Читать книгу The Marryers - Irving Bacheller - Страница 6

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THE first thing I desired was the history of Wilton. He knew more about us than we knew about him, and that didn't seem to be fair or even necessary. In fact, I felt sure that his little world would yield valuable knowledge if properly explored. I knew that there were lions and tigers in it.

I learned that Wilton had proceeded forthwith to a certain apartment house on the upper west side of New York, in which he remained until dinner-time, when he came out with a well-dressed woman and drove in a cab to Martin's. The two spent a careless night, which ended at four a.m. in a gambling-house, where Wilton had lost nine hundred dollars. Next day, about noon, his well-dressed woman friend came out of the house and was trailed to a bank, where she cashed a check for five hundred dollars. We learned there that this woman was an actress and that her balance was about eighty-five hundred dollars.

Three months passed, and I got no further news of the man, save that he had gone to Chicago and that our trailers had gone with him.

“Our Western office now has the matter in hand,” so the agency wrote me. “They are doing their work with extreme care. Fresh men took up the trail every day, until one of our ablest became a trusted confidant of Wilton.”

The whole matter rested in the files of my office, and I had not thought of it until one day Norris sent for me and, on my arrival at his house, showed me a telegram. It was from the President of the United States, whose career he had assisted in one way and another. It offered him the post of Minister to a European court. The place was one of the great prizes.

“Of course you will accept it?” I said.

“I should like to,” he answered, “but isn't it curious that fame is one of the things which fate denies me. I wouldn't dare take it.”

I understood him and said nothing.

“You see, I cannot be a big man. I must keep myself as little as possible.”

“The joys of littleness are very great, as the mouse remarked at the battle of Gettysburg; but they are not for you,” I said. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

“He that humbleth himself shall avoid trouble—that's the way it hits me,” he said. “I could have been Secretary of the Treasury a few years back if I had dared. I must let everything alone which is likely to stir up my history. Suppose the President should suddenly discover that he had an ex-convict in his Cabinet? Do you think he could stand that, great as he is? He would rightly say that I had tricked and deceived and disgraced him. What would the newspapers say, and what would people think of me? Potter, I've made a study of this thing we call civilization. It's a big thing—I do not underestimate it—but it isn't big enough to forgive a man who has served his term.”

“Yes, I know; some of us are always looking for a thief inside the honest man,” was my answer. “We ought to be looking for the honest man inside the thief, as Chesterton puts it.”

“That's a good idea!” he exclaimed. “Find me one. I'd like to use him to teach this world a lesson. I'd pay you a handsome salary as Diogenes. If you succeed once I'll astonish you with generosity.”

“I should like to help you to get rid of some of this money of yours,” I said.

“You can begin this morning,” he went on. “I'm going to give you some notes for a new will. Suppose you sit down at the table there.”

I spent the rest of that day taking notes, and was astonished at the amount of his property and the breadth of his spirit. He had got his start in the mining business, and with surprising insight had invested his earnings in real estate, oil-lands, railroad stocks, and steel-mills.

“I have always believed in America, and America has made me rich,” he said to me.

“Before the Spanish War and in every panic, when no man seemed to want her securities, I have bought them freely, and I own them today. With our growing trade and fruitful lands I wonder that all thinking men did not share my confidence. If America had gone to smash I should have gone with her. I shall stick to the old ship.”

One paragraph of the will has begun to make history. It has appeared in the newspapers, but no account of my friend should omit it, and therefore I present its wording here:

“There are many points of greatness in the Christian faith, but the greatest of all is charity. I conceive that the best argument for the heathen is that of wheat and com. I therefore direct that the sum of five million dollars be set aside and invested by the trustees of this will and that its proceeds be applied to the relief of the distressing poverty of unconverted peoples, wherever they may be, in the discretion of said trustees; and when said relief is applied it shall be done as the act of 'A Christian friend in America.' It is my wish that wherever practicable in the judgment of said trustees this relief shall be applied through the establishment of industries in which the needy shall be employed at fair wages.”

I had finished my notes for the will, and my friend and I were sitting comfortably by the open fire, when his wife entered the room and sat down with us.

“Have you told Mr. Potter about the bank offer?” she inquired of her husband.

“No, my dear,” he answered.

“May I tell him?”

“Certainly.”

“Mr. Potter, the presidency of a great bank has been offered to my husband, and I think that he ought to take it.”

“Oh, I have work enough here at home—all I can do,” he said.

“But you will not have much to do there—only a little consulting once a week or so, and they say that you can talk to them here if you wish.”

“It's too much responsibility,” he answered.

“But it's so respectable,” she urged. “My heart is set on it. They tell me that, next to Mr. Morgan, you would be the greatest power in American finance. We should all be so proud of you.”

“I couldn't wish you to be any more proud of me,” he answered, tenderly.

“But, naturally, we want you to be as great as you can, Whitfield,” she went on. “This would mean so much to me and to Gwendolyn.”

He rose wearily, with a glance into my eyes which I perfectly understood, and went to his wife and kissed her and said:

“My dear, I am sure that Mr. Potter will agree with me.”

“Unreservedly,” was my answer.

I knew then that this ambitious woman was as ignorant as the cattle in their farmyard of the greater honors which he had declined.

She rose and left the room with a look of disappointment. How far the urgency of his wife and other misguided friends may have gone I know not, but I have reason to believe that it put him to his wit's ends.

I am sure that it was the most singular situation in which a lawyer was ever consulted. My client's high character had commanded the love and confidence of all who knew him well, and this love and confidence were pushing him into danger. His own character was the wood of the cross on which he was being crucified.

That week I appeared for Norris in a case of some importance in New York. One day in court a letter was put in my hands from the editor of a great newspaper. It requested that I should call upon him that day or appoint an hour when he could see me at my hotel. I went to his office.

“Is it true that Norris is to be our new minister to—?” he asked.

“It is not true,” I said.

“Is it true that he served a term in an Illinois prison?”

“Why do you ask?”

“For the reason that a story to that effect is now in this office.”

It was a critical moment, and I did not know how to behave myself.

“I mean that a man has submitted the story—he wishes to sell it,” he added.

“Forgive me if I speak a piece to you,” I said. “It will be short and to the point.”

As nearly as I could remember them I repeated the noble lines of Whitman:

“And still goes one, saying,

'What will ye give me and I will deliver this man unto

you?'

And they make the covenant and pay the pieces of silver,

The old, old fee... paid for the Son of Mary.

“If there's any descendant of Judas Iscariot on this paper I shall see to it that his name and relationship are made known,” I added.

“We have not bought the article, and it is not likely that we shall,” said he. “If you wish to answer my question I shall make no use of your words.”

There are times when one has to act and act promptly on his own judgment, and when the fate of a friend is in the balance it is a hard thing to do. So I quickly chose my landing and jumped.

“I have only this to say,” I answered. “Mr. Norris served a term in prison when he was a boy, but the facts are of such a nature that it wouldn't be safe for you to publish any part of them.”

I saw a query in his eye as he looked at me, and I went on:

“They are loaded—that's the reason—loaded to the muzzle, and they'd come pretty near blowing up your establishment. You know my reputation possibly.”

“Oh, very well.”

“Then you know that I am not in the habit of going off at half-cock. I tell you the facts would put you squarely on the Judas roll, and it isn't a popular part to play. Briefly, the facts are: Norris suffered for a friend, and that puts him on a plane so high that it isn't safe to touch him.”

“On your word, Mr. Potter, I will do what I can to kill the story—now and hereafter,” said he. “The young man who wrote it is a decent fellow and will soon be in my employ. But of course Norris will decline to be put in high places.”

Even this enlightened editor saw that a man who had suffered prison blight was a kind of frost-bitten plum. I left him with a feeling of discouragement in the world and its progress.

Before a week had passed I was summoned to the home of Norris and found him ill in bed. He was in the midst of a nervous breakdown which had seemed to begin with a critical attack of indigestion. It wearied him even to sign and execute his will, and I saw him for only a few minutes, and not again for months.

He improved rapidly, and one day Gwendolyn Norris called at my office.

The family were sailing for Hamburg within a week to spend the rest of the winter at Carlsbad and Saint Moritz. She said:

“Father wishes me to begin my business career, and so I've been looking after the details, and you must tell me if there's anything that I have forgotten.”

I went over all the arrangements regarding cats and dogs and horses and tickets and hotel accommodations, and then asked, playfully:

“What provision have you made for the young men you are leaving?”

“There's only, one,” said she, with laughing eyes, “and he can take care of himself. He doesn't seem to need any of my help. But he's fine. I recommend him to you as a friend.”

“Yes, I understand. You want me to get his confidence and see that he goes to bed early and doesn't forget his friends.”

She blushed and laughed, and added:

“Or get into bad company!”

“You're a regular ward politician!” I said. “Don't worry. I'll keep my eye on him.”

“You don't even know his name,” she declared.

“Don't I? The name Richard is written all over your face.”

“How uncanny!” she exclaimed. “I'm going to leave you.” Then she added, with a playful look in her eyes, “You know it's a dangerous place for American girls who—who are unattached.”

“We don't want to frighten him.”

“It wouldn't be possible—he's awfully brave,” said she, with a merry laugh as she left me.

That was the last I saw of them before they sailed.

My friend had taken his doctor with him, and soon the latter wrote me from the mountain resort that Norris had improved, but that I must not appeal to him in any matter of business. All excitement would be bad for him, and if it came suddenly might lead to fatal results.