Читать книгу The Victors; a romance of yesterday morning & this afternoon - Robert Barr - Страница 11

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“Well, boys, I’m mighty glad to see you. Say, isn’t it hot! The truth is I’ve been waiting here in the shade trying to make up my mind on a little financial matter, and I don’t seem to have any luck; for I guess, as I have told you before, I belong to the gutter, and whether any one shoves me back there or not I’m just like the hog that ’ud sooner wallow than climb out on the hard road. But three heads is better’n one, and so when I saw it was you I hung on till you came.”

“What’s the trouble?” asked Ben, sitting down with his companion in the shade of a great beech tree, whose level, thickly leaved branches extended far across the rail fence that formed the road boundary of the wood. “Isn’t the polling going your way to-morrow?”

“Well, that’s just the point,” returned Patrick, springing down and seating himself near them, leaving the horse to his own devices. “That’s just the point. If you ask me, I say I dunno. I guess it is, if I care to make it, but that’s what I’d like to have a little advice about. You see, you fellows have given me the other side of the road ever since I took on this business, and so I don’t just know who to talk to when I get in a corner.”

“We’ve done what we agreed to,” commented Jim.

“Certainly, and I’m ever so much obliged. I’m not making any complaint. Still, when all’s said and done, a fellow would sometimes like a friendly word chucked in now and then, and perhaps it wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“I believe in everybody minding his own business,” added Jim decisively. “You are playing your game and we have no right to look over your hand.”

“Are you just dead sure of that? I’m not. Seems to me that what a fellow-creature does is everybody’s business, more or less, for a man can’t do most anything that doesn’t have some effect on other people.”

“You’re right,” cried the conscientious Ben. “How can we help you more than we’ve done?”

“Well, I’m not saying you can. I’m merely talking about this wouldn’t-touch-you-with-a-ten-foot-pole kind of a way you look at me. You don’t seem to say to yourselves, ‘We’ve had a good education, and this fellow hasn’t; perhaps there’s some things he don’t know that we might give him a pointer on.’ See what I mean? Now, here am I. I asked you fellows to stand by me for a week or two, and you’ve done it, right down to the ground, and no mistake. Well, now it struck me like this, what right have I to interfere with those two fellows? They didn’t want to wait, yet I made ’em.”

“Oh, if that’s all that’s bothering you,” said Ben frankly, “it doesn’t need to worry you a moment longer. We said we’d stay, and we’ve done so. I don’t know that our staying has been much of a success, but it’s been about as big a success, I guess, as if we’d gone on. We’ve made enough to pay our board, and that’s more than we were doing when you first met us, so you haven’t anything to fret about on our account.”

“All right, boys, you’re white men, as I’ve always said, and I guess I’m a nigger, when you come to size me up. But I’ll tell you now what was worrying me, and it’s about this here election. But before we go on, there’s one thing I would like to clear up, although perhaps you won’t think any better of me for doing it. When I told you I had only seven dollars and couldn’t buy the horse and waggon, I lied. You see, I wanted youse to stay, and so I told a whopper.”

“That didn’t do much harm,” said Jim with a cynical laugh, “for we didn’t believe you anyhow.”

Ben looked reproachfully at his partner. Maguire’s eyes narrowed down to slits, and his face reddened with anger. Still here was a lesson unconsciously given that confirmed his own ideas. One of the few truthful statements he had made had been received with incredulity, so the vendible nature of Truth as a mercantile commodity was more than ever in doubt.

“I don’t think you ought to say that,” put in Ben, with some emphasis. “Or, at least, you should speak merely for yourself. I saw no reason to doubt the statement.”

“Well, you see a reason for doubting it now, Ben,” cried Jim, impatiently. “A man’s straight or he isn’t. If he hasn’t gone straight and intends to reform, he doesn’t say much about what he’s done, but he reforms, and there it ends.”

“It all depends on the man, Jim. Because one man does a thing one way, that’s not saying another man may not do it another way. There’s the road to Ypsilanti, straight ahead, but I’ve no doubt you could reach the place if you cut through the fields. Go ahead, Maguire; what were you about to say?”

Maguire sighed deeply and continued in a doleful voice.

“Oh, I suppose Jim’s right as a genn’l thing. I guess the average human man’s a pretty tough critter when you size ’em up by and large. And I guess, too, I’m about the worst of the lot. Perhaps if I’d a-been brought up different I’d a-been different, but I dunno. We can’t always sometimes most genn’ly tell, and it makes it worse for me to go on, because the next thing in my way is another lie, though very likely Jim didn’t believe it at the time.”

“Oh, go on, go on!” shouted Jim; “let’s have ’em all. If it comes to that I suppose I could match lie for lie with you, but I’m not bragging about them. I’m not pretending to be any better than the next man, so in heaven’s name go on and don’t let us have too much talk about it, that’s all.”

“Now, Jim, you’re hard on me, that’s what you are, right down hard on me, still I’ve no call to complain. I deserve it all, and more. Well, when I told you I didn’t intend to make anything on this deal, I was off again: for I did, and that’s what I went into it for.”

“You’re mixing things up, Pat, which shows again that a liar should have a good memory. You didn’t tell us that, and if you had we wouldn’t have believed you. You said you were going to make something and offered to share it, which offer we refused.”

“Good enough; I’m not kicking. I told it to so many fellows that I thought I told it to you, too. Anyhow, here’s how the land lies, and this is what is biting me. They raised fifty-seven dollars at the meeting to buy enough votes to knock out the ditch. I’ve got fifty-five of that fifty-seven right here in my pocket, and I’ve got eleven votes as soon as I pay a dollar apiece for them. Then I make forty-four dollars on the shuffle. That’s what I intended to do from the first. When I was thinking hard how I was going to get hold of this money, I didn’t think hard about whether the turn-over was honest or not. A month ago I wouldn’t have had any doubts. Since then I’ve met you and some other white folks, so I drove right here into the shade and began to think about it. I’ve worked hard for these people, right in their busiest time, when they couldn’t spare a day, and I couldn’t have worked harder if I had been out in the fields with them. If I had been in the fields I would have earned and been paid my money. As it is I have no way of getting paid for what I’ve done except by bribing these people and breaking the law, so I’m in a box.”

“It’s a box very easy to get out of, and it shouldn’t have taken you long to make up your mind, either,” said Jim.

“Oh, yes; that’s all right, Jim. Of course, if you took your shirt off we’d find a nice pair of sweet white wings hanging from your shoulder-blades, neatly folded so as not to bulge when you had your clothes on; but, as I told you, there ain’t no white wings on me.”

“No, nor flies, either.”

“Maguire,” interrupted Ben solemnly, “Jim doesn’t mean to be as harsh as his words sound, and he’s right when he says that it shouldn’t have taken long to make up a man’s mind on the point in question. It is a pity that you said you did not want anything for your work, for the laborer is worthy of his hire; but, having said so, you must stick to your word. If you do the right thing, and give this money back to those who subscribed it, you will be amply rewarded for your present loss.”

“You bet he will,” said Jim, throwing himself back against the rail fence and laughing loudly. Maguire darted one malignant glance at him, and nervously clenched his fist, then recovered himself and assumed the seraphic expression with which he had listened to Ben’s solemn assurances. There was more of chagrin than resentment on Ben’s countenance at the callous behaviour of his friend. He turned sorrowfully to the man of the stricken conscience and saw nothing suspicious in his face.

“You must give the money back,” he said kindly, but decisively.

“I’ll do it, Ben,” cried Maguire, fervently, “but you see the fix I’m in, although probably Jim doesn’t. These men have trusted me, and if I throw them down now it’s too late for them to do anything, and the voting will go against them. That’s the point that worries me.”

“What’s your decision on that, umpire?” cried Jim, reclining with his clasped hands behind his head. “You must have some compassion on the deluded farmers. Maguire’s conscience took so darned long to get into working order that you must confess it’s pretty rough on them to have it begin skipping round the very day before the polling. It would have been a mighty sight more complimentary to us and the other white men who influenced Maguire for good, if our example had bitten, say, a week sooner; then the anti-ditchers would have had something of a show.”

“They are not worth a moment’s consideration,” was the instant decision of the umpire. “They would have been compounding a felony, if this had gone on; so Mr. Maguire’s honest determination, which I sincerely hope he’ll stick to, will be actually doing them the greatest favour it is possible for him to bestow on them. In fact, if you take my advice, you will not pay back the money till to-morrow night, when it will be too late for anyone to put it to the purpose for which it was intended.”

“Right you are, Ben; I’ll do it just as you say. Now you see what it is to have a clear-headed friend to help you steer a straight course. The minute you speak, why the thing is as plain as a stump fence, and now I don’t wonder at Jim saying it took a long while to get my conscience in working order. Of course, it must seem so to youse, but I was brought up different. So, boys, that’s settled and out of the way. Now, about this here rig. I said I’d give you twenty-five dollars for it. That ’ud be cheating you. It’s worth thirty, and I’ll give thirty.”

“Oh no. Fair’s fair. Twenty-five dollars it is, if you say so; but we don’t want to hold you to a bargain made in a hurry, unless you want to be held.”

“I’ve got to have an outfit of this sort, if I’m going to peddle clear through to New York, and I couldn’t get one from the farmers round here at anything like the price, even though the horse wasn’t any better. So it’s a go at thirty. Your advice was cheap at five dollars.”

Jim rose lazily, took the pack that he had been carrying on his shoulders and threw it into the waggon.

“As it is going to be a deal,” he said, “there goes that accursed knapsack. If the soldiers hate to carry a shoulder burden as badly as I do, I pity them. Take the thirty, Ben; we’ll need it.”

“We’ll take just what we agreed to take. Twenty-five’s the figure.”

“You may as well have the thirty,” said Maguire; but he counted out twenty-five dollars and handed it to Ben, for the latter shook his head when the larger amount was mentioned.

All three were now on their feet, and Maguire held out his hand in a friendly manner, a manner met with the utmost cordiality by Ben, and with cool composure by Jim.

“Well, fellows, I suppose I’ll see you to-night at the farm.”

“I don’t think so. We’ll go back there right away, pay our bill and light out. We’ve had about enough of this part of the country.”

“Where are you bound for?”

“I’m not just sure yet; depends on Jim. I want to get to Chicago, and then down further south in Illinois.”

“Well, then, so long. If we don’t meet again in this world perhaps we’ll see each other in Buffalo.”

With this brilliant witticism, Maguire sprang into the waggon, and as he departed waved his hand affably toward them. The young men sat down again in the shade as their late companion drove out into the sunshine, followed by a pillar of dust that rose straight up behind him in the still air throbbing with heat. Jim was the first to break the silence, for the retreating wheels, muffled in the sand, made no noise.

“There goes as thorough-paced a scoundrel as one would meet in a long day’s journey.”

“Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim. Judge not that ye be not judged. You rather frighten me, Jim, with your harshness toward anyone you take a dislike to. I wonder if you’ll ever turn on me like that. Why should he want to curry favour with us? We can neither help him nor hurt him, and he kept to his word with us, quite willing to do better than he bargained if we had let him.”

“Why? Oh, I don’t know. Just the vanity of the man. He likes to play on his fellows as some people like to play on a fiddle, and the villain has a talent that way. Don’t you see what’s happened? The other side has bought him, body and soul, at the last minute; he’s going to give the money back anyhow, because he’s done better, and so wants to do the grandstand act of the honest man.”

“I’d far rather think it was exactly as he said it was.”

“So should I, but I don’t all the same. Watch his shifty eye. It’s always giving him away, in spite of his smooth talk.”

“He looked me as straight in the face as any man could.”

“Oh, I dare say. Anybody could do that, Ben, because they can see straight through you, but he can’t look me in the eye. I suspect there’s so much latent scoundrelism in me that he fears like will detect like. If Maguire knew when he was well off he’d settle down here in Michigan. He’ll be hanged ultimately anywhere else.”

“Just one point, Jim. You know you said he never would pay the twenty-five dollars for our belongings—that he never had the remotest intention of doing so.”

“Neither would he if he hadn’t made this illicit haul.”

“Let us keep to the question without any ‘ifs.’ You were wrong about that, as has been proven by his action just now, for he paid up without any hint from us, anxious even to do better than he bargained. Now I respectfully submit, as we used to say in our debating society, that one suspicion shown to be utterly groundless is not a good foundation on which to build up a new suspicion.”

“Right you are, Ben. Your logic has not deteriorated through a course of peddling. I shall pursue the subject no further, but I still claim a woman’s privilege of remaining of the same opinion. To tell the truth, I am not in the least interested in Maguire’s career so long as Providence keeps me out of the influence of it, but I am exceedingly anxious about the careers of those two good young men, Benjamin McAllister and James B. Monro. We have put your great scheme of peddling to a practical test. I reserve judgment on the result and ask you to pronounce. What is the verdict, your honour?”

“The verdict must be failure.”

“The associate judge entirely concurs with his colleague.”

“Mind, I don’t say our failure invalidates the scheme. I hold as I always did that if we could organise the whole peddling trade of the country on one grand co-operative basis, buying directly and in large quantities from the manufacturers and consequently at rock bottom prices and dealing directly with the consumer, we would then inaugurate an immense mutually beneficial—”

“Chuck it, Ben, chuck it. Don’t flog a dead horse, in this hot weather, too. Sit down, Ben, and cool off.”

The other had risen to his feet and pushed off his hat, running his fingers through his hair until it stood out from his head like the brush of an unkempt broom. His face was aglow with enthusiasm, and he waved his arms about, giving gestures emphatic to his energetic utterances. The calm voice of his friend pulled him suddenly down from the clouds, and he stood there, motion stricken from his limbs, with jaw dropped, a statue of arrested intensity. Monro laughed.

“When a project’s abandoned, drop it. Don’t waste further vigour on it. Apply instead high pressure to the barber’s exclamation, ‘Next!’ ”

McAllister opened his mouth to reply, closed it again, and paced up and down the parched sward, touseling his hair as he went along, his head bent in thought. Monro reclined lazily watching him.

“You like to throw a bucket of cold water over a person, don’t you?” Ben said at last.

“I wish somebody would do that for me just now. Say, Ben, let’s hunt up a river or a creek and go in swimming.”

The other paid no heed to the suggestion.

“I’d like to talk freely with you, but I’m rather afraid. So much depends on it. I’d rather believe in people than not, and if it is shown that this belief is misplaced in one instance, I don’t want that to keep me from believing in someone else. I want to preserve the freshness of my soul. I want to guard my trust in man as well as my trust in Providence.”

“Yes? And do you think I would prevent you?”

“No. I don’t suppose you would, but I think we ought to start square.”

“Well, the first practical thing is to define our objects. If our object is the same, then we may jog along together toward that object. Mine’s material success. I want to accumulate one hundred thousand dollars or thereabout of my own, honestly, if possible, as the other fellow said. Now, what’s your object?”

“Mine! Mine’s a million, with the power that accompanies it.”

“All right. There you are. That’s along the same road as I propose to jog, only a little further on. Now, what’s your route?”

“The first thing we need is another partner.”

“I don’t agree with you there. Two’s a limited company; three’s none. Furthermore, if your mind’s hovering about Patrick Maguire, I give you notice right at once that I’m out.”

“I wasn’t thinking of him.”

“Who, then?”

“God.”

“What!”

“I propose to take God into partnership with us.”

“I suppose you mean that I should join some denomination, make profession of religion, I think they call it.”

“My dear Jimmy, you don’t understand me a little bit, and that’s not to be wondered at, because I haven’t explained it fully to you. What I am making to you is a cold business proposition; no religion in it all, at least none from your end of the partnership. But I couldn’t take in another partner without your consent, for, don’t you see, when it came to a vote God and I would form the majority of the board of directors, and you might not like to have things carried over your head in that way. So I thought I would speak frankly with you at the start.”

All the indolence left Monro’s attitude. He sat up and regarded his friend with an expression of anxiety not unmixed with alarm. With anyone else than McAllister this kind of talk might have been taken as blasphemous jesting, not in very good taste in any circumstances. But Monro had long known him as a youth of most serious intentions where things sacred were concerned, a devout believer, and a leader among the piously inclined in his college; so the only inference was that much brooding on the subject had affected his mind. McAllister, receiving no answer, stopped in his promenade and, seeing the look of dismay in his friend’s face, laughed in a manner so hearty that Monro, after a moment or two, joined him, all his doubt as to the sanity of the former being dissipated by their mutual mirth.

“I thought at first you were in earnest,” said Monro.

“Oh, I am serious enough, but a glance at your face just now would make anybody laugh.”

“Then kindly explain how you intend to arrive at the will of the Lord, in any case where your opinion differs from mine. I take it that you mean our business relations to be regulated in a measure by the Good Book, and to that I have no objection, so long as it is done on practical lines.”

“My dear boy, of course it will be done along practical lines, so practical that we cannot possibly fail, and to convince you of that I will explain the modus operandi. Let me ask you if you believe in the Bible?”

“Yes, I suppose so: in a general way, as the average man believes it.”

“Do you believe it on Sunday or on Wednesday?”

“If I believe it at all I believe it every day in the week.”

“That’s right. That’s the way to believe it. A great many people believe it only on Sunday, just as the churches are open on that day and on no other. Now, I believe it every day and every hour in every day and every minute in every hour. If I ever possess an office I’m going to have a Bible bound the same as ledger and daybook, right on the desk with them, and that will be our workable written constitution. In this Bible is a legal contract offered to me by the Lord, and I have accepted it. I am the party of the second part. It is plain, direct and to the point, without any of the unnecessary or obscuring verbiage which a modern lawyer would put in to bind both parties, and the agreement is, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.’ All what things? Anything you may legitimately desire; your hundred thousand, or my million. Now, I have sought the kingdom of heaven and so have fulfilled that proviso. I have written out this contract, and beneath I have put the words, ‘Accepted by Benjamin McAllister.’ ”

“Um, yes. Ben, that’s all very well; but I think you are interpreting the Scriptures just a trifle literally. Of course you are much better versed in them than I am, but still my impression is that these texts refer rather to spiritual matters than to material things. As the lawyers say, you must take into consideration the context, and I believe I am right when I hold that the general tenor of the Bible sets rather against riches than for them. If you seek the kingdom of heaven you will probably get it, but not necessarily your million here on earth.”

“Now, Jim, there’s just where you’re away off, and that’s just the mistake the world has been making for centuries. My idea of the Lord is this: There is nothing small or mean about Him. He isn’t going to shelter Himself behind a technicality; that kind of thing is human and legal. The Lord knows very well that I don’t understand Hebrew or Greek, but just straight, plain American talk. If there’s been any mistake made in the translation, or if there is any subtle meaning in the contract, why, that’s not my fault, and even if He didn’t intend the passage to be taken literally, the very fact that I take it literally is enough, and I have every faith that He will hold to His end of the bargain as long as I adhere faithfully to mine. There is the contract set down in black and white, worded so simply that any man, woman or child can understand it. You must believe it if you believe the Bible. I accept it without any mental reservation whatever, and I expect the party of the first part to fulfil to the letter His promise, and, what is more, I shall demand such fulfilment.”

As McAllister spoke with fervid declamation, hands nervously outstretched, like a man exhorting, all the preacher in his nature was brought into evidence. Monro replied with calm gravity:

“Not demand, Ben: request or beseech is the word you surely intended to use. You forget that you are speaking of God, and although I make no claim to being a devout person, yet really, religious as I believe you to be, you say things that shock me.”

“I mean no disrespect, but I hold that the world has been wrong in the grovelling attitude it has heretofore taken up before the Lord. I don’t think He wants it or cares for it. He has a right to demand of me that I keep His laws, and I have a right to demand of Him the completion of any promise He makes me.”

“Well, we will let it go at that, agreeing to differ on the attitude. Now, let us come to the practical working of your partnership. Do you intend to put forth the schemes and leave the working of them to your heavenly partner?”

“No, sir. I look on God as I would look upon a rich man who furnished us with a working capital. In our present partnership we will each do the best we can, until we are up against a stone wall that we can’t either climb over or break down; then we will call for assistance from the Lord, asking Him either to show us a way out, or to remove an obstruction we cannot surmount.”

“I believe in that. The plan strikes me as good common-sense. If a man will do his very best right along—yes, I believe in that, and I’m willing to join on such conditions. Now, to go a step further, have you had any consultation on the peddling business?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Ben, with great emphasis, “and the peddling business is no good.”

Monro laughed. “I agree with my partners on that,” he said.

“Last night,” continued McAllister, unheeding laughter or remark, “I prayed more earnestly than ever I prayed before; for this peddling was my scheme, and I wanted an opinion on it. I said, ‘O Lord, Jim and I are up a tree, and we’re not making a cent. We owe nearly two weeks’ board to these honest people here, and we haven’t a dollar to pay it with, and perhaps they don’t care to take the truck we have to offer them, for nobody seems to want it. Now I don’t believe Pat Maguire is going to buy our things, or if he did I don’t suppose he’s got the money to pay for them; so we’re all at sea and haven’t a notion what to do. Give us a hint. We’ll start out peddling to-morrow morning same as usual, and if we’ve got discouraged too soon let the first man we apply to or the first woman buy something; then we’ll keep on. If not, let somebody make an offer for our horse and waggon and stock.’ Now, Jim, do you remember what the first man we met said to us this morning?”

“I don’t just recollect, but it wasn’t anything very pleasant.”

“He said, ‘What are you fellows fooling ’round the country in this way for, like a couple of loafers, when there’s good work waiting to be done? Here you are, two able-bodied young men, a-peddling!’ That’s what he said. He thought he was speaking, but I knew it was the voice of the Lord. I knew the moment he spoke that we were going to sell our rig before noon and get the cash. And, do you know, I think I ought to have taken the extra five dollars Maguire offered. I believe we’ll need that money.”

“I told you at the time you should have taken it.”

“Well, I was wrong there. You see what comes of depending too much on one’s self.”

“Oh, the firm will easily make an extra five when it gets a-going. What’s the next item on the programme?”

“I told it to Maguire. We’re going to Chicago, and then down to Stormboro. That was impressed on me this morning when I woke up.”

“What’s the object?”

“I don’t know just yet. That will all come in good time.”

“It will take a good slice out of our cash, eight dollars each at least, so when we’ve paid for our board there won’t be much left.”

“My dear Jim, you forget our usual way of travelling. Don’t you know they’re shipping west all the grain cars there are in this country to take this wheat crop to the seaboard? There’ll be train after train of empty grain cars going through Chicago, and you can’t ask for a more comfortable ride than in an empty grain car; it’s clean and commodious, and you can get a good sleep. When they’re full of wheat it seems comfortable at first, but the cold grain chills you to the bone in a long ride. Besides the doors are apt to be locked when the cars are full, but we’ll have no trouble finding a place in a train of west-bound empties.”

Jim threw himself on the sward at full length, laughing boisterously and long, rolling from side to side and kicking up his heels like an urchin let loose from school, which in truth he was. Ben looked down upon him, with wonder at this sudden attack of hilarity.

“What’s the matter?” he asked in a tone of astonishment. “There isn’t anything particularly funny in a ride on a freight train; we’ve often done it before.”

“Often, often, Ben, and there’s nothing funny about it, as you say, especially when you’re riding on the trucks underneath, or between the cars, or even on the swaying top, keeping an eye out for a brakeman with a heavy boot; but it does seem a little incongruous for you to be preaching religion and morality a minute ago, and now coolly proposing that we steal a ride on the Michigan Central Railroad. Hasn’t the Lord anything to do with that corporation if we are allowed to cheat it?”

“We’re not cheating anybody, nor stealing anything,” cried Ben, indignantly. “We must get to Chicago, and we haven’t the money to spare. Our being in the car won’t cost the Michigan Central a penny extra. It won’t have to expend another pound of coal because of our additional weight.”

“Oh, I know all the arguments in favour of such a proceeding. It’s always our sin that is innoxious, with plenty of excuses for it, and it’s the other fellow’s crime which is unpardonable. There’s poor Maguire, for instance. His proposed bribing of voters was heinous in your eyes. Now, it is possible, although I admit not probable, that Maguire might look upon stealing a ride as dishonest. I don’t see much difference between the morality of the two acts myself.”

“Why, yes, you do. Bribing electors is a crime against the state and a corrupting of others. If I were a friend of Henry B. Ledyard, the president of the road, I have no doubt he would give me a pass, and I could travel to Chicago in luxury and comfort; yet the railway would be no more harmed or benefited in the case of the passenger in the first-class coach than in the case of the two of us in the freight car. Are we to suffer because instead of being friends of a railroad president we are merely friends of the Lord? I guess not. Besides, I’ll send the amount of our ride to the road as soon as I get the money. I’ve kept an account of all the trips I’ve taken on freight trains, and some day I’m going to settle up with interest. That’s honest enough to suit anybody.”

Jim continued laughing, much to Ben’s discomfiture. A serious man never likes being made the butt of a frivolous friend.

“I’d just like to see you tell the ordinary hardened rail way employee, whose delight is firing tramps off trains, that you are travelling on a pass given by Providence. I doubt if he would honour it, and I think I should rather have Ledyard’s signature on mine. What will you say if we are discovered and thrown out, as we will be if we are caught?”

“Say? There will be nothing to say but that the Lord intends us to get off at that place. That’s simple enough.”

“Well, Ben, I’m with you, of course, but I must admit that if I’m to have a stop-over hint from above I wish it would take some other form than my being flung over the head of some stalwart brakemen onto a pile of railroad ties. I’ve been there before.”

“All right. If you’re through with your scoffing remarks and will get on your feet, we’ll mosey off to the farm, settle our bill and say good-bye, then on to Ann Arbor before nightfall.”

“Just one more point on the general question before we end this interesting discussion. Are you certain the Lord intends us to go to Chicago, and then down into Illinois?”

“Yes, I am. Of course we may be deflected before we get there.”

“I think we won’t.”

“No? Why?”

“Why? Simply because there’s a nice and attractive young lady whom it is unnecessary to name, in the town of Stormboro.”

“What do you mean?”

“Be honest, Ben. You see how this projected raid on the Michigan Central has shaken my faith in your probity, and now you confirm this by pretending you don’t know what I mean.”

“I suppose you are referring to Miss Constance Fraser.”

“I suppose I am. I heard a preacher say once that, in the matter of investments, religious people were very apt to see the finger of the Lord pointing towards ten per cent. I have known ministers themselves seek guidance when a bigger salary was offered them, and they generally found duty drag them toward the richer congregation. If we are going to do business on guidance lines, I want to be very sure that there are no other influences at work, for if they are at work I want the fact to be faced honestly.”

Ben’s brow ruffled, and he bent his head for a few moments. “Do you know, Jim,” he said at last, “that very point occurred to me last night? I do want to see her; there’s no use in denying it. Still I have tried not to let this wish affect me one way or other.”

“All right, Ben, I believe you. Let us go.”