Читать книгу The Debtor - Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman - Страница 6

“Let me see, how many votes did you have this year, John?” he asked, condescendingly.

“Five,” replied John, with open exultation.

“Now, John, why didn't you get more than that, I'd like to know?”

Flynn laughed knowingly. “Oh,” he said, “it's the old story—not money enough.”

“But a lot promised they'd vote for you, didn't they, John?” persisted the postmaster, Sigsbee Ray, with a wink of humorous confidence at the others.

“Yep, but damme, who expects anybody to keep an election promise if he ain't paid for it? I ain't unreasonable. What's elections for? You wait.”

“Haven't you given up yet, John?”

“Well, I guess not. You wait.”

“Say, John,” interposed Amidon, “how much did you pay them five what voted for you this year, hey?”

Flynn looked up from Rosenstein's belathered face with a burst of simple triumph. “I didn't pay any of them a penny,” said he. “There is damn fools everywhere, and you wait,” said he, “an' see ef there ain't more come to light next time. I'll fetch it yet, along of the fools, an' ef I can raise a leetle money, an' I begin to see my way clear to that.”

“How's that?” John was asked by the small young man.

“I'm layin' low 'bout that,” replied John, mysteriously.

“Now, John,” said the postmaster, “you wouldn't lay low if there was a good chance to make some money, and not give us poor devils a chance?”

The postmaster spoke consciously. He expected what came, the buzz of remonstrance at his classing himself in his new office with poor devils.

“You'd better talk about poor devils,” growled the milkman, Tappan. “You'd better talk. Huh! here you be, don't hev to git to work till eight o'clock, an' quittin' at eight nights, and fifteen hundred a year. You'd better talk, Mr. Ray. If you was a man gittin' up at three of a winter's mornin', and settin' out with a milk-route at four, an' makin' 'bout half a penny a quart, an' cussed at that 'cause it ain't all cream—if you was as dead tired as I be this minute you might talk.”

“Well, I'm willing to allow that I am not as hard pushed as you are,” said the postmaster, with magnanimous humility.

“You'd better. Poor devils, huh! I guess I know what poor devils be, and the hell they're in. Bet your life I do. Huh!”

“I'm a poor devil 'nough myself, when it comes to that,” said Amidon, “but I reckon you kin speak for yourself when it comes to talkin' about bein' in hell, Tappan. Fur's I'm concerned, I'm findin' this a purty comfertable sort of place.”

Amidon was a tall man, and he stretched his length luxuriously as he spoke. Tappan eyed him malignantly. He was not a pleasant-tempered man, and now he was both weary and impatient of waiting for his turn with the barber.

“I should think any man might be comfortable, ef he had a wife takin' boarders to support him, but mebbe if she was to be asked to tell the truth, she'd tell a different story,” he said. Tappan spoke in a tone of facetious rage, and the others laughed, all except the barber. He had a curious respect for his landlady's husband.

“Ef a lady has the undisposition to let her husband subside on her bounty, it is between them twain. Who God has joined together, let no man set asunder,” said he, bombastically, and even the surly milkman, and Rosenstein under his manipulating razor, when a laugh was dangerous, laughed. John Flynn, when he waxed didactic, and made use of large words and phrases, was the comic column of Banbridge.

Amidon, thus defended, chuckled also, albeit rather foolishly, and slouched to the door. “Guess I'll drop up and git the Sunday paper. I'll be in later on, John,” he mumbled. He had the grace to be somewhat ashamed both by the attack and by the defence, and was for edging out, but stopped on the threshold of the door, arrested by something which the small man said.

“Talkin' about poor devils, there's one man in Banbridge ain't no poor devil. S'pose you know we've got a J. P. Morgan right amongst us?”

“Who?” asked the postmaster; and Amidon, directly now the conversation was thoroughly shifted from himself, returned to his former place.

“I know who he means,” said he, importantly. “Oh, it's the man what's rented the Ranger place. They say he's a millionaire.”

The milkman straightened himself interestedly. “I rather guess he is,” said he. “They take two quarts of cream every morning, and three quarts of milk.”

“Lord!” said the barber, gaping over his patron's head. “Lord!”

Although very short and slight, the barber had a large face, simple, amiable with a smirk of conceit as to the lower part; his forehead was very large and round, as was his head, and his blue eyes were very placid, even beautiful. The barber never laughed.

“Two quarts of cream!” said the small man. “Whew!”

“He must be rich if he takes all that cream,” said the postmaster. “A half a pint a day about breaks me, but my wife must have it for her coffee.”

Rosenstein had so far got his freedom of speech, for the barber had never ceased operation to speak, though rather guardedly. “He must be rich,” he said. “Any man in Banbridge that buys as much as he does from a store in the place, an' wants his bills regular every Saturday night, has got somethin'.”

“Has he paid 'em?” asked the postmaster.

“All except the last one, an' that he didn't pay because I couldn't cash a check for five hundred and give him the balance. ‘Lord, sir,’ says I, ‘ef you want a check of that value cashed, you'll have to go to John Wanamaker. That's as much as I take in Banbridge in a whole year.’ ‘Well, mebbe you'll do better this year,’ says he, laughing, and goes out. He's a fine-spoken man, an' it was a lucky day for Banbridge when he come here.”

“He don't buy many postage-stamps,” said the postmaster, thoughtfully, “but he asked me if I should be able to let him have as much as ten dollars' worth at a time, ef he wanted 'em, an' I said I should, an' I've just ordered in more. An' he has a big mail.”

The barber had been opening his mouth and catching his breath preparatory to speaking and saying more than any of them. Now he spoke: “That man's wuth a mighty lot of money now,” said he, “but what he's wuth now ain't nothin' to what he's goin' to be wuth some day.”

“What do you mean, John?” asked Amidon, patronizingly.

“Well, now, I'll tell you what I mean. That man, it's Cap. Carroll what's just arraigned to Banbridge that you're all talkin' about, ain't it?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“Well, now, Cap. Carroll is agoin' to be one of them great clapatalists, ef he ain't now,” he said.

“How?”

“Well, he got holt of some stock that's goin' to bust the market and turn Wall Street into a mill-stream in less than a year, ef it keeps on as it has went so fur.”

“What is it?” asked the small man.

The milkman sighed wearily. “Oh, slow up yer jaw, and gimme a chance sometime,” he growled. “I want to git home an' git my breakfast. I'm hungry.”

Flynn began hurriedly finishing off Rosenstein, talking with no less eagerness as he did so. “Well, it's Bonaflora mining-stock, ef you want to know,” he said, importantly.

“Where is it?” asked the postmaster, with a peculiar smile.

“Out West somewhere. It ain't but fifty cents a share, an' it's goin' up like a skyrocket, an' there's others. There's a new railroad out there, an' other mines, an' a new invention for makin' fuel out of coal-dust, an' some other things.”

“Is Captain Carroll the president of them?” asked the small man, with an impressed air. He was very young, and eager-looking, and very shabby. He grubbed on a tiny ancestral farm, for a living for himself and wife and four children, young as he was. He had never had enough to eat, at least of proper food. He did not come to the “Tonsorial Parlor” to be shaved, for he hacked away at his innocent cheeks at home with his deceased father's old razor, but he loved a little gossip. In fact, John Flynn's barber-shop was his one dissipation. Sometimes he looked longingly at a beer-saloon, but he had no money, unless he starved Minna and the children, and for that he was too good and too timid. His Minna was a stout German girl, twice his size, and she ruled him with a rod of iron. She did not approve of the barber-shop, and so the pleasure had something of the zest of a forbidden one.

Every Sunday he was at his wit's end, which was easily reached, to invent a suitable excuse for his absence. To-day it had been to see if Mrs. Amidon did not want to buy some apples. Some of their last winter's store had been miraculously preserved, and Minna saw the way to a few pennies thereby. He could quite openly say that he had been to the barber-shop to-day, having seen Amidon there, therefore he was quite easy in his mind, and leaned back in his chair with perfect content. One of the children at home cried all the time. A yawning mouth of wrath at existence was about all he ever saw of that particular baby, and Minna almost always scolded, and this was a haven of peace to little Willy Eddy.

Here he felt like a man among men; at home he felt like nothing at all among women. The children were all girls. Sometimes he wondered if a boy-baby might not have been a refuge. He was not very clean; his hands were still stained with picking over potatoes the day before; his shoulders in their rusty coat had a distinct hunch; but he was radiantly happy talking of the rich Captain Carroll. He seemed to taste the honey of the other man's riches and importance in his own mouth. Willy Eddy did not know the meaning of envy. He had such a fund of sympathetic imagination that he possessed the fair possessions of others like a child with fairy tales.

“Is he president of all of them?” asked little Willy Eddy, with gusto, and looked as if he himself held them all in his meagre potato-stained hands.

“No,” replied the barber, with importance—“no, he's more than a president. A president is nothin' except a figger-head. I don't care what he's president of, whether it is of this great country or of railroads or what not. They could git along without the president, but they can't without this gentleman. He's the promoter.”

“Oh!” said the small man.

The milkman sighed wrathfully again. “Oh, hang it all!” he said. “I've seed promoters. It's mostly their own pockets they promote.”

“Well, I don't know,” said the postmaster, as one with authority. “I don't know. Captain Carroll was in the office the other day, and we had a little talk, and it struck me that some of the ventures he is interested in were quite promising. And it is different with a man of his wealth. When a poor man takes up anything of the kind, you can suspect, but this is different. He said to me that he had no occasion, so far as the money was concerned, to turn his finger over for any of them or to open his mouth concerning them. He said he would not be afraid to stake every dollar he had in the world on them if it was necessary.”

Flynn had daintily anointed Rosenstein's shaven face with witch-hazel and was now dusting it with powder. Tappan was slouching towards the chair.

“Have you bought some of the stock?” the barber asked, abruptly, of the postmaster, who smiled mysteriously and hedged.

“Well, maybe I have, and maybe again I haven't,” said he. “Have you, John?”

“Not yet,” replied the barber. “I am deflecting upon the matter. It requires considerable loggitation when a man has penuriously saved a circumscribed sum from the sweat of his brow.”

“That's so. Don't be rash, John,” said Amidon.

It was not especially funny, but since Amidon intended it to be, they all obligingly laughed, except Tappan, who set himself with a grunt in the chair and had the white sheet of which Rosenstein had been denuded tied around his neck.

Rosenstein, who was a lean man, with a much-lined face, cast a glance at himself in the looking-glass, and heaved an odd sigh as he turned away to get his hat.

“You don't seem to be much stuck on your looks, old man,” remarked Amidon.

Rosenstein cast a perfectly good-humored but rather melancholy look at Amidon. “No; I never was,” he replied, soberly. “Can't remember when I wouldn't have preferred to meet some other fellow in the looking-glass. It's such an awful thing, the intimacy with himself that's forced on a man when he comes into this world.”

“That's so,” assented Amidon, rather stupidly, but he was not to be abashed with the other man's metaphysics. Rosenstein did credit to his German ancestry at times, and was then in deep waters for his village acquaintances.

“Who would you ruther meet in the lookin'-glass than yerself?” pursued Amidon.

“Not you,” replied Rosenstein, with unexpected repartee, and was going out amid a chorus of glee at Amidon's discomfiture when another man darkened the doorway, and the storekeeper fell back as Captain Carroll entered amid a sullen silence.

The postmaster rose, and in a second the small man and Amidon followed his example. Carroll greeted them all with a cordiality which had in it a certain implication of admiring confidence. Not a man there but felt at once that this new-comer had a most flattering recognition of himself in particular, to the exclusion of all the others. It was odd how he contrived to produce this impression, but produce it he did. It was Arthur Carroll's great charm, the great secret of a remarkable influence over his fellow-men. He appealed with consummate skill to the selfish side of every one with whom he came in contact, he exalted him in his own eyes far above the masses with whom he was surrounded, by who could tell what subtle alchemy. Each man preened unconsciously his panoply of spiritual pride under this other man's gentle, courteous eyes. Even Rosenstein straightened himself. And besides, this was the respectful admiration which the man himself excited, by reason of his fine appearance and address, his good looks, his irreproachable clothes, and his reputed wealth.

Arthur Carroll made an entrance into the “Tonsorial Parlor.” Moreover, the other men could see out in front of the establishment, the coach, the coachman in livery—the first livery on record as actually resident in Banbridge; liveries had passed through, but never before tarried—the fretting steeds with their glittering equipment. Around the coach had already gathered several small boys, huddled together, and transfixed with awe too deep for impudence.

Carroll, having greeted the men, said good-morning urbanely to the barber, who had ceased lathering Tappan and was looking at him indeterminately. It seemed dreadful to him that this great man should have to wait for the milkman. The barber was a conservative to the core, and would speak of the laboring-classes and tradesmen as if he himself were on the other side of the highway from birth. Tappan himself, who, as said before, was naturally surly, was also a dissenter on principle, and had an enlarged sense of injury, had qualms at keeping waiting a man who patronized him to the extent of two quarts of cream and three quarts of milk daily. It was like quarrelling with his bread-and-butter, as he put it, when alluding to the affair later on.

“I ain't goin' through the world seein' no men as is better 'n I be,” he said, “but there's jest this much about it, I ain't a fool, an' I know enough to open the door when a man wants to walk through to pay me some money. Ef Carroll hadn't been takin' that much cream and milk, I'd set there in that barber's-chair ef I'd had a year's beard to shave, an' I'd kept him waitin', and enjoyed it, but, as it was, I did what I did.”

What Tappan did was to wave back Flynn's lathering-hand, and to say, rather splutteringly, that he would wait, “ef Captain Carroll was in a hurry.”

But Captain Carroll was in no hurry, it seemed, and, moreover, gave the impression that if he had been about to catch a railroad train to keep an important business engagement, he would not have dreamed of thrusting himself in before the milkman with his milk all delivered. He, moreover, gave the impression that he considered the milkman a polished gentleman for his handsome offer, and all this without saying so much. Captain Carroll seated himself, and completed the impression by tendering everybody cigars. Then the “Tonsorial Parlor” and its patrons waiting for a Sunday-morning shave became a truly genteel function. Willy Eddy, who was dreamily imaginative, and read the Sunday papers when his Minna gave him a chance and did not chide him for the waste of money, remembered things he had read about the swagger New York clubs. He smoked away and made-believe he was a clubman, and enjoyed himself artlessly. The sun got farther around and the south window was a sheet of burning radiance. It became rather too warm, and on Carroll making a motion to move his chair into the shade, every other man moved into the sunshine, and sat sweltering and smoking in a fatuous vainglory. The canary bird hopped faster and faster. The gold-fishes swam with a larger school of bright reflections. A bumblebee flew in the open window and buzzed dangerously near the hero's head. Willy Eddy rose and, ostentatiously, at his own risk, drove the intruder away, and was gratefully thanked. Truly hero-worship, while it is often foolish and fool-making, is not the worst sentiment of mankind. When the great man made a move to order his coachman to take the wonderful rig away, and drive, because the horses were restive and needed exercise, and he himself—the delicate humor of the thing—also needed exercise and would walk home, Amidon sped in his service as he had never sped in the service of the long-suffering wife, at that moment struggling painfully with the Sunday dinner, and bringing wood from the shed to replenish the fire.

Carroll did not need to lead up to his mining and other interests. The subject was broached at once by the others. The postmaster opened it. He spoke with less humility than the others, as being more on a footing of equality.

“Well, captain, heard lately from the Boniflora?” he asked, knowingly. And Carroll replied that he had received a letter from the manager the night before which gave most encouraging information concerning the prospects.

“Anything of the United Fuel?” continued the postmaster.

“Large block just sold, at an advance of six and three-eighths,” replied Carroll, blowing the smoke from his mouth. Carroll inspired confidence by the very quietness and lack of enthusiasm with which he spoke of his enterprises. All his listeners thought privately that he was in no way anxious to sell his stock, after all. Perhaps, moreover, he did not intend to sell any but large blocks. Little Willy Eddy ventured to ask for information on the latter point.

“Mebbe you don't keer nothin' about sellin' of it unless it is in big lumps?” he queried, timidly. He was thinking of a matter of $250 which his father had saved from pension-money, and was still in the savings-bank. Carroll replied (but with the greatest indifference) that they often sold stock in very small blocks, and the confidence of them waxed apace. Amidon thought of a little money which his wife had saved from her boarders, and the barber immediately resolved to invest every cent he had in the United Fuel. Such was Captain Carroll's graciousness and urbanity that he idled away an hour in the barber-shop, and the other men melted away, although reluctantly, from an atmosphere of such effulgence. The milkman's hollow stomach drove him home for his breakfast. Little Willy Eddy thought uneasily of his Minna, and took his departure. The postmaster had a Sunday mail to sort. And Amidon went out to get a drink of beer; Carroll's cigar had dried his throat. Carroll was shaven last, and Flynn did his best by him, even unto a new jar of cold cream, double the quantity of witch-hazel, and a waste of powder. Then after he had carefully adjusted his hat, and was at last about to go, Flynn stopped him.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but—”

“But what?” said Carroll, rather kindly.

The barber's lip was actually quivering. The magnitude and importance of what he was about to propose almost affected his weakly emotional nature to tears.

He finally made out to say, while tears were actually rolling down his cheeks under Carroll's puzzled regard, that he had $1000 which he had saved, and he would like to invest every penny of it in United Fuel. And before Carroll knew what he was at, he had actually produced $1000 in a bulky roll of much-befingered notes, from some hiding-place, and was waving them before Carroll's eyes.

“Here,” said he, “here is the money. You may as well take it now. You can get the securities in New York to-morrow, and bring them out on the train. Here is the money. Take it.”

Arthur Carroll did not move to take the money. He stood looking at the excited man with a curious expression. In fact, his face seemed to reflect the emotion of the barber's. His voice was a trifle husky.

“Is that all you have saved?” he asked.

“Every dollar,” replied the barber, continuing to wave and thrust the bills, but he raised an edge of his apron to his eyes, overflowing with the stupendousness of it. “Every dollar. I might have saved more, but I've been laid up winters considerable with grippe, and folks don't like to be shaved by a grippy barber. Dunno's I blame 'em. I've had to hire, and hirin' comes high. I've had considerable to do for a widder with four children, too—she's my brother's widder—an', take it all together, I 'ain't been able to save another dollar. But that don't make no odds, as long as I'm going to double it in that stock of yourn. Take it.”

Carroll backed away almost sternly. “I don't want your money,” he said.

The barber stood aghast. Captain Carroll had actually a look of offence.

“I hope as I hain't done nothin' that ain't reg'lar,” he stammered.

Captain Carroll stepped close to him. He laid one white long-fingered hand on the barber's white jacket-sleeve. He whispered with slyest confidence, although no one was within hearing:

“You keep that money a little while longer,” he whispered. “I wouldn't say it to every man, but I will to you. There's going to be a lawsuit, and the stock may drop a point or two. It won't drop much, and it will recover more than it loses, but then is the time to buy, especially when you want a big block, and—I'll let you know.”

“Thank you, thank you,” said the barber, restoring the bills to a greasy old pocket-book. He was faint with gratitude. “All right,” he said, and he nodded and winked with intensest comprehension. “All right. You let me know.”

“Yes, I'll let you know when it is best to invest,” repeated Carroll. He turned on the threshold. “See here,” he said, “if I were you, I'd put that money in a bank. I wouldn't keep it here.”

“Oh, nobody knows it's here, except you, and you are safe, I ruther guess.”

The barber laughed like a child. Carroll went out and passed up the street. He heard from the Episcopal church the sound of singing. Finally he left it behind. He was passing along a short extent where there were no houses. On one side there was a waste tract of land, and on the other a stretch of private grounds. The private grounds were bordered by a budding hedge, the waste lot bristled with strong young weeds. Carroll, as he swung along with his stately carriage of the head and shoulders, took out his pocket-book. It was an important-looking affair, the size of bank-notes. He opened it. There was not a vestige of money within. He laughed a little softly to himself, and replaced it. He lived on a street which diverged at right angles from the main street. Just as he was about turning the corner, a runabout in which were seated two men passed him. It stopped, and the men turned and looked back at him. Then before Carroll turned the corner, one hailed him:

“Hullo!” he said.

“Hullo!” returned Carroll, and stood waiting while the man swung his trap round with cautious hisses—he drove a high-stepping mare.

“Are you a man by the name of Carroll?” said he, holding the fretting mare tightly, and seesawing the lines, as she tried to dart first one way, then the other.

Carroll nodded.

“Well, look a-here,” said the man, “I heerd you wanted to buy some hosses.”

“You heard rightly,” said Carroll.

“Wall, I've got a pair that can't be beat. Kentucky bred, four-year-old, sound as a whip. Not an out.”

“Are you a trader?”

“Yep. Hed them hosses in last week. New-Yorker jest sent for 'em, then he died sudden, and his heirs threw 'em on the market at a sacrifice.”

Carroll looked at the men, and they looked at him. The two men in the runabout resembled each other, and were evidently brothers. Carroll's eyes on the men were sharp, so were theirs on him. Carroll's eyes were looking for knavery, and the men's were looking for suspicion of knavery.

“How much?” asked Carroll, finally.

The men looked at each other. One made a motion with his lips; the other nodded.

“Fifteen hundred,” said the first speaker, “and damned cheap.”

“Well, you can bring them around, and I'll look at them,” said Carroll. “Any night after seven.”

Carroll walked on, turning up the road which led to his own house, and the men whirled about again and then drove on, the mare breaking into a gallop.