Читать книгу Juggernaut: A Veiled Record - Eggleston George Cary, Marbourg Dolores - Страница 7

This was the situation of affairs with Edgar Braine when he graciously spared the cigarette-smoking apprentice, and passed into his editorial sanctum on the morning of his suicide.

He was putting the sunshine of his own hopefulness into an article on the practical means of promoting Thebes's prosperity, when Abner Hildreth entered.

"You're a worry to me, Braine, when I think of you," said the banker, after a greeting.

"Why, how's that? I'm sure – "

"Oh, don't let it trouble you. It's this way. As a banker, I pride myself on knowing how to size a man up. The man who can't do that, to a hair, had better let banking alone and devote himself to some quiet business, like preaching the gospel, or running a sawmill. I thought I'd sized you up to a fraction when I put you in here, and as to the paper I had. I knew you'd make it the livest sheet in the Mississippi Valley, and you've done it; I knew you'd make it push Thebes with a forty horse-power, and you've done that too. But I missed badly on one point, and it bothers me. It undermines my confidence in my judgment."

"In what particular have I disappointed you, Mr. Hildreth?"

"Well, that's hardly what I mean. I'm not disappointed. But I missed badly as to your business capacity. I knew you were smart at writing, and all that, but I didn't know you had such a head for business on your shoulders. I expected to have to lift you out of money holes every six months or so, and was ready to do it, but bless me, if you haven't made a business go of the thing from the start. You're not in debt much, are you – for the office I mean?"

"Not a cent, for the office or myself. I get enough to live on out of the paper, and have bought new type, a new steam press, a ruling-machine, and other things besides. The paper will pay me a good income now."

"That's splendid!" said the banker, in admiration; "that means you've put the shop ten thousand dollars to the fore. Good! You've been worth a hundred thousand to me, and the laws only knows what, to Thebes. Now, such a business head as you've got oughtn't to be wasted on a single little business like this, and I've made up my mind to take you into bigger things. That's what I'm here for to-day."

Edgar expressed his gratitude for the banker's appreciation and good will, and declared his willingness to take hold of larger things whenever opportunity should offer.

"Well now, there's this special election. The Common Council will order it, you know, for the twenty-fifth. There's only one thing to be voted on, and that is the proposition to give the Central Railroad the right to run down the levee to the Point, and take the Point for a depot and wharf."

"Yes, I know. I have an article ready on the subject. I haven't discussed it yet, because I want to kill it at one blow and see that it stays dead."

"But I think you don't understand it just right, Braine, and I want to talk to you about it."

"Certainly I understand it. You and I talked it over three days ago, you remember. I understand perfectly that the thing is a trick to rob Thebes of her most fruitful source of revenue, by giving the levee, and with it the exclusive right to collect wharfage, to this railroad crowd. I know the resolution to be voted on has been drawn so as to make it seem nothing more than a grant of right of way, but that it really authorizes the Common Council to give away the levee and the wharfage rights absolutely. I have found out that our rascally aldermen intend to do just that, and I mean to find out how much they have been paid for doing it and who has paid them. But in the mean time, I intend to defeat the whole rascally scheme at the polls, by exposing it."

"Now, wait a minute, Braine, and don't go off half-cocked. Really, that's your one fault, and you must cure it. Let me tell you about this thing. I felt as you do about it, but since we talked it over, I've had more light. I've been in correspondence with the railroad people, you know, and I understand their plans better now. I have a letter from Duncan this morning, in which he says, – let me see," glancing over the letter, and finding out the part he wanted to read. "Oh, yes, here it is: 'You quite understand me now. You're one of us' – no, that isn't it – that refers to another matter. Ah! I have it: 'We depend upon you to see the thing through in that charter election. Young Braine will certainly kill it if he isn't gagged. Why not let him in on the ground floor a little? He may be of great use to us in carrying out the other matter, and if we don't control him, he's sure to do us a great deal of damage. Can't you explain the thing to him, and make him see it in its right light?' There, I oughtn't to have read the letter to you because I can't read it all. Some of it's confidential, and hearing only a scrap that way, the expressions seem blind and misleading to you."

"I think I understand better than you suppose, Mr. Hildreth. This man Duncan has bought your favor for his scheme; you have been fighting the ring, not to break it, but to break into it, and you've succeeded. Now the fellow wants to buy me. He can't do it, that's all."

"Very well, only don't think Abner Hildreth a fool. I didn't blunder into reading that part of the letter to you. I did it on purpose. I wanted you to understand the lay of the land; and decide for yourself. What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to expose the whole criminal conspiracy. I'm going to fight this greedy gang of speculators, and I'm going to beat them at the polls."

"How will you go about all that?"

"In the Enterprise."

"But I own the Enterprise, you remember Braine, and naturally you can't do it in my paper. I've never asked you to help me in any of my enterprises, but I shan't let you use the paper to hurt the biggest one I ever engaged in. You can't do this in any other paper, because you've driven the Argus out of town, and I took pains to buy the Item this morning early, on the chance of its being turned against me. I've got a bill of sale of the whole concern, stock, lock, and barrel, in my pocket now!"

"My God!" exclaimed Braine, for the first time realizing his helplessness, and the consequences it involved with respect to his marriage and his future.

"Don't swear, Edgar. It's immoral. I'm a religious man myself, and might put the matter in a stronger way; but you're not a professor of religion, and so I only say its immoral."

Edgar sat thinking for ten minutes, during which neither man spoke. Then Hildreth said:

"You mustn't take an unbusiness-like view of this thing, Edgar – "

"Call me by my last name, please – somehow I like it better," interrupted the young man.

"Oh, all right. As I was saying, you oughtn't to look at this thing in your high and mighty way. It's unbusiness-like. It isn't practical. Let me explain a little. This is a great business enterprise, far-reaching, and sure to make Thebes great. The men who are engineering it and putting their money into it, naturally want some return. They ask this right of way – "

"And intend to steal the whole levee under cover of a swindling document," broke in Braine.

"Now don't get excited, and use harsh terms. These men want certain privileges in return for making Thebes a great railroad centre, and the Common Council is willing to make the grant as soon as the people, by a vote, give them authority under the law. You have thought it would be your duty to oppose the thing, but I have shown you its nature, and asked you to change your opinion. You can carry this election by the influence of the Enterprise. We ask you to do it, and tell you that if you do you shall be let in on the ground floor. I'll make that more definite. If you help us, on the day after the election the Enterprise– good-will, business, presses, type, and everything, shall be Edgar Braine's, absolutely, to do what he pleases with, and in any political, or other aspirations he may have, he will enjoy the support of the moneyed interest of the State. If you refuse to help, why, naturally, I must put a man in charge of the Enterprise who will. He is at my office now."

Braine said nothing for a long time. He was taking account of his situation. He had thought himself prosperous. In fact, if he broke with Hildreth, he had scarcely more than the fifty dollars with which he had come to Thebes several years before. He might have saved a few thousands from the earnings of the Enterprise, but he had preferred, in his eagerness to make the paper successful, to spend the money in improvements. All his plans had been laid with reference to his continuance in his present position, with the certain income it secured. But Abner Hildreth held all his prospects and all his plans in the hollow of his hand, to do what he would with them.

It was a choice between certain ruin on the one hand, and practically limitless success on the other, for he saw more clearly than Hildreth did, how potent a lever the influence of the "moneyed interest" might be made, and how much more perfectly he could command its aid than Abner Hildreth dreamed.

The temptation was frightful. The horror of such iniquity in his soul was not less so.

"This craze of speculation, which seems to dominate everything of late years in our money-cursed country, is a very Juggernaut," he said at last, in bitterness of spirit, and less to Hildreth than to himself.

"Juggernaut?" responded the banker, "that's the Hindoo car that runs over people and crushes 'em, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Yes. Well now, let me call your attention to an interesting fact about that car. Did you ever observe that it never runs over the people that ride on it?"

"Yes. I've observed that. I'm not so sure that the analogy will hold, however. One might get jostled off, and fall under the wheels. But I seem to be almost under now." He hesitated a moment more, and then – "For safety I'll get on, and trust to my grip to hold on. I'll favor the proposal, Mr. Hildreth, and I'll carry it through at the polls."

Then changing his tone to one a little less grim and more cheerful, he went on: "But our contract has been rather indefinite in the past. Would you mind signing an agreement now as to the transfer of the Enterprise to me on the day after the election?"

"No, certainly not. I'll write it."

He wrote hurriedly and signed. Braine looked over the paper and tore it up.

"That's worthless," he said. "A contract without consideration can't be enforced. I want a legally binding agreement this time. I'll draw it."

He did so, and then read it to the banker, who assented to its terms, and was about to sign it when Braine stopped him.

"Wait a moment" he said; then raising his voice he called: "Mikey!"

The apprentice appeared, trembling lest judgment day had come for the sin of smoking cigarettes.

"I want you to see Mr. Hildreth and me sign this paper. Never mind reading it," he said, laying a blotting pad over the lines, as he saw the boy's eyes wandering curiously over the document. When the two had signed, he turned to Mikey and said:

"Now, write the word 'witness' in that corner, and sign your own name under it."

When the lad had finished, Braine turned to Hildreth, who was beamingly about to shake hands with him, and said in a strangely cold and haughty tone:

"I believe that finishes our business, Mr. Hildreth, and as I have some matters to discuss with Mikey, I beg you will excuse me. Good morning, sir."

Hildreth passed out of the office, astonishment, vexation, and triumph struggling for mastery in his mind.

"He's a cool hand, sure," he muttered, "to bow me out in that fashion, just when I'd bought him, body and breeches! Somehow I can't feel quite easy about this thing yet. He didn't act as though he thought he belonged to me. Wonder if he's going to burst the whole thing up after all! By – George! I haven't got a scrap of writing to hold him by! I haven't got a line binding him to anything!"

With that he stopped short in the street, and after a moment's reflection, muttered again:

"Abner Hildreth, you're a fool! You have sized that fellow up, and you know he is too honorable to go back on his promise. Well, of course, there ain't so much to be said about his honor now – but he won't lie, that's certain. He'll keep his part of this bargain."

Braine when left alone with Mikey, said to the lad:

"Mikey, how far did you go in arithmetic at school?"

"Clear troo, sir."

"What did you get on examination?"

"Eighty-six, sir."

"Well, here's a sum I want you to work out for me. If a boy, fourteen years old, smokes a dozen cigarettes a day at five cents a dozen, allowing compound interest on the money, how much will the smoking cost him by the time he's twenty-one? It will be a long sum to do. If you get tired while working at it, here's a good Havana cigar to smoke for a rest. Do the sum to-night, and bring me the answer in the morning. Go along to your work now."

Then Edgar Braine sat down to write, for the first time in his life, in advocacy of what he believed to be iniquity. The article was the most difficult one he had ever tried to write, but when done, it was almost startling in its vigor and persuasiveness.

When he had read it over, he thought:

"It almost convinces me that the thing is right, and I know better. It will surely convince men who don't know better. It's a strange experience for a man who has conscientiously written for the public instruction, to turn about and write with a deliberate purpose to deceive the public and wrong it. But the Edgar Braine who worked for the good of his fellow-men is dead. He committed suicide to-day. By the way, he ought to have a good obituary. I'll write it."

And he did. The article began:

"There died in this town to-day, a young man much esteemed by his fellow-citizens. The young man was known to all our readers as Edgar Braine, the editor. He died by his own hand, and no cause for the deed is known to the public."

It went on to give a sketch of the suicide's life, and an analysis of his character, and the purposes which had animated him in his work.

When the foreman got the obituary with "must" written upon it, he was thrown into a panic, and rushed into the editorial room to remonstrate.

"I can't believe you mean to kill yourself, Mr. Braine – "

"Be perfectly easy in your mind, Snedeker," replied Braine, with a smile, "I'm not going to do myself any further harm."

The foreman wanted to ask what the thing meant, but was not encouraged by the look on Braine's face to indulge his curiosity. He "set" the article himself, thinking that should the editor change his mind about it, it would be just as well not to give the journeymen a chance to talk. But Braine did not recall it. He corrected the proof slip, and went on with his work.

When the Enterprise came out with the obituary of its editor staring at its readers between turned rules, the little city was thrown into something like a convulsion. It was soon learned at the newspaper office that Braine was not dead – Abner Hildreth was the first to make the inquiry – and the good news spread rapidly through the excited community. But what did the obituary mean?

Conjecture busied itself with an effort to find a solution for the mystery; for wildly, personal and audacious as journalism was in small western towns at that time, the effrontery of this stroke startled the community. One wise one suggested that Mose Harbell must have done the thing for a joke, as he had manifestly done the mackerel story in the same issue of the paper; but that theory was unanimously rejected as soon as it was observed that the article did not once call Braine "genial."

Finally the community settled down to the conviction that this was only another of Braine's devices – a trifle more startling than the others – for exciting interest in the paper, and making it a subject of universal talk.

Abner Hildreth alone understood, and he was satisfied to be silent.