdom of Heaven by violence?’” queried Caine.

“I don’t read rhymes. Life’s too short. What happened to him?”

“He didn’t have a particularly pleasant time of it, as I remember. In fact, I believe the angels joined in a symphonic clamor for his expulsion. Not unlike the very worthy governors of the Arareek Country Club.”

“H’m!” sniffed Conover in high contempt. “If the Rabbi person had took the trouble of postin’ himself on those angels’ pasts, he might a’ got front-row seat in the choir instead of bein’ throwed out.”

“So that’s the line you’re going to take with the governors? I’m glad I decided to be there. It ought to prove amusing. But you don’t seem to realize that even if you win, you won’t be exactly beloved by them, in future.”

“I’m not expectin’ a loving cup with a round-robin of their names on it. Not just at first, anyhow. So don’t waste any worry on me. The Club’s only the first step, anyhow. The real fun’s liable to come when I take another.”

“Festina lente!” counseled Caine, “People have a way of forgetting a man is nouveau riche as long as he remembers it. But they remember it as soon as he forgets it. Is it discreet to ask what Miss Shevlin thinks of all this? Is she in sympathy with your social antics—I mean ‘ambitions?’”

“I don’t know. I never asked her. I never thought to. But if I did, she’d stand for it. You see, not bein’ as old and as wise as some of the Granite folks, she’s fallen into the habit of thinkin’ I’m just about all right. It’s kind of nice to have someone feel that way about you.”

“You seem to return the compliment. I don’t blame you. It isn’t every man who finds himself guardian to an exquisite bit of animated Sevres china. I’m lying back to watch for the time when some scared youth comes to ask your leave to marry her.”

“What’s that?” snarled Conover, stopping and glowering up at the tall, clean-cut figure at his side.

“Don’t get excited,” laughed Caine. “You can’t expect as lovely and lovable a girl as Desirée Shevlin to live and die an old maid. If you’re so opposed to this imaginary suitor I’ve conjured up, why not marry her yourself?”

“Marry? That kid? Me?” sputtered Conover, “Why I’m past thirty an’—an’ she ain’t twenty yet. Besides I’m a daddy to her. If I hear of you or anyone else queerin’ that kid’s fondness for me by any such fool talk, I’ll—”

“Her father was wise in appointing you her guardian,” mocked Caine. “In the absence of man-eating blood-hounds or a regiment of cavalry, you’re an ideal Dragon. I remember old Shevlin. A first rate contractor and ward politician; but the last sort of man to have such a daughter. As for Billy, now—he’s the model of his father. A tougher little chap and a greater contrast to his sister could hardly be imagined.”

“She takes after her mother,” explained Conover, puffing mightily at a recalcitrant cigar; “Mother was French. Came of good people, I hear. Named her girl Desirée. French name. Kind of pretty name, too. Died when Billy was born. I s’pose that’s why the boy was named for his dad, instead of being called Pe-air or Juseppy or some other furren trademark. That’s why he’s tough too. Desirée was brought up. Billy’s bringing himself up. Same as I did. It’s the best trainin’ a boy can have. So I let him go his own gait, an’ I pay for the windows he smashes.”

“How did Old Man Shevlin happen to leave you guardian of the two children? Hadn’t he any relatives?”

“None but the aunt the kids live with. I s’pose he liked me an’ thought I’d give the girl a fair show. An’ I have. Convent school, music an’ furren lingoes an’ all that rot. An’ she’s worth it.”

“How about Billy?”

“That’s no concern of mine. He gets his clothes an’ grub an’ goes to public school. It’s all any boy’s got a right to ask.”

“Contractors are like plumbers in being rich past all dreams of avarice, aren’t they? One always gets that idea. The Shevlins will probably be as rich as cream—”

“They’ll have what they need,” vouchsafed Conover.

“Then you’re doing all this on the money that Shevlin left?”

“Sure! You don’t s’pose I’d waste my own cash on ’em?”

“What a clumsy liar you are!” observed Caine admiringly. “There! There! In this case ‘liar’ is no more a fighting word than ‘paradox.’ Don’t get red.”

“What are you drivin’ at?” demanded Conover.

“Only this: The wills and some other documents filed at the Hall of Records, are copied by our men and kept on file in our office. I happened to be going over one of the books the other day and I ran across a copy of old Shevlin’s will. There was a Certificate of Effects with it. He left just $1,100, or, to be accurate, $1,098.73.”

“Well?” challenged Conover.

“Well,” echoed Caine, “The rent of the house where Miss Shevlin lives, her two servants, and her food must come to several times that sum each year. To say nothing of the expenses and the support of the aunt, who lives with her. None of those are on the free list. You’re an awfully white chap, Conover. You went up about fifty points in my admiration when I read that will. Now don’t look as if I’d caught you stealing sheep. It’s no affair of mine. And as she doesn’t seem to know, I’m not going to be the cheerful idiot to point out to her the resemblance between her father’s $1,100 and the Widow’s Cruse. It’s pleasure enough to me, as a student of my fellow animals, to know that a pirate like you can really once in your life give something for nothing. There’s the house. Don’t forget you’re due at the Club in fifty minutes.”

Conover, red, confused, angry, mumbled a word of goodbye and ran up the steps of a pretty cottage that stood in its own grounds just off the street they were traversing.

Caine watched the Fighter’s bulky form vanish within the doorway. Then he lighted a fresh cigarette and strolled on.

“I wonder,” he ruminated, “what his growing list of financial victims would say if they knew that Brute Conover worships as ideally and reverently as a Galahad at the shrine of a little flower-faced nineteen-year old girl? But,” he added, in dismissing the quaint theme, “no one of them all would be half so surprised to know it as Conover himself!”