Читать книгу Son of a Hundred Kings - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 17

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It was such a wonderful day that anyone who did not know William Pitt Milner to be the most irritable man in Balfour would have been puzzled to account for his air of ill nature as the express train from Toronto rolled and jolted and puffed along. He was sitting alone, his neck encompassed by a well-starched collar and a maroon tie with a black pearl stickpin. He was also the most influential man in Balfour and one of the richest. For years he had been investing in things—stocks, bonds, factories, stores, and real estate—with invariable success. Recently he had purchased the city newspaper, swearing that he would make something of it. He was rather stout and somber of mien, a man born to say no. His brow had one outward function only, and that was to frown; his voice rumbled with indignation when it was not going off in petulant explosions. It was generally supposed that the state of his liver dictated his moods, a verdict in which his doctor concurred.

The conductor came down the aisle and stopped at the seat occupied by the great Mr. Milner. “The boy’s still sick,” he announced.

The publisher laid aside the pamphlet on printing presses, which had been engaging his attention, and frowned. “Do you suppose,” he inquired, “that he’s brought one of these infectious diseases into the country? Cholera or something like that?”

The conductor shook his head. “No, Mr. Milner, it’s just his stummick. I’ll tell you exactly what happened. He came in on the night train from Montreal and should have gone on to Balfour this morning. But some old fuss-button of a woman took him to the Walker House for breakfast and stuffed him full of food. The boy has no overcoat, and on the way back to the station he got chilled, so they squatted him too close to a fire in the grate in the stationmaster’s office. When they took him down to put him on the train there was a big party of settlers from the old country starting for the west, and this Alderman Appleton, who never misses a chance to make a speech, was there to give them a send-off. He’s a regular wheeze-gut, this Alderman Appleton, and nothing would do him but to get the boy up in front of him and make him an example of how well newcomers are being treated in this country. The boy had his satchel in one hand and some toys in the other, and he was feeling so ill he could hardly stand. ‘Look at this fine little young man,’ says the alderman, taking him by the lapel of the coat. ‘He comes into this country without a cent of money—this sign of his back says so right out—and I want to tell you that generosity has been shown him at every stage of his trip. This new citizen of ours has money in his pocket now, donated by kind people. This morning it was felt that a hasty bite was not good enough for him, and he was taken instead to a local hostelry and was filled with sausage, applesauce, fine thick pancakes with rich maple syrup——’ At that point it happened, Mr. Milner. No, he didn’t lose the sausage and pancakes and maple syrup all over Alderman Appleton, though I wish it had happened that way. He just crumpled up like an a-cordeen and went out in a dead faint.”

“That,” he went on, “was how I came to get him. I went to him and found him looking at a tin pail he had fallen on when he went down. It was flattened out. ‘I broke my pail,’ he says, and for a second I thought he was going to cry. But he didn’t. I said to him, ‘Boy, you made the best criticism of the oratory of Alderman Appleton that was ever known. What’s more,’ I said, ‘I hear you got more throwing power in that stummick of yours than any National League pitcher has in his arm——’ ”

The publisher interrupted to ask, “Did you get that wire off for me to my newspaper?”

“Yes, Mr. Milner. Your editor has it by this time, and he’s probably rushing to the station this very minute.” He started to move down the aisle but changed his mind and came back. “I won’t be seeing this editor of yours, so I’d better tell you what I’ve heard about this young fellow. He’s the most patient and polite boy you’ve ever seen. During the whole trip by train there’s never been a word of complaint out of him. And it was the same on the boat. Most boys would have been scared to death at being sent off alone like this. I’m told he hasn’t cried once, unless perhaps at night when no one was around. He said to me just now, ‘Do you think, sir, my pail can be fixed? Dribbler and Albert Edward were friends of mine.’ Now what do you suppose he meant by that?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. What kind of a family does he belong to?”

“A poor family, if you go by his clothes. But he’s got the manners of a young gentleman.”

The publisher frowned. “From what I know of this father of his, the boy isn’t going to have an easy time of it. I guess some organized effort will have to be made to get him looked after properly.” He added in a voice which declared the conversation at an end, “Thanks, Alling.”

But he was not through with the incident. A loud feminine voice in the aisle said, “How lucky for you, Mr. Milner, that you’re on this train.” The publisher realized that one of the worst possible calamities had happened to him, that he had been trapped by Miss Magna Readlong. He looked up into a face like a batch of rising dough, in the midst of it a pair of eyes like small black currants. He extricated himself slowly from the parcels surrounding him and rose to his feet.

Miss Readlong spoke as though she found it difficult to be polite. “I don’t know why I’m doing this for you. I suppose I’ve always been oversensitive to duty, and it’s my duty to tell you there’s news for you on this train. There’s a boy——”

“I know all about the boy, thank you.”

“Oh!” It was clear the lady was disappointed. She did not, however, give up. “Are you quite sure you have all the details? I can give them to you if you haven’t.”

Mr. Milner made no effort to suppress his annoyance. “Great Scott! Do you think I’m a reporter, running around with a pencil and taking down items? I pay people to do that for me——”

“But you don’t pay them much, Mr. Milner.”

“One of my reporters will meet the train, and he’ll get the news about this boy. Don’t bother your head about it any more.”

“Very well! I was just trying to be helpful. You needn’t snap at me as though I worked for you.” Miss Readlong was breathing hard. “Mr. Milner, I believe in speaking my mind. It’s my opinion that you, sir, are ruining the fine, human paper Daniel Cape published for us. You seem to be trying to make the Star an imitation of the newspapers in T’ronto. You’ve had it nearly a year, and it’s going downhill fast.”

William Pitt Milner’s face had become white with anger. “I appreciate your tact in airing your opinions where so many people can hear you. When I’m convinced you’re a good judge of newspapers—or of anything, Miss Readlong—I’ll give some thought to what you’ve said.”

The indignant lady turned, adjusted her neckpiece of black bear fur, and swept down the aisle with a rustle of skirts like the blowing of wind through a cornfield.

The train started to buckle and buck and snort and then to slow down, advertising the fact that it was coming into the junction. There was no need for people to hurry, because the shuttle train for Balfour would not start until all of them were ensconced in its two poorly heated coaches. Nevertheless, they began to pick up their parcels with uneasy haste and to crowd out into the aisles, where they fought their way forward as though every foot was going to count. William Pitt Milner, getting his packages into his arms and raising himself to his feet, found himself face to face with a man as heavily encumbered as himself.

“Hello, Billy Christian,” he said in a tone which would have surprised most people by its amiability.

“Hello, William.”

Billy Christian was a man of medium height and of a thinness which manifested itself in the looseness of his collar and the bad fit of his suit. He was dressed in the cheapest of clothes. His mildness of disposition showed in his light blue eyes which had deep wrinkles at the corners, in his tiptilted and far from aggressive nose, in his limp, sandy mustache which had never made the acquaintance of wax. He was a man born to be liked but destined to be disregarded. It was apparent at the first casual glance that he would always be trampled on where money was concerned.

The publisher looked at him suspiciously. “Where have you been?”

The eyes of the man in the aisle twinkled with excitement. “T’ronto. I took advantage of the holiday to run down. I went to the library to read up on some things. On”—he hesitated, as though in apology for mentioning his interest in such important matters—“on some scientific principles. And I went to see a man who manufactures machines.”

“You’re working on another invention.” The publisher’s voice had an accusatory ring, as though the other man had been guilty of a misdemeanor.

Christian nodded. “Of course. I’ve always got something on the fire. This time”—his eyes began to sparkle—“I’ve got a real money-maker.”

“You never make anything out of your inventions. Do you remember, Billy, when we were boys together back in Minefield and you made a slingshot which carried a pebble twice as far as any other? All you got out of that was a licking from the teacher. It’s always been the same. What trinket are you working on now?”

The inventor tapped the top of the largest parcel. “I’ve the model of it here. You know, of course, that most wood used in making furniture is veneered. This machine will do away with veneering. It will stamp the surface to make it look like any wood you want. What do you think of that?”

Milner pursed his lips. “I must say, Billy, it sounds more practical than anything you’ve done so far.” Then, not being able constitutionally to stay long on the affirmative side of the fence, he began to scowl. “Who was this man you went to see? Someone you know well?”

“No. Never saw him before in my life. But I was told he was interested in taking on ideas.”

“Have you put in for a patent?”

An unconcerned shake of the head. “Not yet. I’ll need a more complete model before I can get one. Besides, patents cost a lot of money, more than I’ll ever be able to scrape together. I figure on having the man I sell the idea to put up the cash for the patent.”

Angry protest showed in the eyes of the most influential man in Balfour. “Billy, you haven’t the sense of a two-year-old!” he said. “If you told this man all about your idea—I see you did, by the guilty look on your face—he can have a model made and get the application in before you can turn around. Don’t you know enough to protect your own interests?”

William Christian was a carpenter by trade. He worked every day from seven o’clock in the morning until six at night and, as though ten hours of steady labor were not enough, he never failed of an evening to get to work on the ideas which filled his mind; drawing and measuring, hammering and sawing, and gluing pieces of wood together to form his beautifully concise little models. It was when thus engaged on something for which he need not account to anyone (except to Matilda, his wife, who was an eminently practical woman) that he was happy. To be creating something was all that mattered. He had never acknowledged to himself that the possibility of making money out of his ideas did not seem very important, and certainly he had never confessed as much to anyone else. He would talk to Tilly of the fine house they would have when something “clunked,” his usual expression, and of the servant girl they would hire; but, when he finished one thing, he was so full of what he was going to do next that it did not matter much if the completed gadget (generally it was not quite finished) had no better fate than to rust unwanted thereafter on a shelf in the summer kitchen. Only distant fields looked green to William Christian. No failure could quench his zeal for the great things he was going to do in the future.

In spite of his easy optimism, however, he found himself disturbed by what the publisher had said.

“The man seemed honest and—and straightforward——”

“Great Scott, Billy!” Milner spoke with the deepest resentment, as though the unworldliness of this old friend who had happened to be born in the same village as himself was in some way a reflection on him. “When a man looks honest and straightforward, keep a hand on your purse! Never take it for granted that a stranger is going to be a friend. Start by thinking he’s out to do you, and you’ll be a lot better off in the long run.”

William Christian smiled at this and unexpectedly nodded his head twice in agreement.

“That’s right, William,” he said. “That’s quite right. You must always look out for Number One. I believe that and I try to act on it.”

The train jolted to a stop. The people in the aisle lurched forward, then began to push and shoulder their way ahead. The two parcel-encumbered men moved along with them.

“Billy,” declared the publisher, “the last time I heard you say you looked out for Number One was when we were in school together. You had some trading on with a couple of other fellows.” He shook his head. “I tried to warn you, but you said you could manage things—that you were looking out for Number One. At the end of the trading you had nothing left but a busted guitar string.” He frowned with a half-amused irritation. Then he thought of something else and frowned even harder. “And let me tell you this, Billy. You work too hard. I don’t believe I’ve ever looked over the back fence at night, damn it, without seeing a light in your workshop. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep this kind of thing up.”